Public, Education and Government (PEG) operators should focus on Internet...

Telecommunications Officers and Advisors. “The real format of the future” for PEG operators is online multimedia content, whether SD, HD, 3D, or social media, DeHaven said. PEG operators have to think more about interactive media “as a way to reach folks out there” and less about the type of video format they're using to reach people, DeHaven said. Quality is important because cable companies will show “an increasing desire” to carry PEG channels in an HD format, he said. “They're not going to want to have anything on their system that doesn’t look good,” he said. HD will offer PEG operators better resolution for computer-generated text and graphics used in government and education programming, DeHaven said, as HD becomes “the baseline for the public.” DeHaven cited industry data forecasting that 50 percent of TVs will be Web-enabled by 2015. Most support content services such as Netflix, YouTube and Roku, other user-generated options are well-suited to PEG operators, he said. Free developer kits enable “anyone to develop an HD channel for free,” and cost-efficient Web streaming and on-demand client platforms are available, too, he said. He also cited “YouTube clones” that allow operators to make local versions of “YouTube-like forums” tailored to a community’s interests. “3D is starting to feel pretty inevitable,” DeHaven said, though “a year ago I might not have felt the same way.” But 3D is “still immature” as it relates to the markets and scale of operation of most PEG operators and requires “significant investment” in technology, skill sets and staffing, he said.