We have been covering the development of broadcast mobile TV in the US for about six years, and it is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Now the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC) says that it has feedback from its one month old trial in the Washington DC area, and has tried to paint it (no pun intended) as ‘exciting.’
We have always been confident that the ATSC M/H standard was the right way to go for the US, just as clearly as the idea of DVB-H being the wrong way to go for Europe.
Let’s face it the price of spectrum is always going to provide a stumbling block for a service which consumers love, but which only takes off when it is at least partially free, which makes for a tricky business model. ATSC M/H shares the spectrum allocated to the US digital terrestrial standard in the same way that it does in Japan’s highly successful ISDB-T. The other approach which eliminates the spectrum issue is to use existing cellular TDD spectrum already allocated for the one way delivery of data, and Europe now seems hell bent on going down this route despite having DVB-H at its disposal (see separate story in this issue). In essence the spectrum either needs to belong to the TV effort or the broadcasting effort, not be shared between them or cost extra.
The OMVC says it has already had some 2,800 comments from consumers using the trial service and adds that the showcase is expanding this week to include PC based devices from Dell, and will shortly have LG Electronics handsets and the Valups handset dongle. So far experience must all be on Samsung phones supplied for the trial.
Overwhelmingly the comments are positive, says OMVC, which surprises us not at all and characterizes them as ‘good picture and amazing clarity for the size.’
The participants have pretty much the same viewing habits as in other countries where Mobile TV has taken off, with the exception that in most countries commuting is not by car, but by train. In the US, it appears, they are watching TV during carpool commutes. The usual habits of watching in work breaks and when out with, or waiting for, the kids are also observed. The comments are attributed to just 150 viewers who have agreed to share their experiences.
‘We’ve had viewers praising the picture quality, and the flexibility Mobile DTV provides them,’ said Aaron Heffron, Vice President of Harris Interactive, which is conducting the research.
The showcase was only launched in May, after around 70 broadcasting companies around the US agreed to pay the extra $150,000 or so it takes to upgrade each transmitter, to send out the channels in the M/H format.
The job of getting this off the ground in the US has not been shouldered by an official organization like a regulator, as it was in Japan and South Korea, so it will be interesting to see if a purely commercially driven venture can get off the ground in the same way. In Japan well over 70 million devices have shipped, to more than half the population, which can receive 1 Seg ISDB-T signals since the launch in 2005.
If the US was to have the same success it would mean that by 2015 some 150 million devices would need to ship in the US, an outcome that few observers see as possible. What the OMVC has to overcome is the extra cost of devices which have ATSC M/H chips in them, and also to give the US cellular operators a reason to subsidize the devices in the same way that they subsidize, say, the iPhone. So far not one cellular operator has given a commitment to ship devices with this capability in, and until they do, handset vendors, even LG Electronics which owns much of the intellectual property in ATSC M/H, are loathe to produce handsets with the chips in, in volume.
The whole game for OMVC in Washington is to create a buzz of consumer excitement that re-assures LG and other handset vendors such as Samsung, and then translate this to backing from a cellular operator.
This week the OMVC is deploying prototypes of the first Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbooks with Mobile DTV for use by selected showcase participants in Washington, and future products to be evaluated during the Showcase include portable DVD players from LG Electronics and the Tivizen Mobile DTV handset dongles from Valups.
The Washington showcase involves nine DC-area TV stations broadcasting 23 Mobile DTV channels with dozens of programs which are available throughout the Washington-Baltimore viewing area. The showcase includes interactive advertising, electronic service guides for program information, closed captioning and emergency alerts.
All the feedback has come from an online social media research platform set up by professional market researcher Harris Interactive (not to be confused with Harris, a provider of transmitters in this area of technology). Viewers are being asked to fill in daily diaries, answer market research questionnaires and participate in focus groups.
On a scale of 1 to 10 initial survey participants rate Mobile DTV at 7.1 and say that around 63% of viewing is happening ‘on the go,’ with 44% happening at work or school. Just 33% of viewers say they tune in from home. This is in line with all of the mobile TV experiences around the world, where the home use of mobile TV was always the most surprising.
Viewers are tuning in multiple times a day, with half of viewers watching one or two times a day; 30% three or more times a day. Although Harris has yet to give details of how many minutes per day each user it watching TV. In Japan and Korea is it already over 1 hour each per day.
Prior to having Mobile DTV, one viewer reported that ‘I rarely turned the TV on at home prior to 8PM. But now, having it available as I am waiting in line and hanging out at the park is great. It’s especially great to know that I will have the most current info.’ Another viewer praised the public TV broadcasts for kids. ‘I think it’s really convenient for those with small children. My son loves PBS Kids and being able to keep him quiet while watching it is a blessing!’
News programming and daytime shows are proving to be popular. ‘I have watched more news since I got this phone than I have watched in the last two years! It’s nice,’ said one participant. Another viewer praised the picture quality on the small screen, praising the ‘good picture and amazing clarity for the size.’
Already there are ATSC M/H TV stations in New York, Washington, Detroit, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Raleigh, Atlanta, Orlando, Chicago, Austin, Columbus (OH), Omaha, Los Angeles, San Jose and Fresno.