Select ABC stations offering free video for mobiles
by Darren Murph 
posted Jul 13th 2007 at 11:54AM
Sure, we've seen the local-news-on-your-handset card pulled out before, but unlike similar alternatives, this one should work with any network and on any phone capable of handling the video. A group of ten ABC-owned television stations have announced that they will be offering up "free video content" for cellphones, most of which will consist of ad-supported streaming news clips. The service will be powered by Local Wireless, and will be available to users near WABC-TV in New York, KABC-TV in Los Angeles, WLS-TV in Chicago, WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, KGO-TV in San Francisco, KTRK-TV in Houston, WTVD in Raleigh-Durham, NC, KFSN-TV in Fresno, California, WJRT-TV in Flint, Michigan, and WTVG in Toledo, Ohio. You know the drill: give it a go, and post your adoration / gripes below.[Via Textually]
Filed under: Multimedia, Software
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Todd @ Jul 13th 2007 12:21PM
Here's the direct link to the Houston station:
http://www.abc13now.com/wap/video/cat.jsp?sid=25
From what I can tell its just a bunch of short clips, mostly in Windows Video file format, set to stream at a low frame rate...Not exactly "live".
I will hack on it some more later.
Mark @ Jul 13th 2007 12:40PM
Works on the Moto Q. At least _something_ does.
roglhow @ Jul 13th 2007 1:18PM
how do you find the address for your local tv stations that will work on your phone?
ProfessionalGun @ Jul 13th 2007 1:47PM
Yeah, that information could have been clearer stated. Took me a little while to figure out that you access a list of cities and stations via http://www.localwireless.com.
Working on my w810i - but the Edge connection can't keep up.
mike168 @ Jul 13th 2007 1:08PM
Works fine on the Samsung Blackjack. Video quality is comparable to ATT/Cingular's own mobile video offerings.
Doesn't work on the Blackberry (darn you ABC!)
ProfessionalGun @ Jul 13th 2007 3:04PM
YouTube is working better for me than this localwireless thing.
justin @ Jul 14th 2007 10:32PM
Videos won't work for me at all on my N95 - clicking on the video link opens a new multimedia message with the stream url as the recipient. Could be a problem with the Nokia browser or just a coding mistake by Local Wireless.