Audio Video News

It's proven to be surprisingly difficult to get streaming TV - and we're not talking on-demand stuff, just live, local, over-the-air TV - onto mobile devices. The various players in the film and television industry, fearful of losing position in an exploding market, have been tightening their holds over their respective fiefdoms, making it difficult for any service to take even baby steps, let alone establish a market foothold. Bamboom thinks it may have a solution, though it's quite a workaround: building a farm of tiny broadcast HD antennas and assigning one to each of their subscribers; the output of each antenna is streamable (think SlingBox) to that subscriber and that subscriber only.

Basically, Bamboom are selling themselves as a hosted place-shifting service, and by managing "your" little antenna rather than rebroadcasting directly they're hoping to avoid the sticky legalities that have stopped previous attempts (and have hindered even the big cable companies in their mobile plans).

The service is still in beta as of this posting, but Bamboom plan to add a slick UI, a centrally hosted DVR, and some social features to the mix. Keep an eye out, or your aerial up.

- Michael Berk