Japan to Start Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting in Spring 2012 under ISDB-Tmm Format

Wednesday, 01 December 2010 09:18

Multimedia Broadcasting, Inc., which has adopted the ISDB-Tmm standard for multimedia broadcasting, has been commissioned as the sole carriage operator providing nationwide multimedia broadcasting services for mobile devices scheduled to start following the termination of the analog broadcasting service in Japan. It is the direct result of active efforts by the ISDB-T Multimedia Forum, a group of about 80 companies organized to promote the ISDB-Tmm standard.

The ISDB-Tmm standard is a member of the ISDB-T family of digital terrestrial broadcasting technologies. As it is going to be put into commercial use in Japan, there is a growing hope for the adoption of the ISDB-Tmm standard in Latin America, where the ISDB-T format has been adopted, as well as in other parts of the world. In Japan, Multimedia Broadcasting, the newly commissioned carriage operator, and other members of the ISDB-T Multimedia Forum have been engaged in a wide range of activities targeted at commercial broadcasting services starting in the spring of 2012.

ISDB-Tmm Standard

The ISDB-Tmm standard employs the concatenated transmission method which, combining some blocks of the 13-segment (5.6MHz) band and the 1-segment (0.4MHz) band, eliminates the need of a guard band, making it possible to apply it to various bandwidths. As a concatenated transmitter for the 33-segment (14.2MHz) band has been developed, transmission costs will be cut down by a significant margin. Capable of adapting to bandwidths used by the carriage operator, the ISDB-Tmm standard can also be adapted to 7MHz and 8MHz spectrum allocation. The ISDB-Tmm standard has a high degree of compatibility with the ISDB-T format, making it possible to share the same receivers for different broadcasting services and cut down on transmission costs. The standard will thus prove to be the best multimedia broadcasting method for Latin American countries and other nations which have adopted the ISDB-T terrestrial digital broadcasting system.