Mobile TV Broadcast World Standards

About Mobile TV in China during olympics game

There are 2.1 million mobile TV users, including 250,000 paid-for subscriptions, at rates as low as $1.60 a month. In China video is the only killer application for 3G so far. Maybe this stats could seem so high, but we have to keep in mind that nowadays, China has more than 508 million users (July’07). So only 0,4% of users use this kind of 3G service, less than other countries such us UK, Italy, Germany or Spain.

Mobile TV is well recognized as an important service in China. Mobile TV services will be used officially during the Olympic 2008. MII and SARFT are taking care of the network building, Service Delivery platform, Charging, etc; to jointly provide the services.
CCSA ( China Communication Standards Association) is busy with the industrial standard making. CMCC and CU are busy with the mobile TV SDP trial. Platform vendors and Terminal vendors are working closely.

CCSA TC5, is responsible for the mobile TV standards drafting in CCSA.

Main responsible WG in TC5 is WG7 (Application&Service), other related WGs are WG4(CDMA), WG5(Security), WG8(Frequency), WG9(GSM/UMTS/TD-SCDMA).
–In WG4, BCMCS based on 3GPP2 DO release 0 enhance version, covering equipment, signalling, interface etc.
–In WG5, Security on WCDMA/TD-SCDMA MBMS service, and Security on CDMA2000 BCMCS service has been studied.
–In WG7, the general aspects of mobile TV system are being studied. Such as, General technical requirements for mobile multimedia service; Service Protection technical requirements of Mobile Multimedia Service;Terminal technical requirements of Mobile Multimedia Service, etc.
–In WG8, the available frequency for mobile TV in China, frequency resources for terrestrial Mobile TV system are being studied.
–In WG9, MBMS related topics are being studied

Nokia admits DVB-H still not taking off

Nokia's head of internet services has admitted DVB-H isn't taking off in the way the firm had hoped, and that customers seem more interested in downloading content than watching broadcasts.
Niklas Savander told a conference in Helsinki: "We have seen that there are multiple segments who are not interested in the broadcasting, but rather in downloads", Reuters reports. He also suggested "roll out is slower than... we anticipated a couple of years ago".

This should come as no surprise to anyone who watches TV. As the living room experience moves steadily towards an on-demand model, it seems perverse for the mobile-TV industry to be deploying a broadcast paradigm. There are situations where everyone wants to watch the same thing at the same time - sporting events or world-shaking news - but the rest of the time 3G networks seem to be sufficient for distributing video.
Nokia has pushed DVB-H very hard in Europe, and beyond, but there are still only 12 deployments worldwide (and three of those are in Italy).
Deploying a new broadcast network is very expensive, and operators are going to have to find innovative ways of clawing that money back if they're going to make any success of mobile video - and that's assuming that punters actually want to watch it anyway.

Swisscom will launch DVB-H based mobile TV service on 13 May

Swisscom has said it will launch Bluewin TV mobile on May 13. The mobile version of the TV service of the incumbent telecoms operator will use a DVB-H network. Bluewin TV mobile will cost CHF16 (€9.94) a month or CHF2 per day day and provide customers with mobile access to 20 channels, including the public services SF1 and TSR1 and commercial broadcasters such as Eurosport. The service will feature an electronic programme guide (EPG) and other additional services.
At the moment, DVB-H in Switzerland reaches 44% of the population. Customers in and around Basel, Berne, Geneva, Zurich and Lausanne will be able to receive UEFA Euro 2008 football coverage with a DVB-H enabled handset.
If viewers are outside the DVB-H coverage area or don’t possess a DVB-H enabled handset, they will be able to receive Bluewin TV mobile on the Vodafone live! portal using UMTS/EDGE, which covers 99.8% of the population

TANDBERG Television Drives TV’s Digital Destiny with Industry Leading Solutions for Next Generation Video

