Qualcomm's MediaFLO mobile TV technology makes progress

Stuart Corner
Saturday, 08 September 2007 17:23

Business IT - Technology

Qualcomm has had a couple of successes in its battle to gain acceptance  for its MediaFLO mobile TV broadcast technology . TeamCast, a French company that develops equipment for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) serving the mobile TV transmission industry, has licensed the FLO modulator software to accelerate development of FLO-compliant modulators for mobile TV transmissions, which can then be easily integrated into third-party transmitter equipment. And Media Excel, a provider of transcoding solutions for Mobile TV, IPTV & Web TV, has joined the FLO Forum and has announced that it will launch later in the year the Hera 3200.FLO, a MediaFLO-compatible mobile TV transcoder for mobile TV solutions targeted at broadcasters, content aggregators and service providers around the world.

These developments follow the announcement last month of plans for a trial of the MediaFLO technology in Malaysia by Maxis Communications and Astro All Asia Networks.

According to Qualcomm, TeamCast has developed two new products in its ModulCast family of modulators that will meet the requirements of the Forward Link Only (FLO) air interface standard as specified by the FLO Forum and standardised by the Telecommunications Industry Association: the MFL-1000 and MFL-2000. The new modulators integrate the field-programmable gate array software in order to allow third-party manufacturers to develop FLO-compliant transmission equipment.

"This agreement enables transmitter companies from around the globe to participate in MediaFLO trials and commercial deployments," said Mike Coad, vice president of partner relations, Qualcomm MediaFLO Technologies.

The president and CEO of Media Excel, Thanasis Iatrou, said: "Media Excel's 3200m transcoder has become the video compression appliance of choice for major Mobile TV operators around the world. We now target to extend our leadership in transcoding solutions for Mobile TV by launching a dedicated transcoder appliance for MediaFLO broadcasting."

He added: "Media Excel has been working closely with the parent organisation of MediaFLO for some time and recently joined the FLO Forum as a key transcoding partner for Mobile TV broadcasting. The fruits of our close collaboration will result in a MediaFLO video transcoder solution within our Hera family of appliances."