The Open Mobile Video Coalition broadcast industry alliance announced commitments to launch mobile DTV services from 63 stations in 22 U.S. markets, covering 35 percent of television households nationwide. According to the OMVC, mobile DTV technology will provide live, local and national over-the-air broadcast content at pedestrian and vehicular speeds--the 63 stations will include 14 NBC affiliates, nine ABC affiliates, nine CBS affiliates, five FOX affiliates, nine ION Television affiliates, four CW affiliates and four MyNetworkTV affiliates. In addition, nine PBS stations are in discussions with the OMVC to join the 2009 launch.
Last month, international nonprofit standards organization the Advanced Television Systems Committee announced its approval [1] of the Mobile DTV specification as a Candidate Standard. The ATSC Mobile DTV transmission system is based on vestigial sideband modulation coupled with extensible IP based transport, MPEG AVC (H.264) video and HE AAC v2 audio (ISO/IEC 14496-3) coding--beyond live television, the standard also provides an application framework enabling services ranging from audience voting to integrated web-based applications and transactions with television content. The Candidate Standard additionally allows broadcasters to deploy new data services like real-time, in-vehicle navigation and on-demand news and sports highlights.
For more on the mobile DTV rollout:
- read this release [2]
Links:
[1] http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/atsc-approves-mobile-dtv-candidate-standard/2008-12-01
[2] http://www.fiercewireless.com/press-releases/omvc-demonstrates-future-mobile-dtv-and-details-initial-broadcaster-roll-out-plans