Mobile DTV Standard Approved, Finally

COMMENTS (4)

• What does that mean, then? What products will we be getting now that we didn’t get before this? I’m a little lost here.

  Comment by Lukas Kaiser — Friday October 16, 2009 @ 8:44am PDT  Reply to this post

• Mobile DTV standards are irrelevant.

  First, it’s old-fashioned broadcast. That’s right — you’d actually have to “tune in” with your phone at time X on channel Y. (Yes, some clueless pointy-haired will eventually come to the conclusion that this makes no sense without a “virtual PVR” that runs on your phone, but that’s exactly ass-backwards.)

  Second, it would require enormous investments — it requires all new single-use networks, new phones with even more battery-sucking single-use hardware, etc.

  Anybody who thinks this is a good idea is just, well, old. The winners will invest in and base services on better and faster data networks that can support all kinds of stuff, including YouTube, Hulu, iTunes, etc.

  Comment by Charles — Friday October 16, 2009 @ 10:43am PDT  Reply to this post

• Charles writes:

  > it requires all new single-use networks

  No, it doesn’t. The ATSC Mobile DTV standard defines a relatively low-bandwidth protocol stack will allow broadcasters to reach mobile receivers directly using their existing digital transmitters on their current frequency allocations (there is no secondary content carrier involved, as with the Qualcomm’s FLO TV service available from Verizon as “VCast” and AT&T as “Mobile TV.”) There are already 30 stations broadcasting in this new format today, and there will be an estimated 90 by the end of the year.

  > it’s old-fashioned broadcast…
  > you’d actually have to “tune in”

  That’s essentially true, although the upper layers of the protocol stack address interactive functionality. It would be possible, for example, for a TV network to offer a video-on-demand service via its affiliates’ transmitters (which would give the network full control over the distribution pipeline and any revenue it generates.) Don’t expect to see this this kind of functionality rolled out any time in the near future, however.

  > The winners will invest in and base
  > services on better and faster data networks

  I think you’re probably right about this, but that raises more general question about the future of over-the-air broadcasting. If I had to place my bet, I’d say that ten years from now broadcast radio and TV stations will be experiencing the same sort of economic problems that newspapers are experiencing today.

  Comment by Angus McGeek — Friday October 16, 2009 @ 1:23pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Ten years until broadcasters feel the newspapers’ 2009 pain? Try 2010. Exploding supply coupled with diminishing or even stable demand equal downward pressure on pricing. The glory days are over, starting now.

  Comment by jonny5 — Saturday October 17, 2009 @ 2:21pm PDT  Reply to this post