AV Specialist Africa Edition - Volume 93 - (Page 8)

Mobile television – bonanza or banana skin? If you have been to recent trade shows you could be forgiven for thinking that mobile television is transforming the market and is poised to wipe out traditional broadcasting. So is it the next big thing, or do we risk slipping up if we take our eye off the core business? T he mantra that you will hear from advocates of new delivery platforms is that “audiences demand any content, any time, any where”, or some similar statement. Producers and content owners should be at least preparing to make their material available in beautiful HD for the home, broadband-compatible for the computer, and low resolution for the handheld. This in itself is a problem, because at the moment there is no real alternative to preparing different versions of a programme for different delivery platforms. One or two manufacturers have shown technology demonstrations of automatic repurposing systems – and I know that more are working hard on this – but so far nobody has a commercial system that will do much more than up- or down-scale the resolution. general, mobile television is more about short, sharp content. Separating fact from fiction Content questions aside, what did the IABM report have to say about the business and technology issues of establishing a service? First, it is important to understand that the technology and the service offering are closely inter-related. You can use the existing 2.5G or 3G cellular network for mobile video, a service of on-demand clips, or you can build out a new network to broadcast true mobile television. What is the difference? Accessibility. Mobile video uses part of the cellular bandwidth, and actually a significant part. Calculations seem to vary on how many simultaneous mobile video users a single cell can support, but it is only around 10 receivers. Over the limit and you will get a “network unavailable” error message. There are plenty of occasions when that limit would be totally unacceptable: imagine the crowd at a football match wanting to see the replay of a goal. On the other hand, it is a very attractive option for the operator, as the infrastructure is already there to transmit the content and the current crop of This article is contributed by Dick Hobbs and is based on research commissioned by the International Association of Broadcast Manufacturers, the body which represents broadcasting manufacturers and media technology companies worldwide. Up-close content on mobile phones It is an obvious thing to say, but content made for HD is going to look pretty unimpressive when down-scaled to 320 x 240 for a mobile phone. In HD you can lay the action in front of the viewer; for mobile television you have to be up close all the time. Captions are a real issue in mobile television: they have to be huge to be legible. A leading manufacturer told me recently that 98% of the complaints received by mobile television operators are about text legibility. That is not the only consideration in preparing content for mobile television. Although some of the trial systems have suggested that people are prepared to watch for longer than anyone expected – as much as 40 minutes in the UK trial – in 8

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AV Specialist Africa Edition - Volume 93

Mobile TV: bonanza or banana skin?
Students in mobile TV
Interactive digital signage
CNBC roars in Africa
Swazi TV upgrade to tapeless future

AV Specialist Africa Edition - Volume 93