Getting analog-passthrough DTV converters to consumers whose coupons are about to expire is the goal of a tie-in low-power TV’s Community Broadcasters Association debuted Tuesday with box supplier Microprose. But Microprose was delisted as a certified supplier, apparently because it’s against NTIA rules to redeem coupons for pre-orders, as Microprose was doing, an agency spokesman said.
A report by a broadcasters’ coalition recommending the most viable mobile DTV transmission system among three being reviewed will factor heavily into Advanced TV Systems Committee deliberations on setting a U.S. standard for mobile and handheld DTV broadcasting, ATSC President Mark Richer said in an interview Thursday. “The report makes some significant findings and recommendations that if they're confirmed by our specialist group will have a significant impact on our work on decision making,” he said, declining to discuss details. The report, delivered May 15 to ATSC, is said to have named LG and Harris’ Mobile Pedestrian Handheld system the best, prompting Samsung to offer elements of A- VSB, a competing system it devised with Rohde and Schwarz, to LG (CD May 15 p2) or (CED May 15 p1).
The FCC’s discovery in the past year that many DTV makers “have been selling units that ignore FCC rules requiring V-chip 2.0 compatibility” shows why the agency should consider requiring automatic software update capability in DTV sets and set-top boxes, six consumer, civil rights and disability groups told FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in a letter last week. Consumers “are at risk because the manufacturers are knowingly selling products that are likely to become obsolete long before they should,” the letter said. “If the manufacturers would include an inexpensive automatic software upgrade capability, new DTVs and converter boxes will be more durable and useful for consumers than is the case without that capability,” said the American Association of People with Disabilities, the Consumer Federation of America, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the New America Foundation, the Telecom Research and Action Center and the World Institute on Disability. Martin should launch an immediate inquiry “to shed light on these issues and see “if the industry will behave responsibly or if some stronger action is required to protect consumers,” they said. As yet they aren’t proposing rules like mandatory automatic update capability as part of product certification or “clear labeling” that tells consumers if gear has that capability, they said. House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., and Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey, D- Mass., put the issue “on the table” in November 2006 when they urged NTIA to require automatic update capability in coupon-eligible converter boxes, the letter said. But NTIA decided to make it a permitted rather than required CECB feature in its March 2007 final rules. Automatic software upgrades “could benefit both manufacturers in updating software and the users in upgrading a CECB’s authorized features,” the agency said then. “It is NTIA’s understanding that this automatic software update feature was only recently field-tested and is not currently commercially available, even in expensive television receivers,” NTIA said. “NTIA is reluctant to require that manufacturers include in a CECB this new technology which is just emerging from field tests.” In their letter to Martin, the six groups said NTIA “would have been wise to listen to the Congressmen,” given Microtune claims that tuner chips in most certified CECBs don’t meet ATSC A/74 performance standards. CEA has many concerns “about this effort to impose technology mandates on this robustly competitive marketplace,” a spokesman said. “These proposals come a year after the government gave all parties a full and fair opportunity to participate in the formation of the DTV coupon program,” he said. Imposing them would “undermine” program implementation and imperil the DTV transition, he said.
Based on its belief that Microtune’s is the only tuner chipset for coupon-eligible converter boxes that’s “fully compliant” with ATSC A/74 receiver specifications, “we question how any converter box that didn’t contain an A/74- compliant tuner could pass certification,” Microtune CEO James Fontaine told analysts Monday in a quarterly earnings call. In side-by-side tests of Microtune-based boxes and CECBs with rival chipsets, “we found that certain certified boxes that are currently and widely available in the national retail chains failed at government mandated specification on multiple channels,” Fontaine said. Microtune chips are in 11 of the 70-odd CECBs that have been certified, including EchoStar’s, he said. The issue Microtune raised in the letter it wrote NTIA last month (CD March 27 p17) “is a critical one,” Fontaine said. “We are concerned that U.S. taxpayers may be subsidizing defective products via the converter box coupon program that do not meet the government’s own performance requirements, and which may in fact result in loss of TV signals for unsuspecting consumers.” Microtune thinks the NTIA “has taken the complaint very seriously,” Fontaine said. “It is our understanding that the NTIA is currently conducting a confidential investigation concerning the issue raised by Microtune.”
LAS VEGAS -- Proliferation of multi-standard devices that get mobile TV reduces the need for a for a single standard for delivering mobile TV, speakers told an NAB convention panel organized by the FLO Forum. “Almost every single receiver device is multi-standard,” said Vinod Valloppillil, Roundbox vice president of product marketing. Conforming a device to multiple standards has costs, but they are “trending toward zero,” he said.
LAS VEGAS -- It’s no longer enough for broadcasters to “hide behind the old adage: I'm just a businessman providing what the people want,” actor-producer Tim Robbins said in an unusual NAB convention keynote. “We're better than that,” Robbins said in a speech urging broadcasters to provide real news, diversity of views and useful content, rather than the latest sex scandal. One long-time NAB attendee called the keynote “the best in twenty years.”
A second round of side-by-side tests of three mobile DTV systems being considered for adoption as an industry standard was to begin Saturday in Las Vegas. The tests, run by the Open Mobile Video Coalition on behalf of the Advanced TV Systems Committee, mark the latest phase of an aggressive schedule intended to allow broadcasters to offer mobile DTV service soon after the analog cutoff. Similar tests in San Francisco ended earlier in March. Meanwhile, engineers in Washington have been holding marathon meetings, including an eight-hour session last week at NAB’s office, a six-hour March 11 meeting at the PBS office and a 10-hour-plus March 10 meeting at Wiley Rein. ATSC’s board is to meet Tuesday at NAB.
Low power broadcasters shouldn’t disrupt DTV switch educational efforts by the rest of the industry, NAB CEO David Rehr wrote in a letter to Community Broadcasters Association counsel Peter Tannenwald. Rehr said his letter was prompted by a report in Communications Daily that CBA officials threatened to disrupt DTV education (CD March 3 p1). Unlike full-power broadcasters, low power and translator stations need not stop analog service in Feb. 2009. The CBA, which represents low power broadcasters, fears too many consumers will buy government-subsidized digital-analog converter boxes that won’t receive or pass through analog LPTV signals. “Surely CBA would rather work cooperatively to address the current issues facing low power television viewers in the digital television transition than this report suggests,” Rehr said.
Broadcast executives hope new mobile DTV technology will succeed, but some aren’t sure how the industry will take advantage of it, TV executives told investors at a Bear Stearns conference this week. Sinclair CEO David Smith -- a big supporter of efforts by the Advanced Television Systems Committee to set a mobile DTV standard before the DTV switch -- was the most upbeat among TV executives to address the Bear Stearns crowd. “You're going to see the next evolution of the availability of over the air TV on essentially every device that can be made,” Smith said. “It will in all probability be an enormous boon to the industry.”
The Mobile DTV Alliance will work more closely with U.S. broadcasters developing a mobile DTV standard through the Advanced TV Systems Committee, it said. Guidelines by the group call for support of multiple broadcast systems under a consistent service layer. “Looking to harmonize network technologies on the service layer, our new implementation guidelines cater to DVB-H-based broadcast systems today and will include ATSC-M/H based broadcast systems in the near future,” MDTVA President Walt Tamminen said in a news release.