NAB Tech Group to Study Placing DTV, Radio Receivers in Mobile Devices
Broadcasters will study ways they can get involved with the consumer electronics industry, hoping to put DTV and radio receivers in devices such as iPods, cellphones and laptop computers, said Edward Munson, vp-TV for Lin TV. Munson heads an NAB task force, comprised of TV and radio executives on the NAB board, on technology advocacy that will look at the best way to bring broadcasters and device makers together. “We've not had a seat at the table,” as companies develop portable media devices, he said.
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The group isn’t looking to create a broadcast version of CableLabs, Munson said: “This is going to be more of a think tank approach.” He wouldn’t say how much money NAB devoted to the project. The group’s first task will be to poll device makers about their research and development cycles and gauge their views of broadcast technology. The NAB board will decide how to proceed at its meeting this fall, addressing such questions as “do we need to hire a consultant and what kind of background that consultant should have,” Munson said. The group will also study businesses broadcasters’ spectrum licenses allow them to enter that “perhaps aren’t even reliant on [traditional] broadcasting,” Munson said.
Munson would have liked to see broadcasters get started on this project sooner, he said. Until broadcasters had a hard date for turning off TV’s analog signals, it was more difficult to organize industry-wide digital technology efforts, Munson said.
Some work on mobile DTV is going on at the standards- setting level in various ATSC committees, but it’s in the “early stages of development,” said MSTV Senior Vp Victor Tawil: “Obviously, we are looking at various ways of transmitting digital to mobile.” Proprietary systems such as Qualcomm’s MediaFlo have made some progress, but in terms of viewing TV broadcasters’ digital signals on mobile devices, “I don’t think we're there yet,” he said: “The bottom line is we're monitoring it.”
The costs associated with integrating digital receivers into new devices is already low and will continue to fall as production ramps up, said Yankee Group Analyst Adi Kishore. “For a consumer electronics company, there’s a compelling argument to do that,” he said. Though few people are watching live TV on their laptops today, the consumer trend is toward mobility, he said: “If you're a broadcaster, you need to be looking at all these options.”