Will the real Mobile TV stand up please?

Discussions and debates abound about what Mobile TV is/isn’t and what it should/shouldn’t be. I find a lot of people (and companies for that matter) are washing out the brilliant colours of this new mobile evolution by introducing inferior services and brandishing it to the masses today as the new Messiah of digital media.

Mobile TV is about new technologies and new programming of content. Whilst there will be the ability to watch what ever we want to watch, the fundamental difference is our experience with using it.

 

Recent trials of DVB-H here in Australia and in the UK have had users extremely impressed with the quality of the images and sound. Whilst they are still viewing mainstream TV media content, the experience overall is one of sound commercialisation. In other words, the majority of people who trialled these services will pay for them.

 

Today, organisations are releasing content over inferior networks and are calling it Mobile TV. This abuse of branding has already met with those companies that are releasing full Mobile TV infrastructures to brand their services differently.

 

Media consumption over mobile devices must be aesthetic, relevant, personalised and time/space aware. Five years from now we shall see a different type of TV viewer emerging with Mobile TV that is only just appearing with early adopters using Digital TV technologies to address their time and space shifting needs.

 

Mobile TV is about an emerging suite of services and it is not mainstream today as some would have you think. Telecommunication networks have to be upgraded (whether it’s DVB-H or DMB or some hybrid form of IPTV) and mobile aware programming of the media content needs to be produced.

 

Mobile TV will be driven by the people using the technology. The richer services that are inter-meshed with interactivity and taking advantage of existing building block services such as location aware technology will heighten awareness of its importance in a mobile, personal environment.

 

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Want to learn more about Mobile TV in Australia? Then if you are in Sydney next week on Tuesday 21st February, register for the AIMIA MCIDG Mobile TV lunch time forum. Details are here.