LARCAN sees a strong interest on the part of broadcasters in rolling out mobile DTV service and is approaching the market with an integrated solution to make it easy to deploy, according to Scott Barella, the company’s VP technology and business development.
The company is building a mobile DTV ecosystem consisting of partners like Envivio, Triveni Digital and UDcast to offer an integrated solution. The last piece in the puzzle is the mobile DTV modulator, and LARCAN anticipates the availability that piece later in the year.
According to Barella, offering an integrated mobile DTV solution is extremely important to broadcasters who experienced quite a bit of finger pointing among vendors during the initial stages of their DTV roll out. “Here we are going to take that pain away, (allow broadcasters to) call one number and make sure it is all integrated correctly --and make sure it is deployed right,” he said.
Over the past year, said Barella, there has been much focus placed on what broadcasters actually do with their spectrum going forward, and mobile “seems to be a logical use of the spectrum.”
In his view, mobile DTV will usher in a new era of broadcasting –one in which the content that is ultimately successful on mobile DTV will be different than the content transmitted terrestrially today.
“It’s (Mobile DTV is) a point in the television technology where we hand this over to the next generation,” he said. “I think there will be a big change in the content that’s offered for mobile, and the viewer watching that content.” Successful business mobile DTV models will recognize the demand for different content and capitalize on it, he added.
I spoke with Scott Barella about his perspective on mobile DTV, gap filling conventional DTV coverage and the need to backup DTV transmission facilities for emergencies. That interview is presented as a podcast.
