Local broadcasters successful in mobile DTV trials

CHICAGO – With the support of the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), two local Chicago broadcast stations -- ION Media Network’s WCPX and Fox Television Station’s WPWR -- completed successful trials of broadcast mobile digital television at pedestrian and vehicular speeds and on a variety of devices. The technical mobile DTV field trials used a draft of the Advanced Television Systems Committee mobile TV standard proposed in May of this year, which lets local broadcasters deliver live, local and national over-the-air digital television to consumers via any supported device.

In Chicago, multiple live and local programs were demonstrated on an in-car navigation device, connected monitor and LG mobile handsets at varying speeds and street conditions. WCPX transmits from atop the Sears Tower using Mobile-Pedestrian Handheld (M-PH), which was developed by Harris and LG and supported by Samsung. Like KPXC in Denver, where trials have gone on since last month, both broadcast two mobile DTV programs simultaneously in addition to multicasting four programs already transmitted within their six-megahertz channel. LG, Harris and Zenith provided mobile TV receivers, transmission equipment and technical expertise to ION Media to complete the trials in Chicago and Denver, the third and eighteenth largest media markets, respectively.

The OMVC, an organization of 850 broadcasters, was formed to accelerate the development of mobile DTV in the United States. The OMVC approved ATSC with the support of South Korean competitors LG and Samsung, as the technology standard for mobile DTV deployments in the US in May. After successful trials, the ATSC mobile DTV standard is expected to be adopted as the candidate standard by early December and a final standard by early summer, according to Anne Schelle, OMVC executive director.

“Today we only really see mobile video, but we’ll have mobile TV over the next two years,” Schelle said.