Nokia to launch video downloads

The N96 with The Dark Knight playing on-screen

File this one under: something a little birdy told us.

In a recent conversation with a member of the Nokia crew we were told that the Finnish mobile phone giant plans to launch a video downloads service to complement the upcoming N-Series release, namely the N96.

Details are scant at this early stage, but we understand that this service will be in partnership with as-yet unnamed media content partners and may include episodes of popular TV shows. Similar to the Nokia Music Store, these videos will be available to download to a PC first and side-loaded to your phone to save you spending your precious mobile data allowance.

Launching a video download service in Australia would offset the fact that we have no DVB-H television service — a feature which is expected to be a major selling point for the mobile TV-ready N96 in certain European and Asian markets where free-to-air DVB-H television channels are broadcast.

Nokia has invested heavily in mobile content services in recent times, launching the Nokia Music Store, N-Gage gaming platform, the latest version of Nokia Maps navigation software and a range of other services under the Ovi services banner.

The N96 is expected to be released locally at the end of October or early November so hopefully we will have more to report about the new video service closer to this time.