MING-T is a two-year joint European and Chinese project funded by the European Commission within the framework of the FP6-IST programme. The project started on 01. Jan 2007 and runs until 31. Dec. 2008, when we hope to demonstrate the software and prototypes in a live field-trial in Beijing.

Read on for a one-page overview of the project, or select one of the entries from the navigation menu for detailed background information about mobile broadcast networks and the project's scope and goals.

Motivation

The acronym MING-T is short for "Multistandard Integrated Network convergence for Global Mobile and Broadcast Technologies". As we move towards an information era of widespread information availability, an effective system of convergence among the new broadcasting technologies, internet technology, and mobile systems becomes increasingly important. Countries are deploying multiple broadcast technologies; it will remain a key challenge for the industry and user communities to provide a uniform platform to content providers, and convergence is critical to overcoming this challenge.

Goals

The goal of MING–T is to research, develop, prototype, integrate and validate the interoperability and handover issues of the representative mobile digital broadcast standards developed in China and Europe. MING­­­–T will address the issues of convergence between broadcast standards and mobile communications network technologies. A further goal of the project is to foster cooperation between Europe and China in both industry and research communities. The project will particularly address the convergence of the European DVB-H standard with the emerging Chinese DTMB standard, with a view to providing a harmonized framework. In addition, the project will consider the convergence between broadcast and mobile technology networks to provide a unified platform for the delivery of services to mobile terminals. Finally, the project will cover how to deliver these services with a consistent level of quality to rich media applications across mixed broadcast networks, and in particular how scalable video coding may address this issue.

Objectives

Our work plan concentrates on the following main project objectives:

• Develop an architecture that can provide seamless access in converged digital broadcasting and mobile communications networks.
• Incorporate Chinese DTMB into the multi-standard framework.
• Apply advanced scalable coding techniques for the services in the converged digital broadcasting and mobile communications networks environment.
• Conduct field trials to provide validation support for the usability of the technologies developed.

The Name

Of course, the project acronym MING-T is easy to pronounce and sounds nice in English (and German), without clear association but a Chinese ring to it. On the other hand, one of the meanings/associations for Chinese speakers is "future technologies".