It is anticipated that there will shortly be a requirement
for multimedia terminals that operate via mobile
communications systems. This paper presents a functional specification
for such a terminal operating at 32 kb/s in a digital
European cordless telecommunications (DECT) and universal
mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) radio network. A terminal
has been built, based on a PC with digital signal processor
(DSP) boards for audio and video coding and decoding. Speech
coding is by a phonetically driven code-excited linear prediction
(CELP) speech coder and video coding by a block-oriented hybrid
discrete cosine transform (DCT) coder. Separate channel coding
is provided for the audio and video data. The paper describes the
techniques used for audio and video coding, channel coding, and
synchronization. Methods of subjective testing in a DECT network
and in a UMTS network are also described. These consisted of
subjective tests of first impressions of the mobile audio–visual
terminal (MAVT) quality, interactive tests, and the completion
of an exit questionnaire. The test results showed that the quality
of the audio was sufficiently good for comprehension and the
video was sufficiently good for following and repeating simple
mechanical tasks. However, the quality of the MAVT was not
good enough for general use where high-quality audio and video
was needed, especially when transmission was in a noisy radio
environment
