LAS VEGAS – Tuesday’s sessions at the National Association of Broadcasters convention on Tuesday focused on mobile TV – that is, video to your cell phone or iPod or other portable device, as profiled here.
When it comes to sending video to mobile phones over wireless networks, it isn’t an easy thing to do, technically, but British company Snell & Wilcox is using NAB to show off its new mobile content processing and encoding capabilities. While broadcasters on one hand are producing lovely TV shows for a wider, lush, screen, they don’t want to reproduce the production effort to make the same programming available to teeny tiny displays.
Using live sports as an example, the new S&W software only encodes what needs to be encoded – saving bandwidth – and does it automatically – saving time and cost. Basically, its dynamic re-framing crops the image to the tight frame required for viewing on cell phones. Using equestrian event footage, the full frame is cropped as close to the horse and rider as possible, then the background, such as the crowd, is blurred and not encoded for high res viewing.
"All the energy and encoding goes into the horse and rider," said S&W VP David Brooks. The dynamic software doesn’t waste bit rates or bandwidth.
At the same time (!), the S&W software also stabilizes images. It’s hard enough to watch video on a mobile device while you’re in motion, but if the video is a bit bumpy, too? Vertigo-inducing, perhaps. Using the same "bullet-time" technology made popular in the Matrix films, in real time, S&W can better stabilize mobile – and non-mobile – content.
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Geographic copyrights are permanently top of mind among all broadcasters. While agreeing that a shared video experience, and viral marketing among young viewers – as they send video clips along to their friends, "makes our company more valuable and more useful – because then customers then less price sensitive to what they’re doing," said NBC Universal’s Salil Dalvi. He quickly added it’s only do-able for his company, "provided the copyrights are properly respected.
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One broadcast affiliate from Idaho asked whether the revenue the broadcaster gets from mobile TV will be shared with affiliates. Dalvi said the company is willing to talk about it.
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What is the overall wireless business model? Most, when they’re being frank, will say "I don’t know," before they guess. Verizon’s Robin Chan, during a Tuesday session identified three revenue streams – a basic rate, premium rates and an ad supported model. But will consumers really watch ads when they’re paying for wireless time? Dalvi added he dislikes the micropayment VOD model and would rather receive a wholesale fee from wireless distributors for his content.
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Nokia’s Bob Shallow pointed out that his company has sold 50 million MP3 players – more than all iPods on the planet – and that after an initial burst of usage, most customers actually cease using the music functionality.
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Michael Stroud, of conference organizer iHollywood, told delegates of a Bluetooth enabled pair of eyeglasses he has seen which would play video directly in front of the viewers’ eyes. "It’s not so much the size of the screen as the proximity of the screen to your eyes," he said, when discussing the difficulty in watching a small mobile screen.
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A new TV prime time is emerging in the U.K., says Shallow. Twenty-four percent of viewing on phones in the U.K. do it during a non-traditional time – especially in the morning on the way to work. "It’s a new prime time," he said, "it’s not taking away from traditional viewing, but adding to it."
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Another rapidly emerging aspect of wireless mobile video which is starting to show traction? Adult content, pointed out Stroud. He asked if there were any adult content producers in the crowd and a number of hands went up, to which Stroud added: "You can tell who they are, they’re the ones in the trench coats."
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Just like there are popular TV producers and different, popular film producers, Roger Cameron-Wood of mobile media company Airmedia said he expects that will soon change. "There are is no Lorne Michaels or Jerry Bruckheimer of mobile… but there will be," he said.
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Look for some local opportunities with mobile media. Izzy Abass of U-turn Mobile Media talked about a local radio station in Vail Colo., providing specialized local content to mobile phones – the ski conditions. End-users, in concert with their cell phone company, the station and perhaps one of the station’s advertisers (a restaurant, for example), would receive a coupon for purchase when they receive the sponsored information – as a small thanks for signing up, and driving them to the local eatery. The restaurant gets a customer, the radio station gets a fee and an ad buy and the cell provider charges for usage.
