Mobile TV Standards Update
FLO TV announces Enhanced Air Interface
Feb 2010
FLO TV has announced an enhanced air interface FLO-EV, which is an evolution from its FLO Rev A ( TIA 1099) air interface specifications. The Rev A specifications are approved standards under TIA, ETSI and ITU(BT.1833). The new air interface is designed to provide an improvement in C/N by 3-5 dB. This has a great impact on the number of distributed transmitters or repeaters required to provide the same level of coverage as available under Rev A, translating into an advantage of 30-50% in capital expenditure in rolling out FLO TV networks as reported by FLO TV.
It is noteworthy that FLO air specifications Rev A already provide a significant advantage in C/N over its competitor DVB-H owing to a superior error coding scheme and layered modulation. The layered modulation scheme provides an advantage of 4.3 dB in C/N as compared to non-layered technologies. This translates into a C/N advantage of 7-9 dB for FLO-EV over competing technologies. The FLO air interface which is "streams based" is also more efficient in allocation of resources to mobile TV channels and provide a very effective statistical multiplexing, again lacking in DVB-H, where special techniques are required to obtain the same result.
It is significant to note that the mediaFLO technology has also been approved for use in Japan earlier driven by only ISDB-T ( one seg broadcasting). Japan is the largest mobile TV market in the world with over 80 million ISDB enabled handsets shipped. Many countries in South America also follow the ISDB standard.
With FLO TV being available countrywide in the United States and a range of receivers being available ( See FLO TV receivers), this translates into an advantage for this technology for Pay mobile TV services which cannot be easily beaten by competition.
ATSC approves Mobile/ Handheld Standard
The Advanced Television Systems Committee ( ATSC) today approved the draft standards for Mobile/ Handheld television. The new candidate standard is based on the use of Vestigial Sideband Modulation( VSB) and is backward compatible with existing recievers. It employs MPEG4 encoded video channels together with HE-AAC coded audio.
The approval of new Mobile/ Handheld standards is the most important step since the approval of ATSC standards themselves, now a part of the Digitalization of TV in USA and other countries. The ATSC-M/H standards makes it possible to make minor augmentations of the broadcast equipment to include channels for Mobile TV within the same bandwidth. There is no need for additional spectrum or the use of new transmitter network, making the ATSC- M/H standards as “ ready for adopt across the country” as ATSC transmitters replace older analog equipment.
The new standard also specifies data broadcasting modalities for Internet and interactive services to be enabled. There has always been a provision in the ATSC standards for data broadcasting but it had never taken off owing to the need for defining the modalities for use of data.
The new ATSC standards have been supported by Open Mobile Video coalition ( OMVC) which has been interested in a common and inexpensive augmentation of the ATSC standard for Mobile TV. OMVC has also been involved in the trials of the new standard.
The new candidate standard is specified in eight parts, as per the norms of candidate standards in ATSC:
- Part 1 – Mobile/Handheld Digital Television System
- Part 2 – RF/Transmission System Characteristics
- Part 3 – Service Multiplex and Transport Subsystem Characteristics
- Part 4 – Announcement
- Part 5 – Presentation Framework
- Part 6 – Service Protection
- Part 7 – Video System Characteristics
- Part 8 – Audio System Characteristics
The announcement of the standards is expected to pave the way for new networks going on line and new mobile devices with ATSC M/H receivers becoming widely available. The ATSC M/H is expected to mount a serious challenge to MediaFLO and 3G based networks which provide Mobile TV today in the next three years. Broadcasters can now simulcast their channels to fixed as well as Mobile Tv sets without having to worry about the receivers.
In the meantime, in anticipation of the standards, vendors have been already moving ahead with receivers for ATSC M/H.
The Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC) to finalize Mobile TV Standards for USA by 2009
NAB 2008, April 11-17, Las Vegas
The Open Mobile Video Coalition (the “Coalition”) is a voluntary association of television broadcasters interested in supporting technologies that enable handheld and mobile digital broadcast television in the United States.
