Microsoft’s MSN Mobile Adds Video

MSN VideoMicrosoft has added a page of mobile videos to the MSN Mobile portal.  There’s a Mobile Video link on mobile.msn.com or you can go directly to the video page at video.mobile.msn.com.

The bad news is that the videos are only available in Windows Mobile Video format which means that for the most part they only work on Windows Mobile devices.  According to  Sevenval’s mobileWatch mobile analytics report,  only about 25% percent of the video capable phones in the world can handle that format.  If Microsoft is serious about the mobile web they need to support industry standard video formats like H.263 and MPEG-4 in addition their own proprietary ones. Update 21-Aug-2008: It turns out that MSN mobile video does support non-Windows Media formats.  Details here.

The good news is that there are thousands of videos available.  Content includes News, Sports, Music Videos and Movie trailers. The professionally made videos are current and of good quality.  They are 240×340 px, average about two minutes in length and are available as high or low quality streams or as downloadable .wmv files.

Mobile Link: video.mobile.msn.com

Ratings: Content: ****1/2 Usability: XXXX_

Filed in: Mobile Site Directory – Mobile Video-Audio

3 thoughts on “Microsoft’s MSN Mobile Adds Video

  1. Adding to the list, “We currently do not support Video on your device” for:

    Nokia E65
    Sony Ericsson K610i

    A pity, because the site is very friendly.

  2. Ron,

    Thanks for the comment. I’ve updated the post to reflect the fact that there are many more videos than the two dozen I claimed.

    It’s interesting to hear that there is H.263 and MPEG-4 support. However if I visit video.mobile.msn.com with my Nokia N95-3 or Motorola Z8, which support both of those formats, I see “We currently do not support Video on your device” and there are no video links. I suspect it’s a browser detection issue. Let me know when it’s resolved and I’ll post an update.

  3. MSN Mobile has added support for the major mobile video formats, WMV, H.263 and MPEG-4 with this release. There are thousands of videos on this site. Please take the time to check this out throughly.

    We have also integrated videos offerings into our existing News, Entertainment, and Money channels on mobile.msn.com.

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