Decontis has made multiple updates to their Mobile DTV Viewer software that allows reception of ATSC mobile DTV signals on a conventional USB ATSC tuner.

I had a chance to test Version 1.5 of the software dated Sept. 7 in Los Angeles on both Wednesday night and Thursday morning. It identified and—after some additional effort—displayed Mobile DTV signals being broadcast on KMEX, Univision's Los Angeles station.

While it had no difficulty locking onto the Mobile DTV signal and displaying the channel name, I found that the Windows Firewall caused some problems when displaying the signal in the monitor window. Turning off Windows Firewall and rebooting allowed display. I had verified that KMEX was sending a valid ATSC mobile DTV stream using my prototype DTV Interactive "Storm" USB receiver and Storm Player. The Decontis Mobile DTV Viewer will display the conventional ATSC signal with Windows Firewall on. Manually opening the appropriate ports on Windows Firewall should allow the mobile DTV display to work, but I didn't have time to confirm that before this week's deadline.

In case you're wondering whether the software works with other tuners, I verified it does work with the DVICO FusionHDTV7 USB tuner, which uses the same tuner and demodulator chip as the recommended Hauppauge HVR-950Q, and with my PCTV HD Stick Pro (Model 801e), which uses a different demodulator.

I'll be testing ATSC mobile DTV in at least two other markets and evaluating a demo version of the Decontis ATSCsam software for detailed mobile DTV signal analysis over the next two weeks. Look for updates in RF Report.