Podcast #474: Mobile DTV
According to the Open Mobile Video Coalition, Mobile Digital Television, or Mobile DTV, will be available in 71 million homes in the US in the next 12 months. That equates to roughly two-thirds of all US households by this time next year. With that almost instant market penetration, we’re bound to see some shifts in HDTV, home theater and certainly consumer electronics.
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Today's Show:
Blu-ray Reviews:
News:
- Exclusive: Study Stresses Staying Power of Disc
- Is 4K Necessary in HDTV?
- VUDU Launches Browser-Based Streaming of Expansive Content Library on VUDU.com
- Sony’s Outs Two New OLED Monitors
Other:
- Audyssey Debuts Low Frequency Containment Technology
- Win an Ipad2 at https://www.facebook.com/IPTVConnection
- Point your dish with apps from http://www.dishpointer.com/
Mobile DTV
According to the Open Mobile Video Coalition, Mobile Digital Television, or Mobile DTV, will be available in 71 million homes in the US in the next 12 months. That equates to roughly two-thirds of all US households by this time next year. With that almost instant market penetration, we’re bound to see some shifts in HDTV, home theater and certainly consumer electronics.
What is Mobile DTV?
According to the Open Mobile Video Coalition website: www.openmobilevideo.com:
“The current network of broadcast transmission towers that carry TV signals to your home can be retrofitted to also deliver a Mobile DTV signal. That signal has the ability to deliver local, full-motion digital broadcasts on multiple mobile devices, without the need for additional broadcast spectrum.”
…
“With little cost, broadcasters can install a Mobile DTV exciter and signal encoding equipment on existing TV transmission systems and gain the ability to transmit a robust, digital mobile TV signal. Consumers will receive that signal on various Mobile DTV devices.”
So far, so good. For a relatively low investment, our current local broadcasters will be able to transmit live TV to portable devices like cell phones, portable media players, portable DVD players, computers and tablets. You’ll be able to watch live TV on the train, in the doctor’s office or while sitting outside the fitting room without the need for a good data connection or a device like a slingbox.
The video is intended for mobile devices, so it won’t eliminate the need to run coax cable to your home theater. Initially you’ll get small format video encoded with H.264 base profile. Eventually they plan to scale the video quality up to 480p and hopefully (although we haven’t seen this written) include 5.1 audio as well. So while it won’t be good enough for your home theater, it could be acceptable for getting TV in your garage or shed or other secondary area.
And for watching TV on the go, for those of us who like to keep the kids nice and quiet and entertained in the back of the car? They’ve tested reception and have shown clear, consistent reception in vehicles traveling at over 100 miles per hour. But if you’re driving that fast with kiddies in the car, do us all a favor and slow it down. Train rides, however, go ahead an go as fast as you want, Mobile DTV can keep up just fine.
What’s the catch?
We all know that there’s not such thing as a free lunch; there has got to be a catch. And there is. Mobile DTV is basically another multicast channel on the same frequency band the broadcasters have already been allocated. To support mobile TV, the broadcaster will have to steal bandwidth from your HDTV program. If done right, it’s possible we won’t even notice. But if they continue to support the same multicast sub-channels they already have, and simply carve off more bandwidth for Mobile, we all suffer.
The Open Mobile Video Coalition website shows a couple of hypothetical scenarios for how this could be done. With ATSC, each broadcaster has 19.4 Mb/s of DTV spectrum. About 1.4 Mb/s of this is typically taken up by what they call data or ancillary services, leaving 18 Mb/s for video. For some broadcasters, like CBS, you get all 18 Mb/s for high def. With other broadcasters you get less, maybe 10 or 12 Mb/s for high def and the remaining 6 to 8 Mb/s supports other standard def channels available for your viewing pleasure.
The hypothetical scenarios show that 4 to 6 Mb/s of bandwidth is enough to support 2 to 4 Mobile DTV channels. Carving out a huge amount of bandwidth, like 10 to 12 Mb/s would allow a broadcaster to send out as many as a dozen different Mobile DTV channels. Think of how many different commercials you could sell on that many channels! But doing the math, it looks like you can support 1 Mobile DTV channel on less than 2 Mb/s, allowing a broadcaster to provide very high quality HTDV and still provide a simulcast of the main feed for Mobile devices.
What about devices?
LG has a portable DVD player with built-in Mobile DTV support available at Amazon.com and the HT Guys store for a list price of $250, but at the time of this article, you can actually buy it for as little as $77! (buy now) The LG DP570MH has a 7” screen with 480x234 resolution you can use to watch DVDs or local DTV broadcasts. Amazon also has several USB tuners in the $70-$80 price range.
Beyond what’s currently on the market, many manufactures have announced devices in an attempt to ride the 71 million household wave. RCA for example, will be bringing out several portable TVs and a portable car tuner for your minivan’s rear entertainment system. You can find out more about RCA’s upcoming products at www.RCAPortableTV.com.
If the prediction of 71 million homes by April 2012 comes true, Ara’s prediction that Automobile Based Mobile Video will become a reality in 2011 looks like it has really good odds. But instead of requiring a cell phone or mifi connected to a computer or slingbox at home gobbling up all your data via 3G or 4G or 5G, all you’ll need is a simple $75 portable TV or DVD player. No monthly contract required.
Reader Comments (5)
On the show Ara mentioned a news feed that includes Calibration Corner and other items. Where do I find that RSS feed?
Keep up the great show, guys.
Scott
Hi Scott,
Use this feed in your feed reader or in iTunes www.htguys.com/news/rss.xml
It will pick up all articles including our Blu-ray reviews. In iTunes it will automatically download the audio if there is any in a post.
Thanks for listening to the show!
Ara
The problem with LTE and the other 4G technologies (or 3.5G depending on how you look at is) is that the amount of spectrum isn't growing. These technologies have become so efficient that they are using almost all of the available spectrum for data transmission. What people don't understand about wireless is that there are physical limits to how much data can be transmitted (Shannon–Hartley Theorem). As more and more people start getting on these services, you are fighting for the available spectrum with all of them. As an example sometime go to a very crowded place (Los Vegas strip on a Saturday night or a large sporting event) and do a bandwidth test of your 3G connection. See how much slower it is than when you are somewhere less crowded. 4G is fast now, but that's because there are only a handful of people using it. It will always be faster than 3G, but the speeds are going to come down significantly as the number of people using it increase.
I see the new Mpeg4 mobile technology as the Trojan horse that introduces H264 to the ATSC spec and will slowly be up spec'd and kill off Mpeg2 which after all is a very inefficient method of broadcasting over the air or sat TV.. takes up way too much bandwidth..
I'm pretty excited about Vudu offering their service through their website! The reason is that I can access the content with my home theater PC. I'm also looking forward to 4K front projection...while 1080P is good on my 103" 2.35:1 screen, 4K would be much better at my 10' viewing distance.