Surprise! Nokia TV enters the fray

Nokia TV was bound to happen and according to this leak, TV services are due for release on the company’s range of Lumia phones. With Nokia TV, users can view local video broadcasts and the first country to receive this blessed gift will be the home of Nokia itself, Finland.

Channels included in the launch will be Nelopen, MTV3 and YLE, the oldest television channel in Finland. The report says that the TV channels will only be available on a Wi-Fi connection, which makes sense given the heavy speech and video requirements intrinsically linked with TV streaming.

Let’s get to the meat of the service though. What else will Nokia TV offer the Lumia user? Videos can apparently be uploaded straight to the device. We’re not sure of what this means exactly as the source is care of a Google translated Russian Windows Phone forum. Our best guess is that TV streams can be saved to the Lumia for later viewing.

What is easy to understand is that Nokia TV won’t be using the hateful DVB-H mobile TV streaming format. Digital Video Broadcasting — Handheld (DVB-H) outright sucks. DVB-H has been used as early as 2004 and works primarily over the 3G signal. But its 2012 and the highly compressed DVB-H stream obviously doesn’t cut it for Nokia. With a reliance on Wi-Fi, Nokia may just use native codecs and bypass the need for a new streaming format. This is Nokia though, and those sly Fins most certainly have a trick up their sleeve.

The final titbit of information is that Nokia TV will have an in-app search feature. There are no launch dates, or plans for release in any other countries. Windows Phone and TV seem like the perfect marriage in our opinion given the stunning display of the flagship Lumia 800.

Image: wp7forum.ru