OMVC completes tests showing viability of its mobile TV protocol

The Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC) says it has completed technical tests of its Mobile/Handheld technologies and has submitted a report to the Advanced Television Systems Committee whose approval is required if the technology is to approved as a standard, according to the press release.

The OMVC, in conjunction with the Association for Maximum Service Television, conducted tests from February to April in the San Francisco area and Las Vegas.  “More than 140 hours and 1,000 miles of mobile data were collected across the two trial areas,” the release says.

Not surprisingly, the tests showed the technology was “viable.”  The release says the tests “demonstrated full-motion mobile DTV at pedestrian and highway speeds; they also showed that mobile reception can be achieved as much as 40 miles from the transmitter and that mobile DTV does not interfere with the regular FCC-compliant primary digital television broadcasts.”

Digital TV deadline

The OMVC is on a fast track to get the mobile TV protocol approved and, it hopes, incorporated into consumer devices in 2009.  In February 2009 full-power TV stations are required to switch from analog to digital broadcasting.

The OMVC’s members see the switch as a prime opportunity for introducing their mobile TV protocol to the public.  This is now a unique sitation.  Broadcasters in Asia transmit TV to cellular phones as well as to a variety of TV-enabled electronic devices.

The technology isn’t in question.  The question is the business model for mobile TV, which is under discussion around the world.