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.
A Delaware judge said Rembrandt Technologies must license certain HDTV transmission technology on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms to Harris Corp., which will allow other litigation between the companies to proceed, court papers show. In 2004 Rembrandt acquired a former AT&T patent involved in the “Grand Alliance” that created the ATSC TV standard. Delaware Superior Court Judge Joseph Slights granted Harris’ motion for partial summary judgment in the patent dispute, denying Rembrandt’s. “Harris is entitled to a trial to resolve any remaining disputed factual issues relating to Rembrandt’s licensing obligations,” the judge wrote. “It need not await the determination of ‘essentiality’ of the federal patent litigation before it can obtain the declaratory relief it seeks here.”
CEA is soliciting members to join a new mobile DTV special interest group to help the consumer electronics sector understand the new technology and market dynamics, it said. The Advanced TV Systems Committee has been developing a standard for in-band mobile DTV broadcasts that stations can use to provide mobile DTV service. CEA said the new group will arrange discussions with suppliers of the technologies in the ATSC mobile DTV standard and set up meetings between broadcasters and CE companies interested in the technology.
FCC and NTIA DTV-related funding requests appear in a draft continuing resolution Congress will take up later this week, according to a copy of the bill. NTIA Acting Administrator Meredith Baker plugged the $7 million the agency has told Congress it may need to mail recycled converter box coupons, she told a Monday Association for Maximum Service TV conference. NTIA has been in constant contact with House and Senate leaders on the NTIA’s funding proposal, Baker said.
Concern that tropical storm Hanna would hit Wilmington, N.C., during its early analog TV cutoff Monday raised sales of Winegard’s back-up battery pack for its coupon-eligible converter boxes. The $15 RC-BP9V, which uses six D cells to power Winegard’s RCDT09 and RCDT09A boxes, was promoted extensively in the area as the DTV switch neared. “It’s going pretty well,” Grant Whipple, Winegard national sales manager for digital reception products, told us Monday. “The pack will be available throughout the U.S. through dealers and our website, although we won’t be promoting it as heavily as we did in Wilmington.” Winegard’s battery pack can run its converter boxes up to 18 hours and connects to the set- tops’ 9-volt DV input. The ATSC “Mobile/Handheld” standard should be completed early next year, enabling smartphones and similar devices getting over-air DTV broadcasts to hit the market in Q3 of 2009.