Biding time with mobile TV

PVR capabilities are coming to handsets and mobile networks, but DRM issues could hold them back

At first glance there appears to be nothing that special about Motorola's new DH line of hand-held mobile TV devices. But these large-screened units access digital video broadcast-handheld networks and are unique among their numerous peers in that they allow pausing, rewinding and fast-forwarding through live programming.

Motorola has brought personal video recorder (PVR) capabilities to mobile TV, and while their extent is limited — only about five minutes can be stored in memory — their addition could create new value for mobile TV. Traditionally, mobile TV's value comes from place-shifting. PVR capabilities would give users the ability to time-shift, watching what ordinarily would be live TV at their convenience.

While sporting events or breaking news coverage are conducive to live streaming, a good deal of standard TV programming is not. Users who can't watch a 30-minute sitcom or a 90-minute movie at a scheduled time likely aren't going to take the time to watch the same content on their mobile phones.

As longer-form programming becomes more prevalent in mobile TV, time-shifting becomes more crucial, said Venkat Eswara, director of marketing for Motorola's mobile TV portfolio. So far, Motorola's TV tablets are built to accommodate the buffering and immediate replay of video, not record whole shows, but Eswara said full-show recording is not far off. First, however, content providers and mobile TV network providers need to work out the critical issue of how digital rights management (DRM) works for mobile time-shifted content, he said.

“It's not a technology limitation,” Eswara said. “It's about the business model and about DRM. Once those are solved, we can bring that functionality quite easily.”

Time-shifting isn't an entirely new concept. In fact, it's existed for years with video-on-demand (VOD). AT&T, Sprint and Verizon all offer some form of unicast VOD over their 3G networks. The problem is that unicast streaming drains a lot of network resources, which becomes costly for operators and consumers.

Ultimately, time-shifting could be applied to the unicast model in a less resource-consuming fashion, said Kay Johansson, chief technology officer for MobiTV. Programming could be downloaded late at night or early in the morning and stored in the phone. Longer-form stored programming complemented with shorter-burst live programming could balance out network demands, he said.

Korean operators already have launched off-peak subscription services, and Comverse is working with a North American operator on a similar service trial in the U.S. Daphna Steinmetz, chief innovation officer for Comverse, said it is offering a subscription-based service that downloads episodes nightly of popular syndicated TV shows such as Friends and Seinfeld to a customer's phone.

Subscription-based time-shifting also may be available on broadcast networks. Qualcomm's MediaFLO has built clip-casting into its forward link only (FLO) technology, which can use network downtime to upload content on the phone. But instead of using the 3G network to send a specific video file to a user, FLO would broadcast the program over an unused channel. Phones with authorization to receive that programming then would pull the video out of the air, saving it in memory for later viewing.

But the technology has yet to be deployed by MediaFLO — not only because of DRM issues but also storage limitations on most devices, said Omar Javaid, senior director of business development for MediaFLO.

“You could do it today,” Javaid said. “We've already demonstrated it. But demonstrating it and commercially launching it are two different things.”