It was with great relief that at least the founding father of ATSC technology, in the form of LG Electronics, said at the NAB conference this week that it will have volume chip manufacture of a mobile TV chip for ATSC M/H, in time for the digital switchover. That probably means that most mobile TV services can go live in around the August to September time frame, earlier than many thought possible.
LG was always expected to be one of the first to market with commercial chip shipments to support the US mobile TV broadcast format, with Samsung and then maybe one or two of the specialist mobile TV chip makers following on. Dell Computer has launched a dongle for a Netbook at the show, but has not specified what chip is inside. Around the rest of the world its mobile TV chip supplier has been Siano Mobile Silicon, which has yet to announce an ATSC variant, although it may be working on one.
LG said that mass production of its chip, the LG2160A, would begin in June, and that new consumer electronics products would be available almost immediately after that. Many pessimists in the US market felt mobile TV would never arrive and have wondered if there is any demand for such a general purpose commercial chip, but the noises at NAB suggest that there will be handsets from LG itself, as well as from Samsung (probably using its own chips), and in-car devices, PC dongles and potentially handset dongles to convert signals and they would all need a chip with ATSC M/H demodulation.
NAB President and CEO David Rehr said, “Broadcasters welcome LG’s chip initiative, which will bring mobile DTV one step closer to marketplace availability. Mobile DTV is an exciting new technology that ensures that in the digital age, viewers can continue to count on over-the-air broadcasting as their most reliable source for local news, weather, traffic and emergency information, even when they’re outside the home and on the move.”
The emerging ATSC Mobile DTV Standard allows broadcasters to use part of the existing 19 Mbps digital TV channel capacity to transmit data for mobile applications. The mobile DTV signal is built into the ATSC 8-VSB signal, also developed by LG’s US subsidiary, Zenith.
The greater Washington DC area, including Baltimore, will be the first US metro region to get free mobile TV the OMVC trade group said this week at the NAB show in Las Vegas.
Six DC TV stations, WPXW (Ion), WUSA (ABC), WDCA (Fox), WRC (NBC), WNUV (the CW) and WHUT (PBS) will bring “a thorough test of content, services and features” to DC consumers by late summer, the Open Mobile Video Coalition told a NAB audience.
Consumers may be able to sign up to receive test hardware, potentially including tuners for laptop PCs and cars, OMVC spokespeople said, but made it clear that hardware distribution details are still being worked out.
LG has designed portable DVD players with Mobile DTV built in. Kenwood has an in-car mobile DTV receiver, and Pixtree has a USB dongle for PCs. The Raleigh, North Carolina CAT bus system is currently running a test of Mobile DTV on screens in some public buses using hardware from LG and Harris Corp.
Seventy stations in twenty-eight markets have committed to launching Mobile DTV later this year, the OMVC said, after the DC area stations go live. That includes all ION TV stations; NBC affiliates in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, Seattle, and Orlando; ABC stations in Orlando, Atlanta, Seattle, Detroit, Charlotte and Baltimore; FOX stations in Chicago, San Francisco and Miami, and many other stations, including many PBS stations nationwide.