ICO Global Communications and Alcatel-Lucent will demonstrate at the 2008 International CES show in Las Vegas mobile video broadcasting using the DVB-SH hybrid satellite/terrestrial standard.
For the demonstration, the companies will transmit live high-resolution mobile television programming to display terminals located in a moving vehicle outfitted with DVB-SH receivers. They will also deliver pre-encoded DVB-SH video content to portable monitors at the ICO exhibit suite.
The demonstrations are the first displays of a solution being developed for the ICO alpha trial of its mobile interactive media (mim) services, taking place in Raleigh-Durham, NC, and Las Vegas later this year. The mim product is a mobile media service aimed at delivering 10 to 15 channels of premium live TV content to large screen (7in to 10in) mobile devices, along with navigation and roadside-assistance services. While initially targeted at the automotive market, ICO is planning to integrate mim into a wider range of consumer electronics devices in the future.
The trial will be based on the deployment of an Ancillary Terrestrial Component (ATC) using the DVB-SH technology, as well as ICO’s G1 geostationary satellite, scheduled for launch in March 2008.
The CES demonstration is one of the first of its kind in the United States for the DVB-SH technology, and is part of an effort by ICO and Alcetel-Lucent to showcase what ICO CEO Tim Bryan called in a recent press statement mim’s “compelling mobile video offering, with great picture quality featuring larger screens more suited to a robust mobile experience.”
DVB-SH is a derivation of the DVB-H mobile TV standard. Developed as a way of offering mobile video reception to areas that have traditionally been difficult to cover, it uses a high-power geostationary satellite for outdoor and light indoor coverage integrated with a terrestrial repeater network for indoor coverage.
For more information, visit www.ico.com and www.alcatel-lucent.com.
