Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is? [holds up one finger]
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.
- City Slicker
LG and Samsung have joined forces to develop a single standard for mobile digital television using broadcaster’s DTV signals. The two companies had previously introduced incompatible proposals; LG with MPH and Samsung with A-VSB.
A-VSB and MPH are in-band solutions. Local broadcasters can insert mobile programming inside their DTV bitstream (although it takes capacity from HDTV broadcasts).
The systems are designed to broadcast to mobile phones, car seat-back TVs and personal navigation devices. “Technical details of the single transmission system that we will jointly promote have not been disclosed,” according to an LG spokesman.
The technology will be based on the findings of a test conducted by the Association of Maximum Service Television (MSTV), a D.C.-based industry group focused on broadcasting technology and spectrum policy issues, according to both companies. Those findings will be submitted on Thursday to the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) that develops voluntary standards for digital television, the LG spokesman said.
ATSC is expected to adopt a standard for the North American market in early 2009 after a trail conducted by the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), a group of U.S. broadcasters focused on the development and early deployment of mobile DTV, the companies said.
LG’s Paik and JongWoo Park, president of Samsung’s digital media business, signed an agreement Wednesday in Seoul, South Korea that calls on the companies to develop a single common, in-band mobile DTV standard.
LG said at CES that its free, over-the-air, locally focused Mobile-Pedestrian-Handheld (MPH) standard would work cooperatively with Qualcomm’s MediaFLO, which is a pay-by-the-month service offered by Verizon and AT&T Mobile. LG pitched the concept of MediaFLO becoming the HBO of mobile TV while MPH would be the equivalent of local VHF TV stations — local news through MPH, with pay tv through MediaFLO.
Meanwhile, DVB-H, the mobile television standard left for dead by many in the United States, has been re-born as DVB-SH, using two different platforms; ICO’s G-1 satellite and Dish Network’s terrestrial 700 MHz band. Echostar (Dish) bought a nationwide footprint on Channel 56, in the recent 700 MHz auction and has been talking up multi-channel DVB-SH using their 6 MHz of national spectrum.
Unlike broadcast-based MediaFLO and the broadcaster’s prefered solution, DVB-SH combines both cellular and satellite technology as well as two-way communications for navigation and messaging.
Nextwave is also promoting TDtv and MXtv for Mobile WiMAX. It can multicast live to multiple users or unicast to individual users — depending on channel demand — an advantage that television broadcasters, MediaFLO and satellite-delivered DVB-SH don’t have.
Related Mobile television articles on DailyWireless include; ICO Deploys 40 Foot Antenna, ICO G-1 In Space, Dish Network Testing DVB-SH, MobiTV Combines Unicast & Multicast, AT&T Goes with FLO, Samsung Phones Do Media, Dishes, NAB: Unlicensed Devices Threaten America, What’s Dish Network Planning?, WiMAX TV from NextWave, BBCiPlayer on iPhone, MediaFLO: In Trouble?, YouTube Mobilizes, Motorola Does DVB-H, Italy Testing DVB-SH Mobile TV, Software Defined Radio: DVB-H, too?, Original Content on Sprint Mobile TV, The War on Mobile TV, ICO Wants Its Mobile TV - via DVB-SH, MobileTV: Modeo KOed by Crown, and Mobile TV War at NAB.
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