Why Isn't There a Built-in (ie OBD) OTA ATSC Receiver Chip in All Laptops Destined for the US?

Sidebar Sidebar
N

nocona_xeon

Honorable
Dec 11, 2012
6
0
10,510
I am not usually a laptop PC user and have never really even used a "smart phone" because I just don't need one that badly.

Anyway, I have used PCI and PCIe connected cards (add-on cards) inside many tower PC's over at least the past decade for receiving/tuning, hardware decoding, and lastly "to-the-video-card shipping" for displaying many "OTA ATSC" channels for free (OTA ATSC stands for Over the Air Advanced Television Systems Committee). Check out their wesbite at ATSC dot org to learn all they have to do in order to bring to everyone "free TV."

The latest generation of these OTA ATSC tuner chips use a PCIex1 interface and have been shrunken down to about 1cm x1cm in size. They perform outstandingly with no bus contention, the x1 PCIe link connection speed is more than enough, tuner selectivity (channel lock-on) is now excellent compared to back around 2005-06, etc. And, some manufacturers even produce USB 2.0 based OTA ATSC receivers in the form of small 4x4x1 inch boxes. But that is clumsy and a machine's USB 2.0 electrical network might get clogged.

So, is adding a tiny Conexant brand chip something companies do not want to do for some reason? Or, are they doing that and I'm quite ignorant?

I get the feeling that if people started to like the FREE OTA ATSC channels on their mobile devices, then they would curtail their use of streaming media and that means, uh oh, less gouging of customers. Just tell the laptop/phone's software to record HD channel 5.1 and you can watch the program later.

Let me know what you think. I would like to hear from all sides on a topic like this.
 
Solution
Someone Somewhere
Antenna is due to much improved signal processing, switching to digital (allowing ECC), and higher power ratings. Also more powerful, more frequent cell sites.

Elevation is from a barometer, not the satellites. The rest is storage for maps. Nothing to do with picking up signal.

It's a lot of extra board space - I'd guess half again to double for a modern smartphone. Plus a much larger antenna - remember that your TV antenna is much larger than your phone and probably pointed in the right direction.

Copyright is probably only a minor side issue (though I would imagine many companies would complain, given it would almost certainly end up with hundreds of apps to automatically skip ads and record), but companies that own both cable and...
Sort by date Sort by votes
A

Alabalcho

Judicious
Jan 13, 2011
4,164
4
35,260
This chip will still need an external antenae in order to be able to pick anything. It also is a good source of heat when in operation, and laptop innards are all but cool. My USB tuner goes almost inline between the USB cable and the antenae anyway.

On the other hand - it's really a little market. If it was big, broadcast networks (ABC/FOX/etc) would have encouraged this already to Dell/HP/Lenovo/Acer/Asus/etc
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
N

nocona_xeon

Honorable
Dec 11, 2012
6
0
10,510
Very interesting and excellent answers! Thanks! As for the "larger antenna" problem, my assumption was that since cell/smartphones no longer have that 3" extendable antenna but rather the antenna shrunk down and is now inside the device, that the same could be done with OTA ATSC. I recall the first Garmin GPS units that only showed LAT/LONG and the ELEV was a best guess. That was due to engineers not quite yet figuring out how to pick up the satellites' weak signal. That problem seems to have been solved by the NSA (ha). The additional cost, board space, and smaller market for it I can also see but being able to watch a college/NFL football game or the 5/6pm news while at a nice metro park for FREE would be worth it to me. I don't understand the copyright issues. I would think that ANY and ALL devices capable of receiving and displaying a publicly available and freely transmitted signal could do so with no penalty. If anyone has other things to add such as if the smartphone/wi-fi/whatever signals are also way different in frequency than OTA ATSC, that could be a problem. I do know that often times, for the best signal reception (and transmission too like in CB radio), a specially tuned antenna does work the best. The "tuner chip" makers keep coming out with smaller and more integrated ATSC chips every few months. BTW, to help cure my ignorance, I think I'll try and find a broken/unwanted smartphone and dissect it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
N

nocona_xeon

Honorable
Dec 11, 2012
6
0
10,510
(I wrote): "I don't understand the copyright issues. I would think that ANY and ALL devices capable of receiving and displaying a publicly available and freely transmitted signal could do so with no penalty." Ooops, I did forget the now infamous requirement by the NFL to obtain (how is it worded exactly?), "express written consent by the NFL" in order to even talk about the game?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Someone Somewhere

Someone Somewhere

Splendid
Sep 23, 2012
2,081
1
22,265
Antenna is due to much improved signal processing, switching to digital (allowing ECC), and higher power ratings. Also more powerful, more frequent cell sites.

Elevation is from a barometer, not the satellites. The rest is storage for maps. Nothing to do with picking up signal.

It's a lot of extra board space - I'd guess half again to double for a modern smartphone. Plus a much larger antenna - remember that your TV antenna is much larger than your phone and probably pointed in the right direction.

Copyright is probably only a minor side issue (though I would imagine many companies would complain, given it would almost certainly end up with hundreds of apps to automatically skip ads and record), but companies that own both cable and mobile phone networks won't want the internal competition - given you can fairly easy Miracast to your TV, people may think a lot harder about if they need cable.

There are plenty of teardowns of modern phones, e.g.:

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Samsung+Galaxy+S4+Teardown/13947/1
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+5s+Teardown/17383/1
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/HTC+One+Teardown/13494/1
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
N

nocona_xeon

Honorable
Dec 11, 2012
6
0
10,510
Thanks again all. I just get this strange feeling that OTA ATSC will be pressured to "go away" due to streaming media suppliers (which charge a monthly fee). I now understand the technical hurdles to overcome but still would like to see OTA ATSC receivable on smart phones. No fees, hahaha. At the very least, incorporated into all desktop motherboards. That would be quite nice.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
N

nocona_xeon

Honorable
Dec 11, 2012
6
0
10,510
BTW, in 2007 for a long roadtrip, I loaded a full PC into my trunk powered by a 900W DC->AC power inverter (not all 900 was used, heh), and with an LCD plus KBD/MSE in the front cab area. In the PC, I installed a DVICO OTA ATSC card and mounted an all-weather antenna atop the vehicle (a cheapo RShack one too). But, it did work quite well so I am wondering why some "in the know" people have said that receiving full HD signal while moving and in my case at 70mph is difficult to do? The only bummer is that I got about 1.5 to 2.0 hours of each big city's broadcasts before being out of range.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom