A single chip TV tuner which supports a number of different mobile TV standards could revolutionise the design of mobile phones in the next 12 months.
According to James Fontaine, CEO of TV tuner chip supplier Microtune, it is inevitable that roll-out of mobile TV services around the world will be based on a number of different standards and that single chip tuners supporting multiple standards will be available this year. “Supporting multiple TV standards, such as
DVB-H and T-DMB from one tuner is the key and customers would like to see it happen by 2007,” Fontaine told EW.
In the UK alone operators are testing three different standards and the Far East market is very fragmented, said Fontaine, with Japan and China adopting approaches which are different from Europe and North America.
“We believe that DVB-H will be the standard of choice in Europe, but it will not be the only standard used. T-DMB, DVB-H, DVB-T and L-Band are all being tested in the UK and Germany is also using two standards,” said Fontaine. “The jury is still out on which standard will dominate in the UK.”
Microtune’s multi-standard plans involve expanding its Mobile MicroTuner IC family for the DVB-T, DVB-H, T-DMB, ISDB-T and DMB-TH specifications.
A first example of its multi-standard approach is a dual-standard (DVB-T and DVB-H), dualband (UHF and VHF-Band III) chip that receives and tunes both digital terrestrial TV and mobile broadcast TV signals.
Qualcomm is another chip supplier planning multi-standard tuners. It is proposing its own mobile TV air-interface known as Flo, but plans to combine this with DVB-H and ISDB-T in multi-standard silicon early next year.
The MT2260 is used in LG’s LG-U900 mobile phone which is being used in Europe’s first commercial mobile TV service in Italy which has been launched in time for World Cup coverage.
“We expect the commercial rollouts for the 2006 FIFA World Cup to serve as an excellent proving ground for mobile TV services,” said Fontaine.