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No matter how sophisticated and high-tech the most recent handsets being outed by Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, and Apple might seem, they are not compatible with China’s China mobile multimedia broadcasting (CMMB) mobile TV standard, and therefore very limiting to the person who wants to stay up to date with the latest happenings in this year’s [...]

Filed under: Multimedia Just as it's doing with its nascent 3G network , China's forging ahead with a bunch of no-name, homegrown protocols duking it out for the title of National Mobile TV Standard, a fight that's waging deep within the halls of the country's Standardization Administration. CMMB, DMB-TH, T-MMB, CMB, and CDMB -- five "standards" we'll bet a wooden nickel you've never heard of -- are all in the running, although it seems that a rogue dissenter has gone ahead and sped up the process just a bit. China's SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television) is flatly ignoring the standardization process and starting a CMMB build-out already, promising availability in 37 cities via terrestrial networks while the planned July launch of the CMMB-STAR satellite will deliver broadcasts to a total of 324. It seems a wide variety of manufacturers are already on board and the SARFT has started producing CMMB-ready content, so yeah, you can just go ahead and wrap up this whole dog and pony show you call a standards selection process, k? [Via mocoNews ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

The Broadcasting Worldwide (BCWW) convention in Seoul has heard some interesting stats about mobile TV in Korea and China, the Korean ones Staci has already reported on . On the Chinese side any reference to mobile TV is about the 3G service: Wu Chunlei, CEO of Shanghai Dragon New Media, part of the Shanghai Media Group, said there are "2.1 million mobile TV users, including 250,000 paid-for subscriptions, at rates as low as $1.60 a month. "(In China) video is the only killer application for 3G so far," he said." There's somewhere where video actually is the killer 3G app? Who would have thought… Some interesting comments on usage patterns: "After two years, Suh said that TU Media had found that consumers prefer traditional shows and live sports over made-for-mobile content. Primetime viewing hours are very different from those for traditional channels, reflecting commuting times and the role of mobile devices as second TV sets in a household...Hanaro TV's Kim Sung-yong said his company was surprised to learn how many women were watching erotic content mid-evening on their cell phones." Related @ BCWW Seoul: Geographical Differences In Mobile TV Viewing @ BCWW Seoul: Satellite Mobile TV, User-Created PandoraTV Join Tradtional Media

The China Association for Standardization has approved and issued the China Digital Multimedia Broadcast (CDMB) mobile TV handset standard as the association standard. The upshot of this is that the Chinese-developed CDMB mobile TV standard will be submitted to the Standardization Administration of the People’s Republic of China as one of the candidates for the national standard for mobile TV handsets, reports China Tech News . I’m guessing it will be selected, although probably as one of a few. The standard is based on DAB. Related China Approves Use Of All 3G Standards Arguments Over Business Model Delays French Mobile TV Mobile TV Could Be Worth $6.6 Billion By 2011 - Report