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After a delay of a few weeks, Modeo has launched a 'commercial beta' trial of its DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld) television service in New York City. The Crown Castle subsidiary started delivering DVB-H-enabled HTC Pocket PC Phones called the Modeo Mobile TV Smartphone (code-named Foreseer by HTC) to several hundred people last week.

These folks - including select group of wireless carriers, reporters, industry analysts, financial analysts, and content providers - can watch video and listen to audio content over Modeo's broadcast network. This includes live video from the likes of Fox News, the Discovery Channel and others, as well as streaming audio content from Music Choice.

Modeo is looking for feedback about programming content, coverage quality, ease of use of the Modeo Mobile TV Smartphone and overall use case scenarios. The company expects to use this feedback to evaluate network distribution options with wireless carriers.

The trial, which is expected to last throughout the first quarter, took three years to develop, according to the company.

Standards like DVB-H broadcast television signals separately from traditional cellular-data networks, freeing up precious bandwidth for other mobile operator content while promising better quality video to the consumer than current handset TV technologies like Modeo's own MobiTV brand, which piggyback video over regular cellular-wireless bands.

DVB-H's chief competitor, Qualcomm's MediFlo, which is scheduled to launch this quarter, is already slated for Verizon and Sprint; with the other two major American carriers - Cingular and T-Mobile - not having made a public commitment to a particular mobile TV technology. With the New York City trial, Modeo can show off its network in an attempt to get a carrier to commit to DVB-H.

At the Consumer Electronics Show, taking place in Las Vegas, Nevada this week, Verizon officially announced its MediFlo-based broadcast service. It will be called V Cast Mobile TV. When it launches later this quarter, V Cast Mobile TV will available on the new Samsung SCH-u620 mobile phone.

Modeo joined giants Motorola, Nokia and Texas Instruments to form the Mobile Digital TV Alliance earlier this year. The purpose: to promote best practices and open standards that deliver premium-quality broadcast television to mobile devices for the North American market using DVB-H.

Whether or not consumer swill be ready for a true mobile TV experience is open to debate, however.

According to Modeo, it successfully pilot tested a DVB-H mobile broadcast network in Pittsburgh (where it is headquartered) back in 2005.

Modeo demonstrated the Foreseer TV smartphone (see top image) at the CTIA Wireless show last April, and the FCC gave the handset its seal of approval for release in the U.S. in August.

Foreseer is built on Windows Mobile 5.0 and is a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE device that measures 4.1 x 2.2 x 0.6 inches and weighs 4.23 ounces. It has a Texas Instruments OMAP850 200 MHz CPU, 64 MB of ROM, 64MB of RAM, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a microSD card slot (for up to 2 GB of extra storage), a 1.3 megapixel camera, and, of course, a DVB-H tuner.

An NVIDIA Go-Force 5500 graphics engine operates the Pocket PC Phone's 2.2-inch QVGA (240 x 320 pixel), 64K-color touch-screen display at up to 30 frames per second. A 1150 mAH lithium-ion battery provides up to three hours of TV viewing, four hours of talk time or six days of standby time, Modeo says.

In the spring, PDAStreet got a chance to use the smartphone while it was receiving television signals from an ad hoc DVB-H network. It felt comfortable in the hand and, more importantly, reception appeared smooth. Not too surprising under the heavily controlled circumstances.

Modeo's fellow Mobile Digital TV Alliance member Nokia's N92 DVB-H handset was also approved by the FCC last summer as well. This smartphone has a 2.8-inch anti-glare QVGA (320 x 240 pixel) resolution screen with 16 million colors and dedicated media keys.

It supports Nokia's latest Web Browser with Mini Map, which provides a semi-transparent zoomed-out view of a web page that enables users to quickly orient themselves on a small screen.

An expansion slot handles up to a 2 GB memory card for around 1500 songs delivered through the built-in stereo speakers or a stereo headset. There's also an FM radio. Additional features include a 2-megapixel camera and e-mail attachment support. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi (802.11g), infrared, Bluetooth wireless technology as well as USB 2.0.