MediaFlo™ Standardization

The October 4, 2004 edition of TV TechCheck reported on two new video broadcast systems for transmission to mobile devices: DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld), based on the European digital TV standard, and T-DMB (Terrestrial-Digital Multimedia Broadcasting), based on the European digital radio standard (Eureka-147), with modifications developed in Korea.

A third mobile video system known as MediaFLO has been developed by Qualcomm Inc. One of the criticisms of MediaFLO, however, has been that it is a proprietary system. The FLO Forum organization has been working to enable standardized solutions for deployment in the field and this process took a step forward with the announcement on November 28 that the Forum had ratified the Forward Link-Only air interface specification (AIS).

The AIS specifies the protocols used over the air between the FLO network and a FLO device. The specification includes a complete description of the physical layer, which uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and advanced forward error-correction techniques, and a complete description of the Stream/Control and Media Access Layers (MAC). It enables the delivery of multiple, multimedia streams over the standard TV channel allocation bandwidths.

The Forum announced that it would now forward the specification to standards development organizations for inclusion in new standards that address the delivery of terrestrial mobile multimedia multicast services to mobile devices.

For more information on the FLO Forum, see: http://www.floforum.org/floforum/about.html.

Verizon Wireless Selects MediaFlo™

Also last week it was announced that Verizon Wireless has agreed with Qualcomm to use MediaFLO for a high quality mobile television service. The new service will be launched towards the end of 2006 in approximately half of the markets already covered by Verizon Wireless' broadband network, complementing Verizon's existing high speed V-Cast service, and with plans to expand throughout other markets.

Verizon Wireless will be the first U.S. wireless service provider to offer MediaFLO. The significance of MediaFLO is that it will be broadcast over a different portion of the wireless spectrum than cellular phone and data services. Consumers wishing to use the service will need MediaFLO-enabled EV-DO handsets.

MediaFLO (the FLO stands for forward link only) is designed as a complete
media distribution system (MDS). Qualcomm is building out a nationwide single frequency network using a 6 MHz channel 716-722 MHz. Transmission is based on OFDM technology with hierarchical modulation, supporting multiple channels of live content and downloaded clips. It seems likely that video resolution will be QCIF (176 x120) with video encoding possibly using MPEG-4 (H.264) and audio using AAC encoding, although Verizon's existing V-Cast uses Windows Media encoding.

For white papers related to MediaFLO, see: http://www.qualcomm.com/mediaflo/products/flo_mds.shtml.
For the Qualcomm/Verizon announcement see:
http://www.qualcomm.com/press/releases/2005/051201_verizon_wireless_announce.html.

Mobile Video at NAB 2006

Those wanting to learn more about mobile video services will have the opportunity at NAB 2006 in Las Vegas, April 22-27, with the following events:

NAB BROADCAST ENGINEERING CONFERENCE
IEEE Tutorial: Delivering Television to Handheld Devices-April 24
Viewers on the Move-April 25, 2005
NAB MULTIMEDIA WORLD
Mobile TV and Video Summit-April 25, 2005