Mobile DTV picks up steam ahead of CES

The Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), an alliance of more than 800 local broadcasters working to accelerate the development of mobile digital television in the US, is picking up momentum ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next month. The group this week finished its first ever Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) Mobile DTV Plugfest in Washington DC, where a full commercial trial is underway.

The Plugfest consisted of a technical trial in which participating companies could test the interoperability of their devices with other companies. The 15 companies involved in the Plugfest, including Dell, LG, Harris, Samsung and others, tested their devices against the recently approved ATSC standard for mobile TV at the Consumer Electronic Association’s (CEA) headquarters in DC. Four independently developed transmission systems, 12 receiver systems and four software vendors participated.

While it works through the technical issues, the OMVC is also imagining a whole host of new scenarios to help mobile DTV take off: emergency alerts that can be customized by market or location, live audio feeds, datacasting with traffic maps, closed captioning, broadcasting clips of sporting events, news highlights that could be stored in the memory on a device, push video on-demand for future viewing, time-shifted TV, mobile digital video resourcing, interacting polling, electronic coupons, targeted advertising and an electronic service guide for ease of tuning – to name a few.

The OMVC also released survey results ahead of CES, supporting these scenarios, but indicating that – more than anything – consumers want local content on the go. Out of 1,000 respondents, half said watching live digital TV via a mobile device was appealing, and nine out of ten said they are interested in watching live news and weather programming while on-the-go.

Contrary to popular opinion that the younger generation doesn’t care about local news and information, the OMVC’s survey, conducted by Magid Media Labs, found the opposite to be true – they care about it, they just aren’t getting it how they want it. For these users, who will be the early adopters of mobile TV, local news ranked up there with entertainment and sports, according to Anne Schelle, executive director of the OMVC. Of the respondents, 51% said they want local content as part of the experience versus the 18% that preferred a strictly on-demand model. Nearly half of consumers also said they wouldn’t mind commercials on their mobile device, and one-third would pay – either a subscription or pay-per-view – for premium content such as sporting events or recent movies.

“What was most striking about the survey was Millennials; they indexed very high in their interest in live, local information and emergency reports, unlike traditional TV viewing,” Schelle said. “The stats for traditional TV viewing were something like 26% of millennial will watch live, local news and information at home. They came back that they want that information and it tracked with general studies with millennials wanting access to that information, because they aren’t getting on the platforms they care about, which are laptops, netbooks and the key category being the cellular device.”

Mobile TV of any sort has been slow to gain traction in the US where there is competition between standards, as well as competition with a slew of other free applications for entertainment on-the-go. At last year’s CES, the OVMC said to expect full commercial deployments and products within the year. There are now a few devices ready for market, but the OMVC is still in the midst of completing technical test beds in Chicago and several other cities, as well as the full consumer showcase in DC. To date, there are 30 broadcast stations on-the-air with initial signals, out of about 1,600 in the US.

At CES, the OMVC will be demoing DTV commercial products and prototypes, including portable DTVs, personal media players, portable computers and in-car screens. There will also be a host of mobile DTV dongles on display, and the OMVC will have ATSC mobile handset prototypes, which Schelle said have been significantly improved from earlier prototypes.