Mobile media

The mobility and portability of media, or as Paul Levinson calls it in his book Cellphone, “the media-in-motion business”^[1] has been a process in the works ever since the “first time someone thought to write on a tablet that could be lifted and hauled – rather than on a cave wall, a cliff face, a monument that usually was stuck in place, more or less forever”.^[2] Today, mobile media devices such as mobile phones and PDA’s are the primary source of portable media from which we can obtain information and communicate with one another.

While mobile phone and PDA’s independent technologies and functions may be new and innovative (in relation to changes and improvements in media capabilities in respect to their function what they can do when and where and what they look like, in regard to their size and shape) the need and desire to access and use media devices regardless of where we are in the world has been around for centuries. Indeed Paul Levinson remarks in regard to telephonic communication that it was “intelligence and inventiveness applied to our need to communicate regardless of where we may be, led logically and eventually to telephones that we carry in our pockets”.^[3] Levinson in his book goes on to state that the book, transistor radio, Kodak camera are also bearers of portable information. And that it is thanks to the printing press that information became available to a mass audience, the reduction in size and portability of the camera allowed people to capture what they saw no matter where they were and the internet meant that people could talk to anyone and use on demand information.

Mobile phones, digital cameras, ipods, walkmans, laptops, PDA, Game Boys and so on consume much of our daily lives. These devices and their corresponding media technologies and play an increasingly important role in the everyday lives of millions of people world wide. Media can be downloaded onto the device by podcasting or can be streamed over the web. Digital applications include gaming, video, audio, downloadable ring tones and mobizines. A number of mobile operators are also investigating the viability of Mobile TV.

MediaFLO a division of Qualcomm is already offering broadcast Mobile Media on UHF digital channel 55 across the United States. AT&T and Verizon are offering this fee based service in their handset packages.

Mobile media includes a number of portable media devices;

Device	Digital Video Media Type	Notes
Mobile Phone	"Within 3rd generation (3G) phones (the ones best enabled for media content currently) there are two competing standards of media format; 3GPP and the confusingly named 3GPP2."[4]	Many mobile phones are now being equipped with web browsing so would be able to also view a Web film.
PlayStation Portable	Uses MPEG-4 video but needs to be encoded and placed in the correct directory to run. Also runs Universal Media Disc (UMD) disks with feature films.	MPEG-4 and AVC video formats are also compatible with PlayStation Portable.[5]
Web Film	Films made with the medium of the Internet and it's constraints in mind[6]; AVI, streamed media, Flash	An example of such a film would be the short film 'Distance Over Time'[7]

See also

• July Systems
• Location-based media
• Comparison of portable media players
• Web film
• Documentary Practice

Notes and references

1. ^ Levinson, Paul (2004)Cellphone, Palgrave/St. Martin's, New York
2. ^ Levinson, Paul (2004)Cellphone, Palgrave/St. Martin's, New York
3. ^ Levinson, Paul (2004)Cellphone, Palgrave/St. Martin's, New York
4. ^ plugincinema’s 5 Minute Guide to 3GPP/2 - http://www.plugincinema.com/plugin/articles/3gpmobilefilms.htm
5. ^ More on PSP video on the PSP Wikipedia page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable#Multimedia_playback
6. ^ Kronschnabl, A & Rawlings, T, "Plug In & Turn On: A Filmmakers Guide to the Internet. London:Marion Boyars. 2004. http://www.plugincinema.com/plugin/about_us/plugin_book.htm
7. ^ The film 'Distance Over Time ' can be found on plugincinema.com - http://www.plugincinema.com/plugin/plugin_cinema/index.htm#f28