Texas Instruments Inc. plans to unveil a technology Thursday that would allow cell phone users to watch live, digital television.

Dallas-based TI, the biggest cell phone chipmaker, is throwing its full weight behind the initiative, encouraging broadcasters and makers of wireless devices to support the technology and pushing to bring TV to digital devices by 2007.

TI is developing a chip, code named “Hollywood,” that would allow cell phones to access video. The TV signals would air as broadcast transmissions instead of being sent over the wireless Internet.

TI’s technology is years away from fruition, said chief executive Rich Templeton, but TI is making its move now to bring attention to the digital TV concept, hoping to spur rapid development.

“It is, in some ways, a criticism of our industry that we hype things too early,” he said. But to encourage companies in different industries to work together, “You have to make the information visible.”

Getting television to cell-phone users holds great promise, analysts say. Even if just a small percentage of the world’s cell-phone users are beaming in TV by the end of the decade, they could comprise an audience of tens of millions.

“In the cell-phone world, a small phenomenon could be a big deal,” said Neil Strother, an analyst with research firm InStat/MDR.

Wireless technology companies are already experimenting with video on cell phones.

Sprint Corp. offers some recorded programming streamed over its wireless data service, and Idetec Inc.’s MobiTV service, available on Sprint and AT&T Wireless networks, also uses wireless data to stream several cable broadcasts, delayed for about 30 seconds.

But those services offer video at a low frame rate, a measurement of video quality. TI believes the technology it’s working with will produce video at a high-quality rate of 24 to 30 frames per second, far beyond Sprint’s 10 to 15 frames and MobiTV’s six to 10 frames.

The digital broadcasts would use airways designated for television, rather than wireless service providers’ spectrum, employing a standard similar to the one local broadcasters use to send out TV signals.

Local broadcasters that already send out digital TV signals would have to make a small modification to their equipment to make programming available to cell-phone users.

Digital broadcasts are designed to provide sharper, more consistent signals without the fuzz associated with analog broadcasts.

Wireless service providers, local broadcasters and cable TV stations would have to figure out ways to work together to provide programming for cell phones and make money off it – a difficult proposition.

But cell phone TV could provide all sorts of business opportunities and programming innovations. Users could watch a game show and use wireless data technology to vote for their favorite contestant, for instance. Sports fans could access instant replays or stats over the data network to supplement the game they’re watching.

As digital storage becomes smaller, it might become possible to record TV shows onto a cell phone’s hard drive, the same way TV viewers use devices such as the TiVo today. They could then wirelessly beam the TV show to a television set to watch their show at home.

“When you look at the new applications showing up in wireless – camera phones, color screens, polyphonic ring tones – they’ve driven very strong demand,” Templeton said. “Digital TV is lined up to put another leg of growth on what’s already a very large market.”

The idea of watching video on a mobile device is already catching on in Asia’s train commuter population in the form of streaming data, Templeton said.

A developing technology in Korea would use satellites to send video to phones, and that technology may eventually intertwine with the standard TI is working on, said Marc Cetto, general manager of mobile connectivity solutions.

The technology probably won’t be as popular initially in places where cars are a more popular form of transportation, said Will Strauss, president of research firm Forward Concepts Co.

“With every cowboy having his own horse, you guys in Texas probably aren’t going to see much of it at first,” he said.

By sending video to cell phones over the air instead of using wireless high-speed data, TI hopes to free up valuable bandwidth for wireless service providers.

And the chip TI is developing would give it another valuable product to sell cell-phone makers, which also buy communications chips and computerlike processors from TI.

TI shares rose 32 cents to $22.87 Wednesday.