How much internet speed streaming actually needs
Most advice on this quotes numbers far above what the services themselves publish. Here are the official figures, and why the number you are told to check is not really the one that decides playback.
MobilizedTV
TV, streaming and media technology explained
How television is made, delivered and watched — broadcast standards, streaming delivery, the devices in front of people and the software they run. Written for readers who want to know why something works, not only which button to press.
MobilizedTV first published between 2007–2011 as a mobile television trade publication under different ownership. What that means for this site.
Featured
Featured stories
The pieces we would hand someone first.
AV1, HEVC and why streaming services carry more than one codec
Two codecs do roughly the same job, and services publish in both. The reason is only partly technical — and which one reaches your screen is decided by the chip inside your device.
HDR formats explained: HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision and HLG
Four HDR formats, doing the same job in different ways. What separates them is metadata and licensing rather than picture quality — and a television that supports HDR can still show it badly.
Streaming
Streaming Technology
Streaming replaced the schedule, but the plumbing underneath it is still broadcast engineering with different acronyms. This hub covers delivery protocols, video quality, platform behaviour and what changes when a service switches format.
How much internet speed streaming actually needs
Most advice on this quotes numbers far above what the services themselves publish. Here are the official figures, and why the number you are told to check is not really the one that decides playback.
AV1, HEVC and why streaming services carry more than one codec
Two codecs do roughly the same job, and services publish in both. The reason is only partly technical — and which one reaches your screen is decided by the chip inside your device.
How streaming video actually reaches your TV
Pressing play starts a chain of steps that has almost nothing to do with the internet you use for everything else. Here is what each one does, and which of them is responsible when playback goes wrong.
TV Technology
TV & Broadcast Technology
The direct continuation of this publication's original beat. Broadcast standards, transmission, tuners and display technology — the parts of television that are engineered rather than marketed.
HDR formats explained: HDR10, HDR10+, Dolby Vision and HLG
Four HDR formats, doing the same job in different ways. What separates them is metadata and licensing rather than picture quality — and a television that supports HDR can still show it badly.
HDMI versions and bandwidth: what the numbers mean
HDMI version numbers are among the least reliable specifications in consumer electronics. What matters is the bandwidth and the individual features — and manufacturers are not required to list them.
Frame rates and judder: why film looks stuttery on television
Panning shots that stutter are not a fault. They are the visible result of film's frame rate not dividing evenly into a television's refresh rate — a mismatch that has been around since television began.
Hardware & software
Devices & apps
The hardware people watch on and the software that runs on it.
Devices
Smart TVs, streaming sticks, set-top boxes, consoles and phones as viewing devices — platforms, capabilities, compatibility and support lifespans.
Apps
Streaming and TV apps examined as software: platform availability, playback behaviour, accessibility features, offline support and interface changes.
What happens when a smart TV stops getting updates
A television lasts a decade. Its software does not. What ends when updates stop is not the picture but the apps — and the manufacturers have only recently started saying how long you get.
ARC, eARC and getting sound out of a television
Getting sound from a television to a soundbar looks like it should be one cable and one decision. There are four routes, they carry different things, and only one of them handles modern audio formats intact.
Smart TV and streaming platforms: what actually differs
The operating system on a television or streaming stick decides more about what you can watch than the screen does. Here is what it controls — and what it has no say over.
Heritage
From the MobilizedTV archive
A small number of addresses from the original publication are still cited by outside sources. Those URLs are kept alive and given newly written pieces on the same subjects — the original articles are not republished.
AppsPreserved URL
Cracked.com on the iPad: what the 2010 tablet publishing rush was really about
MobilizedTV interviewed Cracked.com's Oren Katzeff at this address in 2010, days after the site's iPad app appeared. This is a newly written look back at what that moment was actually about.
TV TechnologyPreserved URL
CES 2010 and Mobile DTV: the broadcast standard that arrived and then vanished
In January 2010 free live broadcast television on a phone looked like a solved problem. The standard was finished and the hardware was real. A retrospective on why it went nowhere.
StreamingPreserved URL
WheelsTV, Azuki and the problem of getting video onto phones in 2008
In 2008 a niche video producer could not simply publish to phones — it needed a delivery platform. A look back at that arrangement, and at what happened to both halves of it.
Subscription plans
We also run a streaming subscription service. It is kept on its own page, separate from editorial coverage, and is never presented as a recommendation.