Mobile TV and video streaming – a short Q & A

By Steve Ardagh Walter

Why would anyone want to watch TV on a mobile phone?
A very good question – and it’s not just my Dad who would start off with this one. Given the choice between watching the latest feature film / your favourite sitcom / [insert your preferred viewing here] in the living room on your TV set, or watching the above on your phone, you’d have to be a little touched to choose the latter.

Except that not everyone has this choice all the time – and because people are starting to get more attractive options for consuming content, there is an opportunity for mobile operators, MVNOs, content owners and distributors to satisfy a new set of user preferences. Some examples of these new options are: to watch that film later when I’m back in the living room (met by renting a DVD, downloading to the personal video recorder – PVR – or set top box -STB); watching some attractive content while elsewhere (the mobile opportunity above); or starting to watch while on the mobile and continuing on the TV when I get home (which needs a service that can work with the context of a user)

Another response to this question is that mobile video viewing is happening anyway – just look at the growth in traffic from YouTube, Hulu and many others, not just to mobile laptops but also to smartphones.

Didn’t a set of trials show there wasn’t any real demand for this a few years ago ?
There have been trials which have generated useful insights about consumer preferences, but which didn’t result in widespread commercial services. But this is what innovation is all about: as Thomas Edison said, any ‘failure’ is really a step towards success as it brings better understanding of your problem. More to the point, several factors have recently made mobile video far more attractive: 3G networks with HSDPA have brought a lot more capacity, so any 3G device can be used as a viewer (trials 5 or more years ago used specific handsets with DVB-T receivers); online video has become far more widespread (YouTube again); more devices have high quality screens; and ‘non-linear TV’ (where the user chooses content and when to watch) is becoming increasingly common at the expense of ‘linear TV’ (where the broadcaster dictates a timed sequence of programmes).

OK … what sort of video content is out there ?
There is a lot of content suitable for mobile viewing, but the market is still at an early stage. Some examples include live sports and news (ideal material for a dedicated fanbase or people wanting to keep up with events); sports clips (again for fanbases – including ‘long tail’ audiences such as, with no offence to enthusiasts, cycling, canoeing, wrestling, synchronised swimming …); cartoons; and mobile editions of popular drama series and soaps. There are also ‘mobisodes’ – video series produced primarily for mobile viewers – which may or may not grow as a genre as the mobile video world expands. User Generated Content (UGC) is also feasible, but we haven’t come across a feasible business case for this: charged-for content does need to be seen as valuable and compelling by the customer.
Along with high value content, you may well want to supply advertising to bolster revenues from subscription or Pay-Per-View customers. You might want to look at a (part) ad-funded service; or conversely offer some video content to enrich a package which is largely funded by ads. Either way, as long as you receive customer consent to getting adverts, and collect an appropriate amount of data about their interests and preferences, you can achieve a significant contribution to your overall business case for video. You can sell the ad space or slots yourself (by channel, attached to specific clips, delivered to the most applicable customers), or outsource this work.

And devices ?
The short answer is that video can be streamed to and viewed on any 3G device. If you also want to allow downloading and saving of content on the device, or “sideloading” from a PC, you’ll almost certainly have to implement DRM (see below) . Various standards are also useful for delivering video to smartphones – for example Flash video can play on some of these (though not iPhones or iPads), and Windows Media can play on Windows phones. However, you shouldn’t now need to worry about video formats or handset types – we handle all these combinations.

Will I need rights management ?
Digital Rights Management (DRM) will almost certainly be needed if video is downloaded and saved to a device. DRM is not to be confused with contract rights management – the contractual processes between producers, distributors and broadcasters controlling where content may be played, at what times, in what formats, etc. There are several standards for implementing DRM, including the OMA’s DRM (widely implemented on mobile phones), Microsoft’s PlayReady and Windows Media DRM, and Apple’s FairPlay.

Won’t this cause yet more problems for my mobile network ?
If we’re talking about your 3G network (offering streamed video on 2G, even with EDGE, is not a good idea), the video traffic which you stream as a service will be a very modest load on top of – and ideally will displace a growing amount of – the vast amounts of data which you’re already carrying for other people. As a recent report from Ericsson has highlighted, mobile data traffic is now more than that from voice (see http://www.mobilebusinessbriefing.com/article/ericsson-mobile-data-has-overtaken-voice). This data traffic is heavily concentrated on 3G networks – voice traffic still tends to be carried on 2G, but will migrate over the coming years as 3G coverage improves. You should plan on using between 120 and 500kbps for a stream to one customer, depending on video quality. Comparing the number of streams you will sell per month with capacity per cell site, both now and with forthcoming upgrades to the HSDPA standard, will show that your own streaming service will not bring your network to its knees.

Where has mobile video worked ?
We have customers in the Asia Pacific region who have thriving mobile video businesses: we and they see continued growth in customers, revenues and profits ahead. Several other networks around the world are also providing mobile TV and video services. We’re convinced that as mobility becomes increasingly relevant and capable, video distribution to handsets will really take off.

How can I find out more ?
Firstly, try our video demo on your 3G phone by going to sla.abdeus.com (note that some networks may block non-iPhone streaming traffic).

Then, please contact us for more information!  You can reach me via email: steve@sla-mobile.com, tel +44 7790 932545