The satellite should be overhead in just a minute…
Not so many years ago we were sitting on a ratty old couch in a windowless room in a satellite uplink center in Sidney, Australia. It was 3am.
We were sending a cut version of 5Takes, a show we were producing for The Travel Channel back to Silver Spring.
The cost was, very expensive.
The hardware to do it, even moreso.
You’ve probably seen the mobile version of this – the sat truck, at major news events.
Sometimes there are lots of them.
They’re all doing the same thing – sending back a live TV signal via a satellite in geosynchronous orbit positioned 22,000 miles above the earth
Complex? You bet.
And now, along comes a little piece of very simple technology that simply blows this whole multi-billion dollar system away in an instant.
You probably have one in your pocket, and when it’s not butt-dialing your cousin in Detroit, it can be used to send live HD video back to anywhere on earth, from anywhere. If you own a sat-truck business, you might want to consider converting them to milk vans. No one has figured out how to deliver milk by iPhone – at least not yet.
Up until now, the idea of broadcasting or webcasting live video might have been seen by some in ‘the business’ as marginal.
Well, no longer.
Now, it seems, the Gold Standard of Broadcast Television Journalism is going to adopt the cheap, reliable and simple iPhone to replace satellite transmissions.
Within a matter of weeks, the BBC is set to roll out a new iOS app to its field journalists that will enable them to report live from the field using nothing but an iPhone. The app will allow reporters to use the iPhone to broadcast live video, audio, or other commentary in real time via a 3G connection on the field. This will make the iPhone even more useful to reporters, and marks a significant adoption of the device in a field typically requiring thousands of dollars worth of expensive video cameras and satellite transmission equipment.
With The BBC giving iPhones to all their correspondents, it is surely on a matter of time before they start shooting stories on their iPhones and cutting them on the iPhone iMovie app ($1.99), then uploading the stories back or putting them directly online.
And if The BBC and do it, so can every other newspaper or magazine or website. And it doesn’t just have to be news.
This is yet another classic example of Shumpeter’s theory of creative/destruction.
Can live webcasts, cutting out the ‘studio’ be far behind?
6 Comments
directorguy June 23, 2011
As a 27 year director of live news and entertainment programs I do not like the look of the new media tools i.e…webcams, videophones, I-phones etc. However, they are the tools of now and the future as we move into more immediacy and less money for true broadcast tools. There are companies that have a mentality of is it good enough for broadcast and in some respects it may be. But to subscribe to the lowest common denominator or cost is not where broadcast television should be aiming but rather to set itself apart from the youtubes, twitters and such by making quality video and audio as well as content the standard.
Michael Rosenblum June 24, 2011
I think if you look at the history of technology fast and cheap almost always beats out good in the triad of future. Betamax is a great case in point.
Heycameraman June 21, 2011
We stream live shots with our iPhones now here at Kmbc Tv. But I agree at this point it’s to supplement our coverage. I agree in the very near future this is going to change. The word of the day soon for sat truck companies?? Sell sell sell!!!
kenny June 21, 2011
RAAM (The Race Across America – bike ride) that’s going on right now has a live streaming unit using iPhones. Actually, it’s Travel Channel Academy grad Rachelle Lucas! And, though it’s cool as hell, it’s certainly spotty. And…since the race takes place ACROSS America, there are miles and miles of dead spots on the wide open roads in the middle of nowhere.
But, yep, Michael, I agree…it’s where we’re headed.
http://www.raceacrossamerica.org/raam/raam2.php?N_webcat_id=303
Aaron June 20, 2011
For the moment, live streams from phones (or even the $40,000 streaming backpacks) are supplementary, rather than replacement technology. They let you go live when a satellite or microwave truck isn’t there yet.
Unfortunately, they also don’t guarantee any sort of transmission reliability. When you book a satellite window, you’re paying for guaranteed bandwidth back to the studio. Over the cellular network, you get what you get, and in the U.S. what you get is either spotty or slow. The streaming backpacks buy you some redundancy at the expense of latency, but then you’re stuck covering news only in areas that have coverage by multiple cellular providers.
Until the mobile data providers can sell you a Service Level Agreement guaranteeing bandwidth and uptime, iPhones will be a useful supplementary tool, but nothing close to a replacement for a dedicated transmission path.
I do think we’ll get there eventually, but stateside, that’s at least another 5-10 years out for widespread reliable bandwidth.
Michael Rosenblum June 20, 2011
Of course, as Martin from The BBC notes, it depends upon bandwidth availability, but I think we can certainly see what is coming. I, for one, would not invest in a sat truck company