In a joint venture called Norwegian Mobile TV Corporation (NMTV), three of Norway’s largest broadcasters — NRK, TV2 and MTG — launched six live TV channels in Oslo where DMB receivers are already on sale, offering everything from children’s programming to sports and live news highlights. Not just for mobile phones, MiniTV provides mobile TV to any device that receives free-to-air DMB mobile TV and DAB digital radio. While NRK’s channels will remain free-to-air, TV2 and MTG have plans to add subscription channels.
MiniTV uses DMB mobile TV, part of the same core standard as DAB digital radio and the standard used in South Korea. Norway’s DAB network now covers 80 percent of all households, with further expansion planned 2009. One reason to piggyback mobile TV on the existing DAB network is to avoid the cost of a new, dedicated mobile TV infrastructure.
The WorldDMB organization promotes Eureka 147-based technologies. The DAB family was initially created for mobile and portable reception of audio services, but the standard has been developed to offer multimedia and video with DAB+ and DMB digital radio and DMB mobile TV. Often referred to as the Eureka 147 family of standards, it originated as an EU-funded Eureka project. On the air in nearly 40 countries across Europe, Australia and the Far East, more than 500 million people are within range of more than 1000 DAB, DAB+ or DMB services on-air.
South Korea’s DMB mobile TV service is one of the most successful deployments in the world. In China, DAB is also on the air as the only industrial standard for digital radio. Other DMB mobile TV trials are taking place in Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Indonesia.
Download WorldDMB's January 2009 report on DAB/DAB+/DMB broadcasting at WorldDMB DMB brochure.pdf.
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