Implementing Mobile TV

ATSC Mobile DTV, MediaFLO, DVB-H/SH, DMB,WiMAX, 3G Systems, and Rich Media Applications

Amitabh Kumar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136032493
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Implement state-of-the-art Mobile TV networks with this comprehensive guide to the latest technologies and standards, including MediaFLO, ATSC Mobile DTV, and CMMB, the same technologies seeing large-scale rollouts today around the world. You not only gain deep insight into the maze of technologies, but also the principles of mobile content-what makes it work, how it's produced, repurposed and delivered securely, and how it integrates with mobile and Internet domains.

Learn about the key enablers of a mobile TV service, like smartphones, chipsets, and mobile software. Gain access to a detailed look at the networks deployed worldwide with real-world case studies. The informative diagrams provide rich visualization of the new technologies, services, and revenue models. Gain understanding of how mobile TV can be made interactive and how it can be delivered seamlessly in multiple markets. Get insight into the growing capabilities of multimedia handsets and software which drives innovative applications.

Author Amitabh Kumar begins with the basics of mobile multimedia and progresses to cover details of technologies, networks, and firmware for mobile TV services. Easy to follow, Implementing Mobile TV features a rich presentation that includes dozens of FAQs and "Quick Facts."

This new edition is updated to reflect the quickly evolving world of Mobile TV, focusing on factors for success and providing understanding of:

PART 1

Overview of Technologies

Do we really need another way to rot our brains? Yes, yes we do — and live TV on our phones is just the ticket.

Danny Dumas in Gadget Lab, Wired

(www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/05/review-att-mobi/)

CHAPTER 1

About Mobile TV

Television? No good will come of this device. The word is half Greek and half Latin.

C. P. Scott, journalist

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Television)

Are you one of those who is fascinated with the idea of being able to deliver content to mobile devices? Or by the new mobile Flash Player, which lets you watch amazing streaming videos from thousands of sites? Or record a movie using a Handycam^®, then edit it and post it on your website? Or seen a game of baseball on MobiTV or VCAST? Or are you a content producer, broadcaster, or network operator who is at the other end of the line feeding content to millions of users? Are you intrigued by the P2P networks and the way they deliver video and audios? You have lots in common, then, with many others who are deep into the world of handling audio, video, and pictures on mobile networks.

Join me on a practical journey together into the realm of mobile TV, which has emerged as the most effective way to deliver high-quality interactive content—and get paid for it. Over 6 million users are using just one of the services of mobile TV (MobiTV). Millions more are connected to other networks, some based on 3G streaming, while others are using terrestrial broadcast much like digital TV for the big screens.

1.1 The Beginning

For the first time in the history of the Emmy awards, a new category was created for 2006: for original production of content that is designed for the new platforms, including PCs and the mobile world—cellphones, PDAs, Palm devices, iPods^® and iPhones^®, and the platform of mobile TV. Seventy-four entries were received, more than in any other Emmy awards category. The entries included “24 Mobisodes” from leading Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox. In October 2006, content industry’s biggest event, MIPCON 2006, described mobile TV as the most significant wireless trend for the mobile industry in the coming years. The excitement in the industry was not unfounded, as the events to unfold were revealed. Every major in1ternational event since has been telecast live on mobile TV, from the Olympics to President Obama’s election. However, a real breakthrough had still eluded the industry.

It is at the turn of the year 2010 that the long-awaited breakthrough is finally in sight: the transition to 3G networks, which were nascent in 2006 but had grown to over 500 million users at the close of 2009. The first quarter of 2009 added 50 million active 3G subscribers (as reported by Maravedis^®), indicating that the 3G is now adding at least 200 million users a year. Subscriber numbers will double in the next two years, with countries in Europe and Asia, including India and China, enabling the 3G networks and creating a pool of nearly a billion customers with mobile multimedia devices. This now is the new audience, not counting millions of terrestrial mobile TV receivers. They are ready to receive mobile TV, multimedia, and advertising, and to generate interactive content. They will be buying more than a billion smartphones in the next three years.

