The mobile DTV platform enables local television broadcast stations to deliver live, digital content to ATSC-capable mobile and video devices. Retrofitting broadcast transmission towers to carry a mobile DTV signal will enable local digital broadcasts on multiple mobile devices—mobile phones, portable media players, laptop computers, personal navigation devices, and automobile-based “infotainment systems”—without the need for additional broadcast spectrum. After being tested in various markets for the better part of 2009, mobile DTV technology received its first widescale trial in Washington, D.C., in 2010. Owners of mobile DTV–capable devices (which currently include just a limited number of cell phones, media players, etc.) were able to watch a wide variety of local TV broadcasts in the nation’s capital, including PBS Kids shows broadcast on Howard University’s WHUT and a panoply of international programming on MHz Networks in the Northern Virginia suburbs. Currently, plug-in adapters bring the content to other devices—such notebooks, iPhones, and iPads—that have not yet been redesigned to incorporate mobile DTV tuners.
Our Non-Licensee Partner(s)
Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), Washington, D.C.—A coalition of commercial and noncommercial broadcasters seeking to accelerate the development of mobile digital broadcast television and to encourage broad adoption of technologies that enable mobile reception of digital broadcast television signals, so that consumers can watch television wherever and whenever they want—not just in the home.
PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), Arlington, Virginia—PBS is the leading distributor of video programming for U.S. public television stations. It operates the public television program distribution/interconnection system and distributes a variety of programs, from both its own and others’ program services, to its 348 member public television stations across the country, which draw nearly 83 million viewers weekly. PBS.org is one of the most visited noncommercial Web sites in the world and the home of companion Web sites for more than 1,000 PBS television programs and specials, as well as original content and real-time learning adventures. In addition to its funding from CPB, PBS is funded by its member stations, a separate fundraising foundation, and various for-profit subsidiaries. PBS and Sesame Workshop are partners with Comcast Corporation and HIT Entertainment, PLC, in PBS KIDS Sprout, a for-profit cable and satellite television channel for preschool children, and PBS KIDS Sprout On Demand, a video-on-demand service offering more than 50 hours of programming daily for the same preschool audience, which is distributed on Comcast systems nationwide.