TANDBERG Television, part of the Ericsson Group, will show its award-winning solutions that are enabling the television industry to fulfill its digital destiny and video vision, today and for the future. Whether it's advanced compression systems, on-demand or content distribution, the company's products are being used today by the world's leading broadcasters, operators and programmers to deliver new viewer experiences and advertising opportunities. From state-of-the-art acquisition, contribution and distribution; through HDTV and VOD; to internet, mobile and IPTV – TANDBERG Television continues to drive the roll-out of multi-platform digital entertainment, and its NAB booth (#SU4210) will highlight live end-to-end demonstrations of its solutions for this multiplatform universe.
“NAB will provide us with the ideal opportunity to show how our best-in-class solutions are enabling today’s transition to digital TV, making broadcast TV analog turn-off a reality around the world. Moreover, as the personalized television experience gains momentum and HDTV becomes a mass market service, TANDBERG Television’s strong vision for the future of television is enabling broadcasters and operators to address the management, distribution and delivery of an ever increasing amount of video, to a growing community of global consumers,” says Eric Cooney, President and CEO of TANDBERG Television.
The TANDBERG Television booth will feature a number of zones focused on live demonstrations and interactive showcases of the company’s broad solutions portfolio. New products being launched include key developments in the company’s compression systems and software offerings, with solutions designed to meet customer needs today and help them grow tomorrow. The following zones will be featured:
From Acquisition to Delivery
The ‘Acquisition to Delivery’ zone will be demonstrating a broad range of TANDBERG Television contribution and distribution solutions. These include the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AVC encoders including the Voyager DSNG encoders, the latest DVB-S2 satellite modulator, the IP video gateway products, a full range of professional receivers in addition to control and management platforms for both linear and non-linear content distribution.
The centerpiece of this zone will be the new RX8320 TANDBERG Television's New professional receiver designed specifically to smooth the digital transition and improve programming reception see press release: TANDBERG Television's New Professional Receivers Smooth the Digital Transition and Improve Programming Distribution Efficiency
There will also be demonstrations of the latest EN8090 MPEG-4 AVC HD encoder configured for low delay contribution quality applications, of Clarus™, the powerful encoding pre-processing solution, and of the RX1290 decoding content between 1.5 Mbps (MPEG-4 AVC SD) up to 90 Mbps (MPEG-2 HD 4:2:2).

Mobile Television
The zone will feature demonstrations of TANDBERG Television's mPlex™ mobile TV encoder - the most advanced platform for mobile TV, providing the highest quality and density of encoding, featuring live multi-channel DVB-H transmission to handheld devices at the show. The mPlex encoder is equally applicable for 3G unicast and broadcast MBMS, as well as other mobile TV delivery interfaces such as T-DMB and ISDB-T. This most powerful mobile TV encoding/multiplexing/streaming platform has the flexibility to support simultaneous networks and emerging standards such as future ATSC M/H.
The capability for mobile TV leverages beyond the compression excellence of TANDBERG Television into the full scope of head-end to primary distribution, including systems management. As a part of the Ericsson group, the mobile TV solution extends to a fully packaged system from entire back-office to downloaded client that delivers broad and compelling consumer experiences - from fast channel-change, to podcast TV, to advertising and interactivity within a common system, all within the streaming environment of cellular delivery.
Broadband Television.

Taiwan market: Mobile TV trial broadcasters would prefer joint operations

Four of the five trial mobile TV broadcast licensees in Taiwan have suggested to the National Communications Commission (NCC) that they be allowed to work together or establish a joint venture to operate mobile TV services on an integrated radio frequency band of 12MHz, according to industry sources.
The NCC issued five mobile TV broadcasting licenses on a trial basis in November 2006, each assigned a 6MHz band covering either northern Taiwan or southern Taiwan, the sources indicated. The five trial broadcasting licensees are China Television (CTV), Public Television Service (PTS), Chinese Television System (CTS), Chung-Hwa Wideband Best Network (Tw-Airnet) and Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV), with TTV adopting the Qualcomm-developed MediaFLO standard while the other four are using the DVB-H standard.

