Dyle Mobile TV

By Sascha Segan

The new broadcast service Dyle Mobile TV is a brave attempt by TV broadcast station owners to stay relevant in the "watch anywhere" world, but it feels like a beta. Broadcast could definitely compete with Internet-based media, but to do so, it needs to cost less, offer more programming, and have a DVR option.

Dyle is currently available on one phone, the $459 Samsung Galaxy S Lightray 4G from MetroPCS. But we've seen this technology in many gadgets over the past few years because it's been a long time in the works. Dyle promises "a range of Dyle compatible Android and iOS devices coming soon," and we expect to see it in portable TVs like the ones RCA has shown and add-on boxes like the Tivit, which could send Dyle streams to iPhones and iPads.

The Urgency of Dyle
Mobile TV has been failing to take off in the U.S. since 2006. First Modeo said?it would bring the European DVB-H system to the U.S.; it produced a prototype phone, then vanished. Qualcomm's MediaFLO?got Verizon?and AT&T on board in 2007, never achieved critical mass, and ended in 2010. AT&T now owns the old MediaFLO spectrum.

But there's an urgency behind Dyle that makes it different. Unlike previous attempts at mobile TV, Dyle is owned by existing broadcast TV stations. Not content providers, the actual station owners. The guys with the towers and antennas. Those stations are using many megahertz of valuable radio spectrum that's being eyed hungrily by wireless companies. Cell phone companies first took the UHF TV channels 70-83 in the 1980s, and then channels 52-69 in 2008. As smartphone usage rises, broadcast TV usage remains flat, any much-hyped trends towards cable-cutting notwithstanding.

(Chart data sources: Nielsen, Comscore, CTIA)

The broadcast station owners would never admit to this, but they need to show that they're using their valuable, "beachfront" spectrum for something people actually want. Officially, they will say that they are necessary so they can broadcast emergency alerts when the apocalypse comes, but it really helps their case if people on that smartphone curve are taking advantage of some service they provide.

Channel Selection, Coverage and Price
Okay, first question: Why Dyle, and not just regular digital TV? Dyle's format, ATSC M/H, is designed to have much better error correction than standard over-the-air broadcast signals, and it's designed to work with much poorer signal strength. On the other hand, it's a lower-quality stream than standard digital broadcast. It's the broadcast industry's way of getting to small-screen devices with tiny antennas which wouldn't be able to get a solid over-the-air digital TV signal.

Dyle is currently available in 41 metro areas around the US, but coverage isn't perfect. In San Francisco, for instance, Dyle's coverage map omits the Inner Richmond neighborhood, and its New York map has a blank strip running up the west side of Manhattan.

In each city, you have up to six channels. They're some mix of ABC, CBS, CW, NBC, FOX, PBS, ION, kids' channel Qubo, Telemundo and Univision. It's different in every city, and most cities have fewer than six channels. Boston, Philadelphia and Seattle have three, for instance, and Denver has only one. Your Dyle experience is going to vary a whole lot depending on where you live.

Dyle channels are, right now, exactly what's on TV at any given time. That makes them a step above many of the "live" streaming video products out there, which can be loops of "mobile-only" content that's much less compelling than the real TV broadcasts.

Dyle uses an open standard, so Dyle phones will also be compatible with channels from the competing Mobile500 Alliance. If Mobile500 makes good on its plan to turn on 15-20 channels in each major city, that could be a solid lineup of content. But Dyle isn't anywhere near there yet.

I tried Dyle in four locations in midtown Manhattan, where I should be able to get NBC, FOX, qubo and Telemundo. I checked in an office by a window, in a windowless doctor's office, and two locations out on the street. I got NBC and Fox every time, but Telemundo and qubo weren't available at one of my four locations each. Oddly, it didn't seem to matter whether I was indoors or outdoors.? Extending the seven-inch antenna on the Lightray mattered a huge amount.

Dyle is free, which is a big deal, but it's only free until the end of 2012. After that, the organization reserves the right to charge for content. With its current array of choices, though, I think that would be a real mistake.

Using Dyle
Right now, Dyle is an app you launch on your Android phone. When you first launch it, you'll be asked to set up a profile with demographic information. Every time you launch it afterward, you'll be asked what city you're in. Why Dyle can't remember this information or get it from the phone's GPS is a mystery.

Click through that, and you're treated to a 30-second long, mandatory channel scan on every app startup. Once again, I don't know why it can't cache the channel frequencies and offer an option to scan when you need to. A green or gray dot next to a channel name on the electronic program guide shows whether you can receive the channel at that moment.

The Dyle app has two main options: Home, which is pretty useless, and Live TV, which is the electronic program guide. The EPG shows you what's on TV right now and for the next show. You can look for programs within the next seven days using a search feature, but you can't freely browse the future, or search by time. Tap on an info icon and you'll get a one-line description of a program. For programs in the future, you can set an alarm to alert you to watch it when it's on.

One thing you can't do, unfortunately, is record, rewind, or pause programming. That's especially painful on mobile devices, because the mobile world is one of interruptions. You'll be using this TV to surreptitiously watch sports in the office or while you're on line (not online, mind you), and you'll want to pause it when your number comes up. MCV hasn't ruled out DVR functionality, but unlike Mobile500, it doesn't promise it.

Tuning a channel takes about eight seconds, making channel-flipping difficult. Once you're locked in, the picture is sharp and clear. Dyle broadcasts 416-by-240 H.264 streams, and with good signal, they look very high quality. It's a widescreen format, so it fills up a phone's screen with no black bars. As signal fades, first images get blocky, and then they start to stutter.

Dyle vs. The Internet
The idea of a few channels of broadcast, linear TV seems archaic in this age of watch-anywhere streaming, especially because MobiTV has been offering a hybrid live/on-demand TV system with AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile for years. But Dyle has a few things going for it.

First of all, it's free. Netflix, Hulu, Sprint TV, T-Mobile TV ? none of them are free. CBS's TV.com and Crackle Movies are free on mobile devices, but they're the exceptions to a generally subscription-oriented rule.

Second of all, it's actually what's showing on TV. That includes local news, local sports, and prime time shows that content owners tend to try to hold back from online broadcast.

Third, network congestion has no effect on broadcast TV quality. Choked-up cellular networks can wreak havoc on Internet streaming, but broadcast TV stays clear no matter how many people are using it.

Finally, Dyle is much more power efficient than LTE streaming. I got 3 hours, 4 minutes of Netflix streaming on the Lightray over LTE with the screen at max brightness, but a full four hours of Dyle TV.

Are You Glad You Use Dyle? Do You Think Everyone Should?
Dyle is an interesting start, but for it to compete with Internet media, it needs to offer a broader array of programming on a wider variety of devices, with some sort of DVR function for people who need to put their phones down from time to time.

I'm cautious because we've seen mobile TV stumble here before. Qualcomm's MediaFLO never got traction; it was on too few devices, offered too few channels, and couldn't justify its subscription rates.

For Dyle to succeed, it needs to be truly "TV Anywhere," giving people the programming they want on their own schedule. That's the experience Americans get at home with their DVRs, and they don't expect any less on their phones.

Broadcast channels are desperate for Dyle and Mobile500 to succeed. That urgency bodes well for consumers, because it means broadcasters should ramp up channel options quickly. While a single expensive phone with just a few linear channels doesn't make for a compelling service yet, Dyle and Mobile500 have a promising future.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/rgW7qyiA0l8/0,2817,2408049,00.asp

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