Retailers want to ensure that viewers of low-power TV stations can keep getting the signals after the full-power digital transition (CD Feb 12 p2), said Marc Pearl, executive director of the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition. Electronics stores will sell DTV converter boxes that pass- through analog signals as well as digital broadcasts and will also market splitters, Pearl told us late Monday. Both options will let over-the-air viewers keep getting low-power signals, which aren’t covered by an FCC-imposed transition deadline, after Feb. 17, 2009, he said. The most recent version of the retail coalition’s consumer guide, posted online last week, tells consumers about the low-power broadcasters, said Pearl. “Everyone -- retailers, manufacturers, broadcasters (both full and low power), the FCC and the NTIA -- have an interest in making sure the public is fully informed of their options to help them get through the transition,” he said. But an ad run by low-power stations telling viewers that they must buy a device with an ATSC and NTSC tuner is “misleading,” said Pearl. Those devices can’t be bought with the $40 converter box coupons that the NTIA will send out starting next week and may cost more than $150 or require a new set, he added.
Government and industry officials have gathered twice at the FCC this month to discuss how they can ensure that people who watch low-power TV stations keep getting their signals after the digital transition, said a half-dozen participants. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin requested the meeting so a wide range of those involved in the transition could discuss how to publicize NTIA-certified converter boxes that pass through analog signals, they said. The NTIA already has certified three boxes that can do this as eligible for $40 coupons that it will start sending to consumers Feb. 18, and it expects to certify others (CD Feb 11 p4) OR (CED Feb 11 p4). But low- power broadcasters are concerned that most of the more than 30 NTIA-certified boxes can’t do pass-through, and they filed a complaint on the matter with the FCC Dec. 7.
Broadcasters may miss out on an ad windfall from mobile DTV if station groups don’t broadcast at full power for maximum coverage, Sinclair Broadcast Group Chairman David Smith said in an interview. “It’s a matter of survival,” he said. “If they don’t do this, they may be gone in five or 10 years.” U.S. TV stations could gain $1.1 billion in annual ad sales by 2012 from mobile DTV, and networks would get another $900 million, according to a BIA study commissioned by the NAB. But stations that choose not to operate their digital stations at full power are putting themselves in jeopardy, Smith said.
Attending CES gave the State Department a “level of credibility and timeliness” it had lacked as it tried to get Latin American powerhouse economies to weigh the ATSC standard for DTV, an agency official told the first meeting this year of the Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy Thursday. Things may not be looking up in the Southern Hemisphere for the U.S.- backed standard, but they aren’t looking down either, said David Gross, U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy. The meeting also covered cross-border spectrum issues.
A mobile DTV system developed by Micronas and Thomson that’s a candidate to become an industry standard won’t be ready for consumer trials that a group of broadcasters plans to run this year. The Open Mobile Video Coalition plans at midyear to give consumers in at least two markets multiple mobile DTV receivers in devices such as cellphones and lap-top computers developed separately by Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz and by LG and Harris (CD Jan 9 p13) and monitor how they use them. Broadcasters hope they can introduce a commercial mobile DTV service in February 2009, just after the DTV transition.
Broadcasters will run consumer trials of two competing mobile DTV systems this year in separate markets, the Open Mobile Video Coalition announced at CES. Broadcasters led by Ion Media will use programming from SES-Americom’s IP-Prime offering to test Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz’s A-VSB system as well as LG and Harris’ Mobile Pedestrian Handheld system. Those mobile DTV technologies and another from Micronas and Grass Valley are being considered for an industry standard by the ATSC. The coalition will hand out mobile DTV-enabled cell phones, portable media players and laptops to consumers in multiple test markets, the group said. It hopes to learn how consumers are likely to use mobile DTV and to see how each system performs. “Broadcasters are focused on launching mobile digital television services in 2009, and these consumers trials are a critical component of our due diligence,” said Brandon Burgess, Ion Media’s CEO and the coalition’s chairman.
LAS VEGAS -- The LG-Harris Mobile Pedestrian Handheld (MPH) mobile DTV system could be enter the U.S. market by February 2009 or within 12 months after adoption of a mobile ATSC standard, Harris CEO Howard Lance told a Sunday CES news conference here.
Harris and LG’s Mobile Pedestrian Handheld mobile DTV system got a boost Tuesday when Kenwood said it would develop an in-car DTV system using the technology. MPH is among fledgling mobile DTV systems that ATSC is considering as a standard. The companies will show prototypes at the January CES show in Las Vegas, they said. “We have been watching the emerging market for mobile terrestrial DTV with great interest,” said Shoichiro Eguchi, president of Kenwood USA. Harris and LG’s mobile DTV technology has been proven to work, and now the companies will test mobile video demand, said H.G. Lee, LG’s president and chief technology officer.
Nokia, Samsung and Rohde & Schwartz submitted a joint proposal on mobile DTV broadcasting to ATSC Oct. 15, Samsung confirmed. The three companies originally partnered in August around an A-VSB system from Samsung and Rohde & Schwartz. ATSC has said it hopes to set standards for in- band mobile DTV broadcasting before the February 2009 analog cutoff. The Nokia, Samsung and Rohde joint proposal covers A-VSB for the physical and transport layer and the global OMA-BCAST application layer. Qualcomm, which is working to have aspects of its MediaFLO technology included in the ATSC standard, also submitted a joint proposal last month, a spokeswoman said. She didn’t identify its partners. LG and Harris have a competing candidate to A-VSB, as do Micronas and Grass Valley.
Broadcasters owning 800 TV stations volunteered to test prototypes developed as the ATSC seeks a standard for broadcasting to mobile and handheld devices, said an Oct. 8 letter from Ion Media CEO Brandon Burgess, head of the Open Mobile Video Coalition. To handle that effort, the coalition recently set up a technology advisory working group, under Cox Broadcasting Engineering Vice President Sterling Davis, the letter said. The coalition, which includes Tribune, Sinclair, NBC, LIN TV and other major broadcast groups, vowed again to handle the independent demonstration of viability called for in the ATSC work plan.