Fw: ATSC hand held TV

Mon Apr 28 10:07:57 CDT 2014

Chip,

Mobile TV reception was dealt with back in 2008 and receivers became available after 2010.  It is called Mobile TV and is part of the ATSC stream on a number of channels in the area.  It cannot be received on the standard ATSC receiver even though it is part of the ATSC stream. 

The stream takes about 2 Mb of the ATSC Stream per channel.  1+ Mb of the Mobile stream is devoted to error correction with the remainder going to the program.  We tested this at WRC-TV in 2009 and found it to be very robust.  We drove from WRC on Nebraska Ave to Foxhall then down to the Whitehurst Expressway.  We went through the E St. Tunnel and then onto the Rock Creek Parkway to Independence Ave. and then up to Capitol Hill.  From there we went behind the Rayburn Building and down C Street.   A right turn off of C Street into a tunnel that took us across the mall where we ended up going amongst a number of tall buildings.  We ultimately ended up on 14th street and crossed the Potomac where we went towards Roslyn on the GW Parkway.  In Roslyn we took US 29 up to Glebe Road (stopped at the Alpine for lunch and watched TV at the table inside [ 29 and Glebe approx]).  After lunch we returned to WRC via Chain Bridge, Arizona Ave and up to Nebraska Ave.

Our receiver for this test was a small LG electronics cell phone that had the M stream capability built in.  It had a small pull out antenna that was in pretty sad shape.  The receiver was in the hands of one of NBC's technical VP's sitting in the back seat of our van.  Doug Lung (NBC VP & Telemundo VP) was also with us on the drive.  LG Electronics was testing several devices for Mobile TV use at this time.

We were able to receive a 100% clear signal (Audio & Video) through 98% of our journey.  The only place we lost signal was in the tunnel and we had a little break up behind the Rayburn Building.  We did receive the signal while going through the E Street Tunnel.  I momentarily took the van up to 65 mph on the GW Pkwy and we had no breakup in the signal.

Sad to say, a number of the stations who joined up in the test discontinued the signal in favor of adding more 720 P Channels to their stream.  Last time I checked there were a few open M streams on a couple of channels and NBC was operating their stream in a paid TV mode.

ATSC works well with the mobile environment provided you use enough error correction and this was not provided for in the original ATSC A/53 standard.  The ATSC A/153 standard deals with ATSC Mobile TV.  

Now where can I get a tuner for this.  Haupage makes the ATSC/ATSC MH TV Receiver which the call the WinTV|aero-m.  You can download TS Reader Lite and look at the ATSC stream structure with this Haupage Dongle.  Information on this Dongle can be had at the following URL;

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_aero-m.html

ATSC Standard A/53 and A/153 can be had at the following URL;

http://www.atsc.org/cms/index.php/standards/standards?layout=default

TS Reader Lite can be had at the following URL;

http://www.tsreader.com/tsreader/index.html

A little more info on Mobile TV can be had at Wikipedia;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC-M/H

Bill
N4TS

-----Original Message----- 
From: Chip Fetrow 
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 12:54 AM 
To: tacos at amrad.org 
Subject: Re: ATSC hand held TV 

Item 1, though it wasn’t your item 1, 8VSB does not deal with a mobile receiver well at all.  Right now, some broadcasters are looking at ways to give up picture quality or additional video feeds to try to make mobile reception better, with only a little success.  COFDM would have been a much better idea, but he Grand Alliance didn’t think mobile reception was a big deal.  Apparently they didn’t bother to speak with the installers of mobile video systems that used NTSC and satellite TV.  Frankly, let me write — IDIOTS!

Interestingly, 8VSP does play well with other things in the 6 MHz channel.  WPVI, Channel 6, and Channel 6 RF, in Phili did a hot cut to Channel 6, and is still there today.  They ran an FM transmitter at 88.75 MHz, or there abouts, after the cut.  They had encouraged people to listen to them on 88.7 MHz in their cars.  Close enough to 88.75 back in the days of NTSC.  Hell, I used to listen to them, and also Channel 6 out of Richmond, VA while on the road.  There were some inquiries to and from the FCC about the legality, and the FCC basically said, “Um, we don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea to us.”  I am sure that was some low level lackey, but they shut it down.

However, there a all kinds of applications for LPTVs on Channel 6 all over the country.  In the industry, they are called Frankinn FMs.  I don’t recall the exact date but those low power TVs and translators are going to be forced to go to ATSC so it won’t last forever.

OK, #1, mobile sucks.

#2, the current chip sets for ATSC are very much power hogs.  I also have a Auvio potable.  It works GREAT, when you can see the transmit antennas, like outside Hara, but I get nothing in Sterling.

#3, though you didn’t ask.  WUSA hot cut back to Channel 9, and WJLA hot cut back to Channel 7.  Neither have worked well.  In DC you must have a VHF-highband antenna in addition to UHF.

Of course CBS stayed on 2 in Chicago.  Just guess how well that is going!!!  Noise at Lowband just rips 8VSB a new….  Highband too, but to a lesser extent.

I could go on a rant, but I won’t.

—chip

On Apr 27, 2014, at 1:00 PM, tacos-request at amrad.org wrote:

> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 15:49:20 -0400
> From: Richard O'Neill <richardoneill at earthlink.net>
> To: tacos at amrad.org
> Subject: Re: ATSC hand held TV
> 
>  Alex, I have some experience using a little 3.5" Auvio battery 
> operated digital TV, mostly sitting (not driving) in my car and while 
> camping. Using the built-in antenna I don't receive much in the Waldorf, 
> Maryland area either. The tiny whip antenna isn't very good at capturing 
> low power digital transmissions unless very close to the station's 
> antenna. Fortunately my TV has antenna, earphone and external power 
> jacks. When connected to an old RCA 'flying saucer' amplified antennas I 
> currently receive more than 40 channels from DC, Va and Baltimore area 
> broadcasts.
> 
>  I've also had very good reception when connected to an indoor VHF-UHF 
> amplified antenna while in my camper van, stopped for the night near 
> large cities such as Indy and St. Louis. One of the biggest drawbacks to 
> these little sets is their hefty power consumption. My Auvio TV runs on 
> AA cells but I power it from a 6V, 7AR gel cell. It eats AA cells much 
> too fast. The antenna amp is powered from the car's 12 cigarette lighter 
> socket while the antenna sits on the van's dash or roof. I haven't tried 
> reception while moving but past experiments with analog TV suggest 
> reception would most likely be poor to unwatchable.
> 
> Richard
> 
> 
> On 4/26/2014 2:44 PM, Alex Fraser wrote:
>> I bought a used Digital Prism atsc-300 today.  It works, but I can't 
>> pick up many channels in Woodbridge.  This little box only has a small 
>> telescoping whip on it.  I'll play around clipping on external 
>> antennas, but I think it will come to opening it up and soldering on a 
>> jack of some sort.  How does digital TV handle motion, like driving?

_______________________________________________
Tacos mailing list
Tacos at amrad.org
https://amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://amrad.org/pipermail/tacos/attachments/20140428/60ef7923/attachment.html>