An equally powerful sequence of events is being staged in the field of terrestrial broadcasting. The digital transition has finally been completed in the United States, releasing the newly auctioned spectrum to players such as MediaFLO, which has triggered their nationwide rollout. The broadcast industry also got its act together and agreed on different but regionally harmonized standards such as ATSC Mobile DTV (formerly ATSC M/H) for the United States, DVB-H for Europe (and parts of Asia), DMB for Korea, and ISDB for Japan. China was a surprise — out of multiple standards such as DMB and DTMB, a single implementation of mobile TV, CMMB, rose like a phoenix from the flames of the summer Olympics in 2008. Before 2009 was finished, over 200 cities and provincial markets were live with CMMB. Today China is the fastest-growing market for mobile TV in the world, taking even seasoned industry observers by surprise. India is next, with 400 million users waiting for 3G and a countrywide rollout of mobile TV before the sun rises on the Commonwealth Games in November 2010.

There is now no single area where the focus of delivery is greater than those of mobile receivers. These receivers are not mobile phones alone. Far from it: these include standalone receivers, navigation devices, personal media players, and car receivers. The production of content and applications for the tiny screens of mobile TVs and navigation devices has indeed unleashed the imagination of the industry with the production of short-form programs and original content designed to be effective even for the limited span of time available for viewing.

1.2 Mobile TV: A New Reality

Mobile TV is now a reality. The technology, though new, has been proven. It is inconceivable that a major global event or news will now not be available on the mobile TV medium for major future entertainment, sports, or other national or international events. Operators have started gearing up their networks for adding mobile TV services or have rolled out entirely new networks. There are over 4 billion mobile users around the globe with over 500 million smartphones capable of handling mobile multimedia. The growth in the markets is expected to be exponential, and will be aided by the falling price of handsets and better harmonization of standards. The price of chipsets for mobile TV has already fallen below $10, opening the way for advanced handsets to be inexpensively available. The price points of the chipsets such as mobile TV receiver are expected to fall below $5 in the next year.

1.2.1 What is Mobile TV?

Mobile TV is the transmission of TV programs or video for a wide range of wireless devices ranging from mobile TV-capable cellphones to PDAs and mobile receivers usable in every conceivable mode of transport. The programs can be transmitted in a broadcast mode to every viewer in a coverage area or be unicast so as to be delivered to a user on demand. They can also be multicast to a group of users. The broadcast transmissions can be via the terrestrial medium, just as analog or digital TV is delivered to our homes, or can be delivered via using high-powered satellites directly to mobile devices. The transmissions can also be delivered using the Internet as the delivery mechanism.

1.2.2 How is Mobile TV Different from Ordinary Terrestrial or Satellite TV?

Mobile phones constitute an entirely different domain. The phones come with screens that are tiny in comparison to a standard TV. They have a limitation on the power consumption as preservation of the battery and talk time is of paramount importance. Every device in the cell is designed with features that can conserve power. The processors in cellphones, though powerful even in comparison to PCs just a few years back, cannot be harnessed to run complicated encoding or decoding tasks or format and frame rate conversions. The cellphones are connected via 3G cellular networks, which can support high data rates for multimedia but are not designed to handle the 4–5 Mbps needed for a standard-definition TV. Hence though there are cellphones that can receive ordinary TV telecasts, they are not really ideal for such use.

Mobile TV is a technology that has been specifically designed to fit in the mobile world of limited bandwidth and power and small screens, yet add new features such as interactivity via the cellular network. Taking advantage of the small screen size, the number of pixels that need to be transmitted is reduced to roughly 1/16 a standard-definition TV. Digital TV today is based on the use of MPEG-2 compression, mainly because this was the best compression available in the 1990s when widespread cable and satellite delivered TV became common. Mobile TV uses more efficient compression algorithms, such as MPEG-4, Flash Lite, or H.264, for compressing video and audio — and with visual simple profiles. Compressing voice efficiently has been the hallmark of cellular networks using audio coding in AMR or QCELP. In mobile TV, we need high-fidelity stereo, and the use of audio coding using Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) based on MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 has become the norm. In the 3G world, which is characterized by the need to use bandwidth efficiently to accommodate thousands of users in a cell area, file formats based on cellular industry standards such as 3GPP (Third-Generation Partnership Project) are commonly used. Based on transmission conditions, cellular networks may also reduce the frame rates or to render frames with lower number of bytes per frame.

However, reducing the bit rates needed to deliver video is not the only characteristic of mobile ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Implementing Mobile TV
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Mobile TV-A Prologue
• Introduction to the Second Edition
• Part I: Overview of Technologies
• Part II: Technologies for Mobile TV and Multimedia Broadcasting
• Part III: Multimedia Handsets and Related Technologies
• Part IV: Content and Services on Mobile TV and Multimedia Networks
• Glossary
• Index