Mobile DTV on the cheap

[Robert Stratton]

Frank,
Glad to hear it. Let me know if I can help. TSreader can be a little intimidating - it's a little clunky on startup if you're doing anything beyond the default, but it's very friendly once you have a "source" providing a data stream. I believe Rod is looking into whether he can decode ATSC-M/H, but the interface he's using to the tuner may keep him from being able to do it with some tuners.

One thing of which to be aware - some of the ATSC-M/H streams are encrypted. There are two competing ventures of content providers and broadcasters to try to develop pay services on top of Mobile DTV. It's possible that you'll see streams in the software that it might not be able to render because of encryption. 

There are a couple of good sites with information about what's being transmitted on any particular frequency but one of my favorites for quick reference is http://rabbitears.info

--Bob

----- Original Message -----
> Bob,
> 
> Good stuff. I bought one of the units on eBay and downloaded the
> software and the freebie tsreader. Now to get the mobile TV software.
> 
> All a cheep, cheep techie thrill, the AMRAD way on some old legacy
> gear.
> 
> I will try to bring mine to tacos tomorrow and see what we can
> receive.
> 
> Frank K0BRA
> 
> On 1/2/2011 7:07 PM, Robert Stratton wrote:
> > For folks who are at all interested in the ongoing trials of
> > ATSC-M/H mobile TV in the U.S., I have happened upon a neat little
> > tool. For serious examination of DVB-S or ATSC bitstreams, I like a
> > piece of software called TSreader, but I was frustrated that there
> > were lower bitrate streams out there for the watching that I
> > couldn't see yet.
> >
> > There's not a lot of receiver hardware in the market yet for
> > ATSC-M/H, which is an IP-encapsulated stream that's rather easily
> > piggybacked onto existing ATSC broadcast infrastructure. ATSC-M/H is
> > supposed to be manageable enough to process that it would work in a
> > vehicle in motion. (That's what the documents all say, I'll defer to
> > Terry as to how true that really is.)
> >
> > It turns out that it's pretty straightforward to use a "legacy"
> > (We're already using that word for this technology?) ATSC USB dongle
> > or PCI card to watch the ATSC-M/H streams if you have software to
> > unpack and something like VLC to render them. I found some for the
> > MS Windows world for $11.99 at http://www.mobile-dtv-viewer.com
> >
> > It works well with the receiver I heard about for $17.95 on eBay
> > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280566495021
> >
> > The company's main business is selling signal analysis software for
> > ATSC and DVB but I think they realized that this was a useful little
> > hack and that people might even pay for it.
> >
> > If you want to really tear apart digital TV protocols and send video
> > to other things for rendering, then I'd still recommend TSreader
> > unreservedly.There are several versions depending on whether you
> > need certain bells and whistles, but the author has been maintaining
> > it diligently for years and is responsive if here's a problem. It
> > supports more hardware than I care to think about, including things
> > like commercial satellite receivers. It's at
> > http://www.tsreader.com/tsreader/index.html Rod, the author also has
> > a rather nice technical page on North American MPEG-2 details at
> > http://www.tsreader.com/legacy/
> >
> > Have fun,
> > --Bob
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Tacos at amrad.org
> > http://www.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos
> >
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-- 
--Bob S.