Members of the Senate Commerce Committee are said to be drafting a bill to delay the nationwide switch to digital TV from Feb. 17, according to lobbyists tracking the transition. Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is thought to be involved in the work, they said.
LAS VEGAS -- No specific date was provided for the U.S. launch of mobile DTV by members of the Open Mobile Video Coalition at a news conference at CES Thursday. The group said only that the launch will come in 2009. But it did announce other plans for the initial broadcaster rollout. Participating companies demonstrated mobile DTV for the first time at the show using the candidate standard recently chosen by the group after the ATSC Mobile DTV standard setting process.
Americans are overpaying for DTV sets because of exorbitant royalties levied by patent holders that license the technology on unreasonable and discriminatory terms, a group that includes TV makers Vizio and Westinghouse Digital claimed Friday. In a petition due to be filed with the FCC Friday, the group was to ask the commission to initiate a rulemaking to regulate the patent fees, and to impose fines on licensors judged to be non-compliant.
DTV preparedness continues to improve, but “the pace at which U.S. households are getting ready has slowed down slightly” in the last month, Nielsen said. It estimates that 6.8 percent of U.S. TV homes are completely unprepared for the switchover - no TV sets are connected to a pay-TV service, a DTV converter box or have a built-in ATSC tuner. And 10 percent of homes aren’t completely ready, Nielsen said. The numbers are down from 7.4 percent and 10.3 percent last month.
Broadcasters will probably build mobile DTV facilities before manufacturers put ATSC mobile receivers in devices, Sinclair CFO David Amy told investors at a UBS conference Tuesday. “The challenge for the industry is going to be what to we do first,” he said. “My guess on that is that we as broadcasters will have to initiate the model and just start broadcasting mobile content and allow the manufacturers to follow us.” The ATSC recently approved as a candidate standard the framework for TV stations to offer a mobile DTV service. Amy expects the final standard will be approved by May, and it will be fall before there’s widespread adoption. Though mobile DTV has been a big focus for Sinclair, it hasn’t been as aggressive about online opportunities, Amy said. “We haven’t spent a whole lot of time talking about Internet revenue,” he said. “It’s an area in which we've notably not been aggressive in going after.” But as Sinclair’s advertisers seek more online ad opportunities, the company will provide them, he said. “It’s not lost on us, and we're becoming more aggressive in terms of going after that money.”
Fine-tuning of the candidate standard document that lays out the framework for U.S. broadcasters to offer a mobile DTV service will continue until year-end, though the Advanced TV Systems Committee approved the plan last week. The system is based on LG’s and Harris’ Mobile Pedestrian Handheld system (CD May 15 p2), said Brett Jenkins, Ion Media director of technology strategy and development. He said the higher layers describing how receivers will switch channels, display and onscreen guide and other advanced features rely on other mobile TV work done by the Open Mobile Alliance. “The ATSC working group spent a lot of time thinking about what needed to be reinvented and what didn’t,” Jenkins said. “One reason why this standard was able to be moved so quickly was because there already has been a lot of work done.”
The Mobile DTV Alliance created an ATSC Mobile/Handheld interoperability technical working group at its last meeting. The alliance also met with Open Mobile Video Coalition and ATSC officials before its fall meeting.
The NAB and the Open Mobile Video Coalition praised the ATSC for elevating a mobile DTV system to a candidate standard. The action is a “tremendous step forward for our viewers and the entire broadcast industry,” NAB CEO David Rehr said.
The Advanced TV Systems Committee approved as a candidate standard a proposal to deliver DTV signals to mobile and handheld devices, it said. The system will support live TV and data broadcasting services, the ATSC said. “The combination of live television and interactive capabilities on mobile and handheld devices is an essential element for the future success of over the air digital television,” said Glenn Reitmeier, the ATSC’s board chairman. The candidate standard will be posted at www.ATSC.org.
Ion Media said it began showing off new mobile DTV technology in Chicago and Denver last week. The company demonstrated the system, under review at the ATSC for an industry standard, at its stations WCPX Chicago and KPXC Denver. They are broadcasting two mobile DTV channels in addition to Ion’s four multicast services.