Ready for Digital Mobile TV?

CAN you imagine being able to watch CNN, CNBC or TVJ to get the latest news on your mobile phone while waiting in your doctor's office or even the beach?

There has been quite a buzz among mobile phone users recently with the announcement in August by LIME that it would be launching LIME Mobile TV, a digital mobile TV technology scheduled to be in the Jamaican market before Christmas 2010. LIME has partnered with local technology and content provider DC Digital led by techno-entrepreneur David Cassanova to provide this new technology to Jamaica. I was fortunate to have a chat with Mr Cassanova who talked about DC Digital, the partnership with LIME and the technology behind LIME TV.

DC Digital is a 100 per cent Jamaican-owned and operated company with offices located at The Towers in the New Kingston business district. The company directly employs 10 persons and has contractors that provide specialised skills, including content and technical expertise.

The company's slogan speaks for itself, "No Boundaries" according to the CEO.

DC Digital is very focused on technology research and its applications in everyday lifestyle in Jamaica. In some of the research done in Jamaica they found that most Jamaicans had access to media content through radio, television and cellular phones as a regular way of life.

David gave an example of the importance of the technology in the everyday life of persons living in rural Jamaica. "Persons in rural areas would huddle around a radio or television to hear the latest news in the corner shop or bar as their means of keeping up with the latest news," he explained.

The mobile phone would be the ideal device to use to push content to persons who are not in range of landline and Internet services, which is the case for most rural areas, but have cellular coverage.

DC Digital has been involved in the distribution of entertainment and education content to local cable providers. In Montego Bay for instance, DC Digital pushes both live and recorded lectures from Montego Bay Community College to the local cable provider Cornwall Communications to provide distance learning education.

Former cable providers Entertainment Systems and Sauce Communication, which both operated in the Kingston Metropolitan area, were provided with educational content on specially reserved channels that were co-ordinated by distance learning educator Nigel Facey and resulted in a Natural Sciences and Technology Award for Distance Learning innovation.

The technology behind LIME Mobile TV

David explained that the technology which facilitates LIME Mobile TV uses a European broadcast standard named DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld). DVB-H is a broadcast transmission system that is used as an efficient means to transmit multimedia data to handheld or mobile devices such as mobile phones.

The broadcast system uses a combination of time slicing and error correction technology to allow mobile phones to receive live broadcast content for viewing programming such as TVJ, CVM, SportsMax, Fox Soccer Plus or CNN.

DVB-H uses a lower bandwidth frequency than its predecessor DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcast Terrestrial) which is less efficient and had limited ability to allow for multiple users to access the broadcast at the same time without decrease on quality of service.

The first advantage of DVB-H is that it requires less power consumption on the receiving handheld device that enables longer battery life as you are watching the content.

Secondly, it provides seamless frequency handover to other transmitters in your locale as you are moving around with fewer interruptions in the broadcast.

Thirdly, there is a single antenna for the receiving device for both cellular and the DVB-H services, with low power consumption. It must be noted that the DVB-H and the GSM Service (cellphone service) are received on different frequencies, so it does not depend on whether you have a 3G, 4G or even CDMA service.

There is a clear distinction between live broadcast TV and short video clips. Live broadcast is transmitted in real time from the source, while the other is downloaded to the receiving device and then played back.

Mobile phones to use with Digital Mobile TV

According to David, the phones that can receive digital mobile LIME TV at the moment are the Nokia 5330, N96 and ZTE N290 provided by LIME. The reason is that these phones have the ability to receive the digital mobile TV signal. Work is currently in progress to enable delivery to BlackBerry and other smart phones in the very near future.

How does LIME Mobile TV work?

The content is first captured at the source and then encoded at DC Digital's office where it is rate reshaped to a DVB-H signal. The resulting signal is then transmitted to antennas spread throughout the country on cell towers. The broadcast is then received at a special frequency which the handheld device decodes and displays on your screen as clear video and audio feed. As you are walking around it can seamlessly handover to another antenna without the user knowing.

Multimedia Content

According to LIME, their digital mobile TV service will be providing up to 15 TV stations and radio content, including local and overseas news, sports, children programming, and entertainment. Soon you will be able to see premium content such as Sting, Jazz & Blues Festival and Reggae Sumfest to name a few from anywhere.

Educational content is very important and, according to LIME, is one of the major pieces of content they will be pushing after launch.

So are you ready for Digital Mobile TV? Well, get ready, it's here!!!

Edward Taylor is a consumer electronics writer and a business processing outsourcing project manager. edward.taylor100@yahoo.com