DVB-H Mobile TV to Trial in UK from July

13th May 2005

The trial will consist of 16 mobile TV channels including:

Cartoon Network
Chart Show TV
CNN
Discovery Channel
Shorts TV (short film service)
Sky News
Sky Sports News
Sky Travel

The trial will provide 350 O₂ customers with a Nokia 7710 smartphone (pictured left) and will take place in Oxford.

According to the MediaGuardian, there are a further 8 "slots" yet to be filled, making a possible total of 24 mobile TV channels. With a typical mobile TV channel bit rate of 300 kbps (using the new H.264/AVC video codec) 24 channels require 7.2 Mbps, which means that 16-QAM modulation will be used, probably with a code rate of 1/2, along with the powerful MPE-FEC outer layer of coding, and a guard interval of 1/4.

NTL Broadcast is providing transmitters to cover a 120 square kilometre area.