The four licensees adopting DVB-H would prefer to operate jointly or set up a joint venture to broadcast over a combined 12MHz band, the sources pointed out, as this will involve less investment and market risk than individual operations on two separate bands, the sources explained.

ICO to partner with Alcatel-Lucent on DVB-SH

ICO Global Communications announced it will be launching a $500 million satellite into space April 14th that will eventually provide broadcast mobile TV service nationwide using digital video broadcast-satellite handheld (DVB-SH) technology.

“It is the largest commercial satellite ever lifted into space by (Atlas V booster),” CEO Tim Bryan said at a media event Tuesday afternoon. “We’ve worked for three years; spent $500 million to put this satellite program in space.”

DVB-SH, a variant of DVB-H that relies on satellite for delivery, is largely unproven (only satellite radio can be pointed to as a similar commercially launched service) for mobile TV services.

The Craig McCaw-backed company pointed to spectral efficiency as one of the greatest characteristics of the technology, which it plans to first trial in Las Vegas and Raleigh, N.C., around June or July. “We know DVB-SH is better. We’ve got the real world experience to back it up,” Bryan said. John Leonard, president of applications and business at Alcatel-Lucent, said trials have produced a spectral efficiency that’s twice as efficient as DVB-H.

ICO has signed on with Alcatel-Lucent to provide software that will manage content, the programming guide and interactive components for multiple screens. Its software will work with multiple technologies, “independent of the delivery vehicle, the delivery access for that content,” he said. It’s also focused on providing an identical experience across all platforms. “You don’t want the user to re-learn how to search for content, how to access content every time they change a device,” Leonard said.

“The way you access content should be consistent” through a “common content management system and a common interactivity management system.” Both companies are also claiming DVB-SH is more spectrally efficient than MediaFLO however MediaFLO USA Inc.

is focused on broadcasting TV to handsets while ICO is going after in-car TV screens and larger portable screens. Bryan said there will be opportunity for the company to extend its offering to cellphones, but didn’t give specifics and the perception he left behind was that it might never happen.

On the programming side, Alcatel-Lucent’s model provides quite a different approach than MediaFLO has crafted with carriers. The Qualcomm Inc. subsidiary does most of the content deals (excluding pairs of exclusive channels recently announced with Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility) while Alcatel-Lucent’s approach will let carriers pick and choose their content at will. Moreover, Leonard argued that MediaFLO leaves less room for innovative business models to emerge.

“MediaFLO is a pre-defined business model in the way it operates,” he said. Indeed, he believes business models will determine whether mobile TV will stay afloat (and grow) or sink into an abyss. “What we need to define as an industry is a business model,” he added. “Until we get that right obviously we’ll be a relatively small base of users.” Beyond business models, ICO’s Bryan said nationwide coverage will have to be in place for any mobile TV provider to stick.

“Competition and services in the video field are highly prized,” he said. Following both companies presentations, a financial analyst asked the executives to explain how the venture is more than a research and development project that was “mouse-trapped.” “This is not an experiment. This is a product. This is a solution,” Leonard said. “It’s going to take time for the market to develop.”

Bryan concluded by saying the addressable market is at least as great as satellite radio services in the U.S., which has surpassed 17 million subscribers thus far. “We see the size of that market being at least that size, many millions of customers,” he said.

from http://www.rcrnews.com/

Ocean Blue Software Launches World's First Truly Mobile TV Receivers

Bristol-based Ocean Blue Software will be releasing its Azure TV software, which runs on ST Microelectronics Nomadik platform, with hybrid support for DVB-H, DVB-T and DVB-SH, late this year.

Apart from being the first to support multiple standards in one solution, the Azure-Nomadik platform will be able to receive DVB-SH broadcasts, the new DVB standard for satellite broadcast to handheld devices.

