Nokia today announced its latest Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld (DVB-H) broadcast mobile TV pilot with India's national television broadcaster Doordarshan, using Nokia's open standards based DVB-H solution. The Nokia Mobile Broadcast Solution will be delivered to Doordarshan via SHAF Broadcast Pvt Ltd in early 2007.

During this pilot, Doordarshan will test the reception quality of the broadcast coverage, and explore the myriad of options of supporting different service schemes, such as advertising and interactive services. The pilot will also enable Doordarshan to gauge consumer expectations of the service going forward.

Mr L.D. Mandloi, Director-General of Doordarshan said: "Doordashan has taken a lead in adopting DVB-H standards and this was a logical extension of our DVB-T services. DVB-H over IP based on open standards will provide a discerning mobile broadcast experience to Indian consumer and we are confident of its success in our country which has historically been on the leading edge of broadcast technology and content creation."

"India becomes one of the leading countries in Asia to deploy live broadcast mobile TV bringing Indian consumers a step closer to watching their favorite programmes on their mobile devices," said Jawahar Kanjilal, Director, Multimedia, Nokia Asia Pacific. "We are excited to collaborate with Doordarshan to enable their mobile TV services. This is a great opportunity for the vibrant content industry in India to take advantage of bringing television into the pockets of the Indian consumers."

As the national television broadcaster of India, Doordarshan runs the largest Free to Air Satellite (DTH) services covering the entire country. Its analog territory broadcast network covers more than 92% of India providing free news, sports and entertainment.

The pilot will use DVB-H technology, a robust broadcast technology now used to support several extensive field pilots globally, chosen based on its merit to support mobility, small screens, indoor coverage, optimised use of battery and in-built antenna that are specific to handheld devices such as mobile devices.

What is Mobile TV Broadcasting?
Mobile TV broadcasting allows the user to watch their favourite TV programmes such as dramas, news, music, sports and documentaries on their mobile device. The service works by receiving a digital TV broadcast signal optimized for mobile devices from the air in much the same way as televisions at home do. Channel guides will also be broadcast allowing users to keep abreast of the latest programmes on air. Broadcast mobile TV is not the same as a streaming video service over 3G or GPRS where each recipient gets a separate copy of the program stream. Rather, one simultaneous TV stream can be received at any time by any number of users enjoying high picture quality and low battery power consumption.

More information about mobile TV can be obtained from www.nokia.com/mobiletv.

# posted by Sneakytje @ 5:36 PM