What Does the ‘Excess Spectrum’ Debate Mean to Event Producers?

Remember the old Dick Tracy comic strips where it was possible to do a bi-directional conversation on a wristwatch? We aren’t quite at that level in 2010, but the fact is that this year will several options for digital transmission of content to small form factors that look surprisingly like yesteryear’s transistor televisions, except with larger screens and much lighter weight.

ATSC standards-based mobile digital television (M-DTV or ATSC/153) was approved in 2009 and is expected to begin appearing in consumer devices in April, 2010, means that free over-the-air (OTA) television will once again be available in a portable form factor.

Gone are the days of fuzzy analog TV signals for these portable devices, replaced by a clean digital signal that’s capable of quality up to 1080p HDTV. Some of these devices, as well as mobile handsets that were introduced last week at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, will have built-in HDMI jacks, meaning that the content streamed to these portable players to mobile customers can also be viewed on a large screen in the living room.

The spectrum that is used to do these mobile DTV signals is part of the same signal freed up by the switch of OTA broadcasts from analog to digital. In addition, the content is sent out in a digital multicast, meaning that it doesn’t matter whether 3 or 3 million people are watching mass-appeal content—anyone within range of the ATSC/153 tower will be able to receive it.

Interestingly, though, besides the use of multicast mass broadcast, there’s also additional bandwidth (and spectrum, if the wireless phone companies lose their appeal to re-take that spectrum from the broadcasters) to allow for unicast streams.

These unicast streams are often used for on-demand content, but could also be used to play a select number of additional live HDTV streams within a select market area. Which brings up an interesting question: what if live event videography had the ability to look just the same as television?

It would if it were television, meaning if it were broadcast on the same OTA signal. It’s an intriguing thought, the idea of having your local live event also broadcast to portable DTV devices.

This also brings up a secondary question: would this TV-like delivery influence customers to consider an offer to buy live streaming time on a local digital “TV” channel as part of an event?

The “excess spectrum” debate, which is raging in front of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an important debate for event videographers to follow, as the mobile industry’s insatiable quest for bandwidth has led to some rather suspect claims about the need for OTA broadcasts, even going so far as to suggest that HDTV signals should be downgraded to standard-definition signals so that the wireless frequency spectrum can be increased.

This is especially important in times when breaking news or disasters are in play.

“Broadcasters have always been a lifeline in times of crisis,” said Gordon Smith, President and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, “but never more so than in recent days for millions of Americans living in the path of these historic storms. Put simply, there is no technology that matches the reliability and immediacy of a local broadcast signal delivering credible information to thousands of people simultaneously.”

In the end, it’s up to those of us who do live event videography to make our voices heard as to good alternative broadcast uses, and I think the ability to broadcast local civic events, graduations, even weddings, are prime examples of how your local broadcaster could both use these events as leverage for the relevance of local OTA broadcasts.

In return, if the broadcaster has a way to add advertisements to the front- or back-end of one of your live event broadcasts, they would generate enough revenue to offer the broadcast time to you, which could be appealing to houses of worship, local civic organizations and the like.

The window of time to provide these alternate broadcast suggestions is small, however, lasting only until this soon-to-be-established technology finds a mission and business model – or is eliminated altogether by the relentless push forward of the wireless service providers, who could also benefit in the long run from the broadcasters’ retention of OTA mobile delivery.

Yes, that’s opportunity knocking, with an intensity we don’t often hear. Find out more about this by reading this primer article at Streaming Media.com.