The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has published the specifications of the Candidate Standard document for mobile/handheld operation in the United States on its Web site for all to review.
A Candidate Standard is a document that has received significant review within a specialist group. Advancement of a document to Candidate Standard is an explicit call to those outside of the related specialist group for implementation and technical feedback. This is the phase at which the specialist group is responsible for formally acquiring that experience or at least defining the expectations of implementation.
The proposed document (#A/153) is available at www.atsc.org/standards/candidate_standards.php/.
ATSC mobile DTV is being developed to support a variety of services including free (advertiser-supported) television and interactive services delivered in real time, subscription-based TV, and file-based content download for playback at a later time. The standard may also be used for transmission of new data broadcasting services.
On Nov. 25, the Technology and Standards Group (TSG) approved the advancement of the ATSC-M/H document to Candidate Standard status for a period of time ending May 20.
