ATSC A/74 for adjacent-channel interference and FCC 05- 199 for co-channel interference are “adequate and reasonable” standards for certifying coupon-eligible boxes without hurting the potential for using TV white spaces, New American Foundation (NAF) told NTIA in a Tues. ex parte presentation. NAF based its conclusion on preliminary findings in receiver interference tests at the U. of Kan. The findings matter because NTIA’s DTV coupon program could “impact” use of TV white spaces for unlicensed wireless devices, depending on the specs it adopts for certifying converter boxes as coupon- eligible, NAF said. NTIA scheduled 18 ex parte meetings Tues. and Wed. (Wed.) in its DTV coupon rulemaking (CD Nov 7 p8), a spokesman told us. All slots were filled, he said. Another ex parte presenter, Garden City Group, of Weston, Fla., said it would be “useful” for NTIA “as soon as possible” to publish final rules on such issues as eligibility of households to “facilitate the DTV transition” in the tight schedule that was handed the agency. Garden City Group was the vendor in NTIA’s separate procurement proceeding that proposed a test rollout of DTV converter boxes and coupons before the program launches Jan. 2008 (CD Nov 1 p5). NTIA’s goal is to finish the coupon rulemaking and publish final rules by Q1, a spokesman told us.
LG, NEC, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba formed the WirelessHD consortium to develop a specification for a wireless HD digital interface that will enable HD AV streaming and high-speed content transmission for TVs and other CE devices, the companies announced Tues. Wireless technology company SiBeam also is a member of WirelessHD, which described itself as a “special interest group.”
CUPERTINO, Cal. -- FCC hardware mandates will boost CE- friendly networking technology HANA -- but only if a rerun of CableCARD is avoided and the FCC firmly enforces its rules in the face of cable industry resistance, said a senior Samsung technologist. The FCC is requiring the IEEE 1394 connectivity used by HANA -- High-Definition AV Network Alliance technology -- in all HD set-top boxes, said Dir. Jack Chaney of Samsung Information Systems America’s Digital Media Solutions Lab. The Commission also is requiring ATSC tuners in TV sets, he noted at a meeting Tues. night of the Silicon Valley chapter of the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society.
CE makers and broadcasters tore at each other’s throats during the DTV transition debate. So it was a big surprise last month when CEA, MSTV and NAB filed comments jointly in NTIA’s rulemaking on running the $1.5 billion DTV converter box coupon program (CD Sept 26 p3).
Broadcasters’ mobile video opportunities aren’t altering TV station values - yet, industry officials and analysts said. VHF stations historically have been valued more highly thanks to better propagation signal characteristics. But for reaching handheld devices a UHF broadcast’s shorter wavelength beats VHF. The UHF/VHF price gap has shrunk significantly, but not due to mobile DTV, broker Frank Kalil said. However, new services like mobile TV or digital multicasting might add value, he added: “Right now [digital channels are] not worth a lot of money, but we're only a couple of years away from the day they will be.”
ATSC approved a new recommended practice for transport stream verification, called A/78, it said. The practice will probably become “basis for DTV transport stream monitoring strategies,” ATSC Pres. Mark Richer said in a news release. Triveni Digital’s Richard Chernock led the work on A/78, ATSC said.
Mobile DTV to notebook PCs will take off internationally in 2007-2008, said Ernest Tsui, Intel DTV architect. “Right now is the time to prepare the platform,” Tsui said last week at the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) in San Francisco. “2007 and 2008 will be where the hockey stick really starts to take off, not only for the U.S.” but also Europe and China, gearing up for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he said: “Broadcast sports events… where everybody’s watching is really going to spur this mobile DTV growth.” No longer will a fan need to miss a game while shopping with a spouse, Tsui said. In contrast to cellphones’ tiny displays, a notebook screen viewed at normal distance fills the eye as much as a 50” TV from 8’, he said: “It basically is filling up your field of view, and it’s a very good display, so it’s equivalent to your high-definition screen at home,” Tsui said. Notebook TV is enabled by better battery life, he said. Laptops will get broadcasts over WiMAX and cellular networks, though cellular reception creates interference risks, Tsui said. Even at 320x240 resolution, 8 min. of video eats bandwidth equivalent to 240 min. of cellphone talk time, so mobile carriers will build broadcast networks to avoid swamping their cell systems, he said. The mobile DTV technology in handhelds won’t suffice in notebooks, which can’t be repositioned as easily to improve reception, Tsui said. The technology also must coexist with a notebook’s other wireless technologies, he said. A particular challenge is dealing, via receiver filtering, with a choice of cutting off GSM or the upper 10-20 UHF channels, Tsui said. He focused largely on Asia in his remarks, the last in a series at successive IDFs on mobile DTV around the world. Few projections are available, but Intel expects the medium’s growth in the region to track the huge growth expected in mobile TV handsets, he said. Tsui’s own spot tests riding around in Tokyo, Shanghai and Taipei registered signal-to- noise ratios of 34-38 dB, considerably better than the 10-15 needed, he said; this shows “you can get adequate signal levels” even with a small antenna. China’s recently adopted DMB-T/H standard offers even higher mobility than Japan’s ISDB-T and S. Korea’s T-DMB -- in contrast to the U.S.’s ATSC, which allows none, he said. And China’s standard supports full 1080i HDTV up to about 60 mph, unlike the QVGA normally enabled by its neighbors’, Tsui said. “Enhanced ATSC will try to improve mobility, but it’s still not OFDM [orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing], and that’s sort of one of the prerequisites” of mobile HD, he said.
After several market tests, TiVo is preparing its Series3 HD PVR for Sept. delivery, retailers told our affiliate Consumer Electronics Daily. Pricing is expected to be released within 2 weeks, dealers said. The Series3 PVR accommodates 2 CableCARDs and has dual ATSC tuners and storage capacity for recording up to 300 hours and 25-30 hours of SD and HD video, respectively. In an ex parte filing with the FCC last month, TiVo urged cable firms to “make any necessary preparations” to support customers who request 2 CableCARDs for Series3s. TiVo has heard of cable installers “refusing to install or support” CableCARDs in the field, the company said: “We wanted to proactively educate MSOs about this product before it is widely distributed to prevent any misunderstandings like this from occurring in the future.” TiVo has forged alliances with cable operators -- notably Comcast, which is expected to start downloading the PVR platform to Motorola’s DCT-6214 set-top box this year.
LG Electronics will deliver a prototype DTV converter box to MSTV-NAB in Sept. 1/3 the original’s size and integrating most ATSC tuning and reception functions on a single chip, an LG spokesman told us at N.Y. news briefing. The device goes a long way toward meeting the goal of a DTV converter box costing $50 or less by the Feb. 2009 analog cutoff, the spokesman said. The box, which LG plans to self- certify as eligible for the NTIA’s $40 coupon program, has separate ROM and RAM plus a video input and RF 3/4 channel output. It may add a smart antenna output to accommodate a powered or unidirectional DTV antenna, the spokesman said. The box is being developed based on expected demand for 20-40 million units, not all will require a new antenna, he spokesman said. The box will ship in 2008, when the coupon program kicks in.
Only a household relying exclusively on over-the-air analog TV reception would qualify for a $40 coupon voucher redeemable toward purchase of a “certified” bare-bones DTV converter box under the long-awaited NTIA rulemaking released Mon. and scheduled for Federal Register publication today (Tues.). The agency was charged by Congress in DTV transition legislation with running the $1.5-billion subsidy program in advance of the Feb. 2009 analog cutoff. Comments on NTIA’s proposed rules are due in 60 days.