The ISDB-Tmm standard, which is a member of the ISDB-T family of digital terrestrial broadcasting technologies, is going to be put into commercial use in Japan in spring 2012. Multimedia Broadcasting, the newly commissioned carriage operator, and other members of the ISDB-T Multimedia Forum will be working together to provide nationwide multimedia broadcasting services for mobile devices.
Here’s what the ISDB-Tmm Standard is all about (from the press release):
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.
And if everything goes as planned, it is believed that countries of Latin America could also adopt ISDB-Tmm to eventually expand mobile TV usage outside of Japan and South Korea…