Over the next several editions of “RF Update” and “NAB Update,” Broadcast Engineering will present the perspective of various RF vendors on the issues likely to be making news at the 2011 NAB Show.
Consumers today want information everywhere, all of the time, and for the future health of their business, broadcasters need to be one of the options they have for accessing that information, says Richard Fiore Jr., Thomson Broadcast vice president of transmission and mobility sales worldwide.
At the 2011 NAB Show, Fiore expects to see further evidence that mobile DTV will be on the minds of broadcasters interested in RF as they seek to tap into the content desires of consumers on the go. However, given the uncertainty created by the FCC as it pursues its National Broadband Plan, don’t expect to see much more than discussion about mobile DTV, he says.
“Everybody is thinking about it, but no one will do anything about it until the FCC takes action,” Fiore says.
Given the position computers have established in consumer homes and offices over the past 20 years and the popularity of smart phones and tablets today, Fiore says he understands the government’s perspective.
“But, I am not always sure they take into account everything. They have a vision, and I am not always sure that everybody’s vision is 20/20,” he says. “There always seems to be a prejudice toward one segment or another, and right now, they are favoring broadband.”
If the commission remains committed to favoring wireless carriers over broadcasters and moves forward with its plans to recoup 120MHz of TV spectrum, mobile DTV could be seriously affected, he says. That’s because the success broadcasters will have in attracting a mobile audience will be directly tied to the ability of viewers to receive the mobile DTV signal.
It all boils down to quality of service, Fiore says.
“How much do you have to pay for quality of service in terms of bandwidth usage?” he asks. “In mobile, depending on what you want to deliver, you need FEC (forward error correction), which can double or quadruple the video bandwidth of the encoder. It all comes down to bandwidth. How much bandwidth do they have to play with?”
See Thomson Broadcast at 2011 NAB Show in Booth SU4917.
