During the Eurovision song contest week, the Finnish Mobile TV project coordinated by Forum Virium Helsinki, realized a user study to evaluate the DINA Host City mobile TV channel. The research was exectuted by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.
The program flow of the DINA Host City channel was a vivid part of the multimediatic helsinkihostcity.fi - event service. Coordinated by Arcada, the DINA channel produced 12 hours of daily broadcast featuring the hundreds of events parallelling the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki. The channel presented the carnevalistic atmosphere of downtown parties, interwieved fans, tourists and performers, and reported on the official ESC-preparations live from the Hartwall Arena.
During ESC, between 7.-12.5.2007, the Forum Virium ”Host City Home”-tent in Central Helsinki, offered bypassers a chance to watch the tv-program through Nokia’s N92-data terminals and guided them in finding their favorite events through the Host City – service. Researchers also interviewed them about different functional aspects and preferences, while 4 tickets to the main event were alloted. The number of people taking part in the research was 123, from wich 86 were women and 37 men. International guests from six different countries also took part in the inqury. The age of the respondents varied from ten-year-olds to senior citizens and many were motivated to participate in hope for a ticket to the Eurovision Contest. The average time for earlier mobile phone use was 10 years.
The service presented not only comprehensive content by the DINA reporter patrols, but also video-on-demand material and a possibility to upload own videos for others to watch. With the mobile TV device the audience could directly contact the studio by phone, sms or email, and take part in different polls.
The resarch result showed out to be positive and supportive to the project. First impression points were given on a scale from 1 to 5, and the service was rated both in aspects of layout and usability as good. Inspite of the small (television) screen of the mobile device, respondents were positively amazed by the evolution of cellular phones in aspects of display qualty.
Program and video wishes were devided: 68% were more keen to see professional contents, while 32% were also interested in viewer’s own videos in favour of their freespirited and down-to-earth flavour. Half of the respondents were interested in uploading their own videos to the service, mainly for the simple joy of sharing pesonally important events and thoughts.
The DVB-H-broadcast was seen as the most interesting part of the service in all age groups. The majority of the over 65-year-olds also experienced the Video-On-Demand function, uploadability and contacting service as the most useful of other aspects. Polls were shadowed by other attendances, but interested mainly the 18 to 24-year-olds.
A laudable 61% of the respondants expressed a direct desire to use the service if it were in immediate distibution. The majority of the ”maybe”-answerers were still expecting wider information and publicity before byuing a mobile TV device. Only 9% answered ”no”, declaring a preference for one-function gadgets and the reluctance to watch television from a mobile-sized screen.
