LAS VEGAS – You couldn’t swing a set of dead analog rabbit ears at the Las Vegas Convention Centre this week without hitting a broadcaster or broadcast supplier building a business case –or in many cases, even deploying – mobile broadcast TV.
We’re not talking about TV delivered by mobile phone companies to phones and tablets (for a subscription fee and data charges), but free, off-air digital TV to the phones and tablets of Americans.
Right now, a few companies like Belkin and Siano have manufactured some hardware plugins which are essentially little one-to-two-inch USB devices with a short antenna (pictured below) that slide right into iPad or iPhone slots, automatically pull in a viewing app and poof, viewers will be able watch shows from whatever local broadcasters are transmitting digitally in the mobile formats which have been developed. Changing channels involves a swipe of a finger and one of the makers even offers a live Twitter feed to go along with tablet viewing. The devices are not in the market yet but are expected to be available through electronics retailers in 2012 for under $100.
It’s a nifty, if a bit kludgey, way to deliver off-air TV to the newest viewing devices. However, it makes broadcast TV available everywhere to phones or tablets… for free.
The challenge broadcasters face is to convince the Apples, Motorolas and Samsungs of the world to include the chipset and receiver in the phones and tablets (and FM radio, for that matter), something that has not so far been an easy sell. Broadcasters believe the manufacturers are under pressure from the big wireless carriers to leave those chipsets out (in some devices, the capability is apparently built in, but not active) in favour of forcing wireless customers to purchase the unicast video models the wireless operators all offer.
Wireless operators and handset makers have also responded, however, that phone and tablet batteries die pretty quickly when they are used as TV sets. However, battery life is an ongoing issue for portable devices, no matter what customers use them for.
Anyhow, American broadcasters see this free, mobile option as a viable way to grow their businesses and secure their futures in a connected world dominated by cable and telcos, and as a way to maintain their spectrum in the face of constant pressure from tech companies who influence U.S. Congress in a way they never have. In fact, broadcasters are pitching this video option as a way to ease the so-called spectrum crunch, pointing out they shouldn’t have to give up their spectrum currently being used to transmit digital video for free, in favour of the wireless companies who want to do video, too, on the same spectrum, but for a fee.
Besides, add the broadcasters, in natural disasters, what is up and running and informing citizens quicker? TV and radio stations? Or cell phones. And even if the phones are working, most people still tune into local TV and radio (even if it’s through Twitter and Facebook) to find out what’s going on. Wouldn’t it be great if they could make their “dead” phones into active radio or TV receivers?
There are a number of efforts underway Stateside to get mobile broadcast going.
For example, something called Dyle is being deployed by broadcasters in 35 markets. Dyle is operated by the Mobile Content Venture (MCV), a joint-venture of 12 major broadcast groups including Belo Corp., Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps Co., Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television Inc., Media General Inc., Meredith Corp., Post-Newsweek Stations Inc., Raycom Media, Fox, ION Television and NBC. It was showing off a new LG Android smartphone displaying live local TV from Las Vegas.
Station groups that are participating in the Dyle launch will enable registered Dyle users to watch live broadcasts on mobile devices in their respective television markets. Some stations participating in the launch will be implementing standards-based conditional access that will be fully compatible with MCV's Dyle application. In addition, all content broadcast by stations without encryption will be picked up and displayed by devices featuring Dyle at launch.
In 2012, MCV will offer Dyle Mobile TV service through more than 90 stations, reaching 55% of the U.S. population, from New York and Los Angeles to Chicago and Dallas.
Another group, called the Mobile500 Alliance, is a broadcast consortium comprised of 50 member companies covering 94% of television households and this week at NAB detailed its business model and enhanced features for Mobile DTV that include new interactive advertising, an improved user experience that features social media integration with Twitter, closed captioning for the hearing impaired, audience measurement, conditional access for premium content, recording live TV, and video-on-demand.
With measurement firms Rentrak and Nielsen involved, the platform will, it’s hoped, help broadcasters monetize their on-the-go audiences, showing growth, it is hoped, combined with real time data for advertisers.
The Mobile500 Alliance already has a major advertiser on board, too, as demonstrations on the NAB show floor featured a short interstitial ad from Buick when users tapped the mobile TV app icon on the iPad demonstration. Dynamic clickable banners also float along with viewing and this additional ad revenue is to be shared among the broadcasters involved. Android tablet iterations are in the works, too.
The interactive ad campaign will feature the ability to request a test drive along with video galleries, lead generation, dealer locators, social media integration and more and will be featured during the Mobile500 trials in Seattle and Minneapolis this summer. Mobile DTV is poised for launch in all major U.S. markets in the coming weeks.
So, what’s going on in Canada in this space? Almost nothing, as it turns out (okay you cynics, this is where you point out how two big wireless firms own two big broadcasters and it may not be in their interest to pursue mobile digital OTA TV). However, we’ve been told CBC is currently experimenting with it, but the most progress is happening at Ryerson University.
Under Brad Fortner, program director, operations and technology, Ryerson students and grad students have build interactivity and a news wrap that can be transmitted within the digital mobile off-air transmission.
At NAB, his group showcased two excellent interactive Mobile DTV prototypes that are the first of their kind built in Canada. “They were constructed to learn how the rich media content environment associated with ATSC’s Mobile DTV standard actually works. The standard, known as A/153 Part 5 is a new Digital Television standard developed specifically to transmit interactive content to mobile devices. The Ryerson group, comprised of students and staff, dissected the newly published standards papers while building and testing their prototypes up the point of transmission,” reads the description on www.openmobiledtv.org (but check the image below to see what it looks like).
A very neat and cost-effective part of the apps is that only Open Source and other free, available software was deployed along with freely available content like Environment Canada weather and City of Toronto traffic cameras.
“The group is currently constructing a car-based Toronto traffic, weather, news and public transit app. The app could receive emergency alerts if programmed and ultimately could react to GPS information if the Mobile DTV reception technology was placed in the appropriate GPS receiving device such as a smartphone.”
And this all can be done via an over-the-air digital TV signal, if broadcasters are so inclined to act. We’ll see if our Canadian ’casters want to catch up to their American cohorts.
