www.three.co.uk

3 UK, the video mobile network, today launched a new high speed video-streaming service called Quickplay. The first of its kind in the UK, this service enables customers to play video clips on their video mobiles in real time, rather than having to download and save them first.

News, Music and Topshelf are the first services from 3 to offer customers the choice of Quickplay or Save & Play. Quickplay is an enhanced service that has the benefit of immediacy, 3's customers can start watching the latest ITN news bulletin, or an MTV Live Lounge performance just moments after choosing it.

Quickplay also allows 3's customers to watch longer video clips of up to 8 minutes, which would otherwise use up memory on the handset and could take up to several minutes to download. The quality of video clips on Quickplay is the same as that offered by 3's Save and Play service, they typically have a frame rate of 12.5 per second, delivered to the handset using radio connections up to 384 kbits/second, giving smooth video play-back.

The cost of watching a video clip on Quickplay is the same as on Save and Play, the customer simply chooses how they would prefer to watch it. Quickplay also gives customers the chance to sample video or audio clips before buying the full version.