ATSC began working to set a national standard for digital broadcasting to mobile and handheld devices, the group said Mon. The group’s plan, adopted in Dec., calls for mobile and handheld standards work this year. ATSC could have developed separate standards for mobile and handheld devices but opted for an integrated approach, Pres. Mark Richer said. The new standard will support broadcasting and datacasting to laptop computers, small handhelds, vehicles traveling at highway speeds and other mobile devices, and be backwards compatible with existing DTV gear.
Transmission of DTV to vehicles and portables using the ATSC system will be introduced at next week’s NAB Convention (Las Vegas, April 14-19). The so-called MPH (for “Mobile- Pedestrian-Handheld") system lets broadcasters use their HDTV channel allocations to reach viewers on the go outside the home, co-developers LG Electronics and broadcast equipment maker Harris said Tues.
Comments are due April 30, replies May 15, on an FCC Lab measurement report of DTV receiver interference performance useful for assessing how unlicensed devices may perform in the TV white spaces, the FCC Office of Engineering & Technology (OET) said in a public notice.
Broadcasters are developing mobile video distribution plans to open new business lines and compete with wireless carriers. This week, Ion said it will shepherd industrywide research & development into mobile broadcasting business and technology, for which it seeks partners (CD Feb 13 p10). And last week Harris hinted it will unveil ATSC-compatible mobile video technology at NAB 2007, making it the first competition to Samsung and Rohde & Schwartz’s A-VSB technology. “It’s already our goal to set a standard for mobile and a standard for handheld TV using the core ATSC DTV standard,” ATSC Pres. Mark Richer said: “We're really just getting started on mobile and handheld. If things move very rapidly we might see a candidate standard by the end of the year. That’s pretty aggressive.”
Companies seeing huge profit in broadcast white spaces want FCC rules as loose as possible, to promote a vibrant market and get gear makers to offer many devices, they said in comments filed with the FCC. With the key question being whether the spectrum will be licensed or not, some commenters warned of the risk of interference to wireless microphones and other devices already using the TV bands.
ATSC may set a standard by mid-year for A-VSB digital TV technology developed by Samsung and Rohde & Schwartz, said Samsung Vp-Govt. Relations John Godfrey. Others are less optimistic. “My personal estimate… based upon an assumption that our members want to standardize on it, [is that] before the end of the calendar year, maybe in the 3rd quarter, we will see this technology as maybe a candidate standard,” said ATSC Pres. Mark Richer. Technologies become candidate standards just before ATSC members adopt them as full standards.
Honduras Jan. 16 effectively adopted the ATSC DTV standard for terrestrial broadcasts, ATSC said.
LAS VEGAS -- It will take time, and hearings, before it’s clear how likely Congress is to take up net neutrality legislation, said Rep. Davis (R-Va.), speaking at the CES here Mon.: “This is the kind of issue that there will be a lot of posturing on, but some conclusion may be unlikely.”
“Participation in CEA standards activities is open to all interested parties,” CEA said, responding to an ex parte filed at the FCC by the Coalition for Independent Ratings Services. Coalition members, including Media Data Corp., had alleged they were shut out of the process to revise the CEA- 766-A specification, which enables DTV sets to read U.S. and Canadian “region rating tables” (RRTs) using “program and system information protocol” (PSIP) in the ATSC standard. CEA has “already communicated to Media Data that we welcome their participation and look forward to receiving their input,” CEA said. As for Coalition allegations that CEA had reserved “RRT 0X05” for itself for future use, CEA said ATSC is “the librarian” for RRTs, and “we reserved the placeholder for future downloadable rating systems.”
European HDTV will hold an edge over ATSC in broadcast resolution thanks to wider bandwidth afforded hi-def channels there, Joe Flaherty, a veteran CBS engineer and one of ATSC’s founding fathers, told a London seminar last week. “If America had had 8-megahertz terrestrial channels instead of only 6 megahertz when we were planning HDTV, we never would have transmitted interlace,” Flaherty said. “If I were a European today, I'd just go ahead with 1080p/50,” he said: “I'd want to preserve that quality advantage you Europeans always used to have with PAL over NTSC.” Flaherty spoke at the annual John Logie Baird lecture held by the Institute of Engineering & Technology, named after the British inventor credited with pioneering TV and other advancements.