Mobile World Congress Digital video playback software specialist PacketVideo this week introduced a matchbox-sized gadget capable of picking up DVB-H digital TV broadcasts and streaming them to any Wi-Fi enabled player - including the iPod Touch and iPhone.

DVB-H is a version of the DVB-T digital broadcast standard re-engineered to make it easier for mobile devices to pick up and decode. It's not widely available - it isn't available at all in the UK, at least not commercially - but now it's become the European standard for straight-to-phone telly transmissions (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/30/eu_gives_dvb_h_thumbs_up/), we're likely to be watching more of it very soon.

Nokia's sufficiently confident in the technology and consumers' demand for it, that it's going to incorporate DVB-H playback in the upcoming successor to the N95, the N96 (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/02/11/mwc_nokia_unveils_n96/).

Back to PacketVideo, which used the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona to show off the unstylishly named PacketVideo Mobile Broadcast Receiver.

The MBR tunes into DVB-H transmissions, decodes them and sends the back out over Wi-Fi in a form mobile devices can pick up via their built-in web browsers.

PacketVideo was keeping mum about the finer points of the product, but it did say the MBR is powered by a USB-rechargeable lithium ion battery.

Alas, it's pitching the product not at punters but at mobiler carriers and other service providers, who it wants to rebadge the MBR - giving it a snappier name in the process, hopefully - and sell it or give it away with DVB-H subscription packages.

Mobile World Congress 2008 Complete Coverage here (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/02/11/complete_mwc_08/)

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