At NAB2007, nine of the largest U.S. television broadcast groups announced the launch of the Open Mobile Video Coalition, an industry alliance formed to speed up the development of a digital broadcast system to send video to mobile devices.
The coalition includes Belo, Fox Television stations, Gannett Broadcasting, Gray Television, ION Media Networks, the NBC & Telemundo Television stations, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Broadcasting Company. The group collectively represents more than 280 television stations in the United States, covering 95 million households, including 49 of the top 50 markets nationwide.
The broadcasters said they'll look at the newly proposed Mobile-Pedestrian-Handheld (MPH, from Harris and LG Electronics) and the Advanced-VSB (A-VSB, from Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz) scheme, which enable reception of DTV signals in portable and mobile environments.
Brandon Burgess, president and CEO at ION Media Networks, and one of the coalition's founding members, said the group would make its decision based on the system that uses the least amount of bandwidth (lowest bit rate).
When commercialized, sometime in 2008, these new technologies will enable TV broadcasters to use their existing DTV spectrum and networks to reach consumers anywhere, both in and out of the home. The coalition said it wants all U.S.-based broadcasters to join the group and deploy some type of mobile service as soon as possible.
For more information, visit www.openmobilevideo.com.