DVB-SH will allow satellite TV to be received on the move, without the need for a dish, overcoming the bandwidth and country border restrictions associated with Terrestrial broadcast.

The development will mean that portable TV devices, such as mobile phones, will no longer be tied to a single country or technology. People will now be able to take their mobile devices to any country operating Digital TV and be able to view TV, whether it be from DVB-H, T and when available SH transmission.

The Ocean Blue Azure/Nomadik combination will be available to designers for fast development of new generations of multimedia applications for portable media players, smart phones, wireless PDAs, internet appliances and car entertainment systems.

The STn8815 application processor enables devices to play back web content, capture high resolution pictures and record HD video clips, and receive mobile-TV and to play vivid 3D immersive games. Based on ST's distributed-processing architecture with smart multimedia accelerators, the Nomadik processors enable compelling multimedia applications with ultra-low power consumption.

Mobile TV Broadcasting: lot of Standards

There is a fragmentation of standards for digital mobile TV broadcasting that appears to be the way of the future, just as we have NTSC, PAL, and SECAM for analog TV. In digital mobile TV broadcasting, several of the standards are being used in only one country today, and that situation is likely to continue in the future. Examples are MediaFLO in the US and CMMB in China.

The US Advanced Television Standards Committee (ATSC) is developing its own mobile TV broadcast standard for local broadcasters in the US, called ATSC-M/H. In addition to the US, the standard could be used in other countries choosing ATSC as their digital TV standard.The most widely deployed standard, in terms of number of services available, is DVB-H. In addition to being promoted by the European Union, DVB-H trials or limited services are operating in the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Kenya, Nigeria, Namibia, and soon, Indonesia.

In Europe, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Russia, and the Netherlands are expected to have DVB-H services on the air in 2008, joining Italy and Finland.Another option for mobile TV broadcasting was brought to market in Southeast Asia, the Mid-East, and Africa, in 2007. Mobile handsets began shipping with analog TV receivers. Around five million receivers had shipped by the end of 2007. That number is expected to grow six times larger in 2008. There are many markets where digital broadcasts have not begun and analog shutoff is years away.

Analog TV is free, the consumer just has to buy a handset with a receiver, making this an attractive proposition, similar to the way consumers have snapped up digital mobile TV broadcast receivers in Japan and South Korea, where the digital terrestrial service is free-to-air.The launch of new digital mobile TV broadcast services in countries where they are currently not offered will drive an increase in mobile TV broadcast subscribers. In addition, as there are more services there will be larger numbers of handset models available at a range of prices. In-Stat expects the number of subscribers to grow from under 3 million at the end of 2007 to over 200 million in 2012.

Garmin Licenses S3's onHandTV(TM) Mobile TV Software

Silicon & Software Systems (S3) today announced that their onHandTV(TM) Mobile TV software has been licensed by Garmin Ltd., the global leader in portable satellite navigation. The software provides Garmin's nuvi 900T navigator with digital television functionality. The navigator is co-branded with wireless carrier 3 Italia for deployment in their DVB-H network and will be available in July 2008 in Italy.

S3 is the leading provider of mobile TV software and was selected by Garmin because they delivered a low risk solution and enabled a fast time to market. S3's proven interoperability with multiple networks and service protection vendors, and their support for multiple industry standards, gives the 900T a global reach into countries launching Mobile TV services.

"Garmin, as the global leader in portable consumer navigation products, is one of S3's most coveted customers and I am proud to add them to our list of onHandTV licensees", said John Maguire, General Manager, Consumer Mobile, S3. "S3 is at the forefront of enabling enriched TV services on multiple devices and we believe that portable navigation systems offer a compelling personal TV experience to consumers.We are at a critical tipping point in the industry where new business models and converged services are changing the way we consume TV and location-aware TV products will have a significant part to play in the future", concluded Maguire.