Seeing the future
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Figure 1. DVB-T deployment. (Source: DVB Project
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I can see your future and what I see is TV. The world has had a love
affair with TV ever since it was invented in the late 1930s. Its content
has been, and continues to be, criticized and probably always will because
of its massive 500-channel 24/7 supply stream. How could one, with an
average of 27 frames per second of that much content, make it interesting
and relative to approximately 500 million viewers worldwide?
Content controversy or not, we love our TVs. And in any circumstance
or survey, TV is always the first choice for entertainment.
TV is an old friend—comforting, reliable, and there when we want
or need it, most of the time. But there are times when we would like
to have TV, want to have some company or information, and we can’t
today. In a year’s time that will no longer be true. DVB in various
forms, -T and –H specifically, is not only a proven technology
but a deployed technology.
Even in the backward techno-phobic US of A (where “A” stands
for absence from modern communications), we are running DVB-H trials
in improbable places like Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is actually one of
the best areas to test OTA TV distribution; with its multiple iron-infused
mountains, multiple rivers, and various skyscrapers, it represents an
extreme challenge to get a reliable TV signal—”If I can make here,
I can make it anywhere”… Crown Castle is leading this trial and
will add to it the most urban challenging environment, the Big Apple.
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Figure 2. AverMedia’s e508 ExpressCard DVB-T
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Meanwhile, Daimler Mercedes and BMW are putting DVB-T TV receivers
in their cars, and AverMedia is offering an ExpressCard for laptops.
Nokia and Samsung are building it into their phones, and there are
SD I/O cards for retrofit into earlier phones and PDAs like the iPAQ
as well as USB DVB-T tuner modules.
Mobile TV, rock-solid, ghost-free, 80 MPH “proven performance”
TV, is now available in Europe, Korea, and in trials in Japan and the
U.S. Never again will you have to be bored, or miss a sports event,
newscast, or an episode of a soap opera. And DVR capabilities in high-end
PDAs and mobile phones will be built in.
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Figure 3. USB and PDA DVB-T TV tuner modules.
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Right now the big winner in these developments is Dibcom for demodulator
with their DIB7000 chip, coupled with MicroTune solid-state tuners (although
Dibcom is linked up with other semiconductor tuner suppliers like Philips
and TI as well). And Dibcom has won the prestigious European Telecommunications
Standards Institute (ETSI) Proven Performance guidelines.