Demonstration of Bidirectional Services Using MPEG-4 BIFS in Terrestrial DMB Systems

Digital broadcasting technology has developed focusing on multi-channel/multi-media, high-definition quality, and mobility-support. Recently, there has been a clear trend toward bidirectional service with the convergence between broadcasting and communication. The broadcasting viewer is no longer simply a passive receptor but has also become an information generator. Currently, the digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) specifications are the major standard for portable digital broadcasting and have been establishing the overall guidelines for bidirectional service using the MPEG-4 system. While detailed specifications for DMB systems are not well-established for bidirectional service yet, they share the basic concepts underlying the European Eureka-147 Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) system. This paper develops key scenarios for bidirectional service in DMB, describes the signal transaction of broadcasting and return channels, and demonstrates typical scenarios using binary format for scenes (BIFS) in the MPEG-4 system.