The OMVC intends to seek the development of interoperable user parameters (and standards) for mobile devices involved in reception of terrestrial signals. The OMVC will thus define, for the mobile and entertainment devices technical requirements, conditions, protocols, reference implementations, test suites, and best practices related to mobile digital television technologies.
The OMVC at NAB 2008 has announced its intention of selecting one out of three technologies which will be uses by their members to transmit mobile TV along with the ATSC transmissions. The three technologies which will be finally evaluated include the ATSC-MPH ( Mobile Pedestrian Handheld) promoted by LG and Harris, A-VSB by Samsung and ATSC Mobile TV technology by Thomson and Micronas. The NAB last year ( NAB 2007) had already given a peek into possible new technologies such as ATSC- MPH ( mobile pedestrian handheld), ATSC A-VSB etc. which can be used with relatively inexpensive additions to the existing ATSC broadcasting stations.
The clear declaration of intent by the association of over 800 broadcasters in USA under the OMVC forum heralds a bright future for mobile TV. The stations will defacto transmit local content for mobile TV in addition to regular DTV ( ATSC) transmissions. This is expected to provide a uniform standard for the technology in USA and greatly increase penetration as well as subscriber base.
With Verizon already planning Mobile TV services using MediaFLO technology and AT&T expected to do so by May 2008, it is likely that almost all mobiles will progressively support reception of Mobile TV. 3G based Mobile TV services are also available ( e.g. Sprint TV, MobiTV & others). Content differentiation will be the key factor in driving each of these services.
However the fact that OMVC has not declared any one technology as the final one this year did not stop the product vendors from displaying a complete ecosystem of products around the new mobile TV technologies. Harris and LG electronics, which are supporting the MPH technologies had set up a mobile TV broadcast through the KVCW-DT broadcasting station. The technology demonstrated is based on IP datacasting and is supported by Udcast and Triveni digital. At the same time Samsung was demonstrating its A-VSB powered mobile broadcast TV. The A_VSB technology has the advantage that it does not need additional spectrum for mobile TV transmissions. The existing ATSC spectrum can be used to add-on the mobile TV services. The A-VSB initiative is supported by Samsung Electronics, MobiTV, Nokia Siemens Networks, Rohde & Schwarz and SES AMERICOM.
As expected the area of WiMAX TV, which is IPTV streamed over WiMAX networks attracted considerable attention as a future technology. UDcast, a company known for its IPTV, Mobile Tv products based on DVB-H and DVB-SH technologies has now unveiled its WiMAX TV product.
Earlier in March 2008, Nextwave had unveiled its WiMAX TV Platform called MXtv. Nextwave platform is based on the use of the multicast and broadcast feature of mobile WiMAX and can handle different types of multimedia content including video in QVGA or CIF resolution and can support 45 multicast channels in 10 MHz of WiMAX bandwidth.
With the imminent launch of XOHM and other mobile WiMAX services in US and other parts of the world, delivery of TV to mobiles using multicast and broadcast service(MBS) becomes an attractive proposition. WiMAX TV, which is based on multicasting of streaming mobile TV content has many potential advantages as it is independent of carriers which deliver the service, country and can be received over any WiMAX enabled handset, WiMAX notebook or other devices.
WiMAX uses the relatively inexpensive wireless network for delivery of multimedia content ( Video, music or pictures) and can provide speeds which are an order of magnitude higher as compared to cellular or 3G networks. Due to its high spectral efficiency coupled with quality of service features the content can be delivered in a multicast manner as compared to generating individual streams for each user. WiMAX is an open technology and effectively brings the entire internet in the mobile domain.
MobiTV™, the largest provider of Mobile TV services in the Americas today with over 4 million subscribers came in strong outlining its plan to introduce the open mobile alliance (OMA) Rich Media Environment. No doubt with most of the DTV stations transmitting content repurposed for mobiles via their ATSC transmitters, content aggregators such as MobiTV would stand to gain by content specially suited for mobiles and to increase the gaming and rich media environment.
The adaption of OMA-BCAST platform with the inclusion of new air interfaces based on ATSC A-VSB or MPH seem to be the way the industry is set to grow in the current year.Home