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ATSC approves mobile DTV standard

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Oct 2009 1:51 User comments (2)

ATSC approves mobile DTV standard The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has approved of the new ATSC Mobile DTV Standard this week in the US, allowing local TV broadcasters to broadcast to mobile devices using any frequencies they may already be using.
The standard pertains to notebooks, in-car systems, Internet tablets and mobile phones.

Mobile TV has been extremely successful in Japan and other Asian nations but has seen slow adoption in the US. Until late last year, Samsung and LG had rival standards but decided instead to partner up and the Mobile DTV Standard was thrown together.



Verizon and AT&T currently offer TV via the FLO TV network but that service is a paid one and offers more national programming than local.

PCWorld
explains that "ATSC Mobile DTV is carried alongside the regular over-the-air DTV broadcasts that U.S. stations have been delivering exclusively since analog TV was discontinued across the country in June. It uses a system called Vestigial Side Band modulation, with an IP (Internet Protocol) transport system, according to the ATSC. The technology can send H.264 video and HE AAC v2 (High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding, Version 2) audio. It can support interactive services, subscription-based TV and downloading of content for later viewing."

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2 user comments

119.10.2009 06:11

So, they can now broadcast the same content twice? Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to just put HDTV tuners into cell phones?

Why build cell phones with HDTV tuners that won't tune normal HDTV, just to force the stations to broadcast everything twice?

219.10.2009 09:02

So since it runs over the DTV band, it means that it won't work with devices from Japan will it. Shame. They should really just use the same band to have more standardization with technology around the globe. But the military uses that band here in the US right? *can't remember the band name right now*

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