When you are at the cutting edge of an emerging market, like Siano in MDTV, one of the fascinating dynamics is watching (and participating as) the industry grows up. 

We recently visited the Telematics show in Munich, the event attended by just everyone associated with the automotive communications industry. 

So we figured that many car manufacturers would be there, but my goodness, we were surprised by how varied the telematics ecosystem is.  And it's gratifying to see how the industry is readying itself for MDTV.

So what did the event teach us about MDTV?

Well, let's take a look at what the overall trend in the market is, specifically Infotainment.   For example, I was recently in New York and spent a bit of time in the back of a taxi sitting in horrible traffic (You may have heard that there is traffic in New York from time to time.). Now, normally, a taxi ride in New York is occupied by looking out the window at all the interesting and sometimes bizarre things the city has to offer.  But this day was different, because there was a monitor on the back of the front seat (bench) with television news playing … or so I thought.

In actuality, it was a running loop of about five minutes of news.  For most people, that's enough time that it will seem like it's live, but for someone like me, sitting in traffic, it was an "opportunity" to watch the same news report about eight times. 

But …

With MDTV in place, it would not be a running loop.  It would be live television, and the passenger could even select what channel s/he wants to watch. 

So ironically, whereas the current system reminds the rider that the traffic is wasting enough time that the video loop has restarted, a new system – with MDTV – would help pass the time in a more relaxing way.

To paraphrase an old Hollywood song, That's Infotainment!

But obviously, infotainment doesn't work as well in passenger cars, at least not in the front seat. 

So we are looking at taxis, buses, subways and trains much more than cars.

Going into CES, where we expect a lot of the device manufacturers to be showing their latest in MDTV development, we will be interested to see if they are on the same page as the Telematics industry.

We look forward to seeing you there in January!