World Cup 2006 - Brazil vs. Croatia

Despite all the hype about mobile TV, I just don't see it taking off. I've had access to mobile TV for quite some time now via Optus LiveTV. Technically, it's not the real DVB-H standard, but simply a "real-time" video stream of the free-to-air channels. So I woke up at five in the morning to catch the Brazil-Croatia match. My whole bedroom was so cold, and my bed was so warm that I didn't want to get out of bed, even if that meant missing the kick-off. So what's a techie guy to do? Well, you fire up RealPlayer on the 6680, and tune in to the SBS video stream via 3G.

Everything works fine except for a couple of things:

• Even at 3G speeds, the phone still keeps on buffering.
• Shrinking the whole stadium to mobile-screen size means Ronaldo and Ronaldhino are mere moving pixels.
• By half-time, the battery level has gone down to one bar.

With the score at 1-0 in favour of the Brazilians, I'm sure the Croatians will make the 2nd half more exciting, so I went to the living this time. I expected more from the Brazilians, but they're not delivering. Every time they mount an attack, the Croatians always manage to get possession and drive them back. Ronaldo was not doing his thing, so he was bundled out. The Croatians are doing a very good job in offence and defense, but in the end Brazil won 1-0.