IBOC-TV
Television and Mobile Information Services on AM Radio

IBOC-TV is the concept of using the 96 kilobit per second IBOC transmission channel for broadcasting TV and Mobile Information Services to the AM Radio receiver.

The AM Radio of the future is set to become another mobile information device like the Cellphone, and it will use the same type of color display. Digital radios all employ an information screen already, but to date (July 2008) the quality of this screen lags far behind the one in your Cellphone. Digital Radios have the kind of screen that cellphones used to have about 10 years ago, usually nothing better than a 2 line text display, but there is no economic or technical reason for this limitation.

What are the advantages of IBOC-TV over IBOC Digital Radio?
It's Eye-Catching!
It's Colorful!
It can carry advertising in the form of color graphics or small screen video.
It can display your station logo, artist photos, song lyrics, even the music video, your studio webcam, and the smile on the face of your Deejay!
Here's an example of a Digital Radio with this kind of display, which was developed in Australia for their DAB system of Digital Radio. It could easily be adapted for IBOC-AM or IBOC-FM and work just the same way.

Where IBOC Digital Radio is not commercially successful, IBOC-TV may bring that success
It gives us something to look at while we listen to the radio,
something that's related to the audio program.
It's the only kind of thing in the modern world that could rival
that warm glow of the dial light in a classic tube radio,
or the magic of it's "Magic Eye" tuning indicator.

Technical Standards and Screen Size
Existing standards for cellphone and internet video are perfectly suited to IBOC-TV. Picture resolutions should be 320 x 240 for stills, graphics and slideshows with a refresh rate of up to 1 picture per second, while full motion video should be 320 x 240, 256 x 192 or 160 x 120. Screens size should be anything up to 3 inches diagonal, like a cellphone or PDA. Video quality would be enhanced when compared with internet video at 96 kbps, because no bitrate has to be lost on the audio channel. That will be provided by your standard AM or FM broadcast when you simulcast. (An audio delay of around 10 seconds will be set to keep your audio in time with changes on the screen.)

I welcome your comments here:
iboctv@sptv.demon.co.uk

IBOC-TV website last updated July 23rd 2008.