Mobile DTV standard approved by ATSC
Oct 19, 2009 11:07 AM, By Michael Grotticelli
Jonathan Levy and Eloise Gore of the Federal Communications Commission watch live, local broadcast TV on a mobile DTV device onboard a bus traveling around Washington, D.C.
Brandon Burgess, president of the OMVC and CEO of ION Media Networks, led a demonstration of the M/H service for government officials and others riding around Washingtion, D.C., last week to announce the approval of the standard. Seven Washington-area TV stations transmitted live local news, weather, sports and favorite programs to mobile DTV-compatible devices including mobile phones, laptop computers and netbook PCs. Senior representatives of the participating DTV stations, ATSC, the Association for Maximum Service Television (MSTV), the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and technology companies participated in the dialog about the new standard and the new mobile services it will support.
“The leadership and support provided by OMVC made it possible for ATSC to adopt the mobile DTV standard and meet the aggressive timetable required by the industry,” said Mark Richer, president of ATSC. “To meet the technological challenges of sending digital television services to mobile and handheld devices within the existing DTV transmission was an impressive achievement made possible by industry cooperation. Consumers will soon reap the benefits from this innovative use of broadcast digital television.”
The five Washington-area stations participating in last week’s demonstration will also be conducting a consumer showcase of the new mobile DTV services over the next several months. Programming choices will not be limited to favorite local and network shows on mobile devices, but will also include live emergency alerts, local news and sports, as well as interactive services that are still in development.
Technology manufacturers such as LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Harris, Rohde & Schwarz and Dell have produced prototype devices and working transmission systems.
Beyond live broadcasts, the OMVC envisions mobile services such as emergency alerts that can be customized by market or location, live audio feeds, datacasting with traffic maps, closed captioning, clip casting sports and news highlights that could be stored in memory on a device, push video on demand for future viewing, time-shifted television, mobile digital video recording, interactive polling, electronic coupons, targeted advertising, and an electronic service guide for ease of tuning.
The OMVC is composed of 27 members that own and operate more than 450 commercial television stations, as well as the Association of Public Television Stations, Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service, which represent an additional 360 public television stations.
The ATSC mobile DTV standard is based on vestigial side band (VSB) modulation, with enhanced error correction and other techniques to improve robustness and reduce power consumption in portable receivers, coupled with a flexible and extensible Internet Protocol (IP) based transport system, efficient MPEG AVC (ISO/IEC 14496-10 or ITU H.264) video, and HE AAC v2 audio (ISO/IEC 14496-3) coding. ATSC mobile DTV services are carried in existing digital broadcast channels along with current DTV services without any adverse impact on legacy receiving equipment.
The new standard document is now available online on the ATSC Standards page.| Want to use this article? Click here for options! |  |
