Business

Most people will not be able to watch the Olympics live but many have embraced new technology to enjoy the once in a lifetime experience. Yao Min, Liu Xiang and Roger Federer will be appearing on screens sized from two inches to 100 inches.

It’s a rush now with more than 3,000 people installing IPTV every day, flat-panel TV sales surging and fans using laptops or PDAs to access the Olympics everywhere from hotels and shopping centers to airports.

High Definition TV

This is first time HD technology has been in use for a major international event ?? it has only been on the market for the past two years.

The CCTV HD channel’s image quality is four times higher than that of DVD and HD truly enhances sport, say experts.

Though the HD content is relatively limited, it has fuelled the sales of TVs.

In the second quarter, large LCD panel sales jumped 23 percent to 117.9 million units, a new record, according to research firm DisplaySearch.

Shanghai Telecom’s IPTV services, with two HD channels and replay functions, have attracted 510,000 users already, and the user base is expected to hit 800,000 by the end of this year.

In Shanghai there are three ways to access HD if you have an HD TV with definition of 720P (pixels) or 1080P.

You can subscribe to the Shanghai Media Group’s cable-based service, which includes three HD channels and several standard definition (DVD quality) channels. The hotline number is 96877.

You can buy a HD TV set-top box to receive free wireless CCTV HD signals.

You can subscribe to Shanghai Telecom’s IPTV (Internet protocal TV) service - but only certain parts of Shanghai can receive this HD signal. The hotline number is 10000.

Mobile TV

Mobile TV is good for viewing shorter events like swimming and sprinting or the replaying of highlights.

China Mobile launched its mobile TV program for 2G and 3G phones.

It takes about 20 seconds for customers to receive selected videos on 2G phones (test model: Nokia N82) and 10 seconds for 3G phones (ZTE U908), according to Shanghai Daily’s tests.

Shanghai Mobile is also giving users a discounted data traffic charge of 0.01 yuan (0.15 US cent) for one megabyte, one-thousandth of the normal fee.

“The bargain prices will probably remain even after the Olympics is closed,” said Wang Hua, Shanghai Mobile’s data division director.

China Mobile’s program is available for 53 handset models. Customers can access TV services through Wap Websites. China Mobile allows users to choose “Favorite” for content they are interested in and the related content will appear in the top position.

(Shanghai Daily August 8, 2008)