RF Shorts - June 18, 2010

By Doug Lung
published

  • • We need to get more stations on the air with MDTV!

    Consumer Electronics publication TWICE (This Week in Consumer Electronics) reports Philips Adds First Portable DVD/DTVs Philips joins Coby and Naxa in offering DVD players with the ability to receive ATSC broadcasts. However, unlike the soon to be released LG DVD Player, the Philips PET749 will not include mobile DTV reception capability. According to Roy Carpenter, the customer marketing director at Philips, the company isn't planning to offer portable DVD players or portable television sets with Mobile ATSC tuners this year, due to the limited number of markets in which Mobile ATSC broadcasts are available. He figures that such a product would have only limited appeal to the big retail outlets at this point in time.
  • • SunSentinel.com consumer columnist Daniel Vasquez warns South Florida residents Don't wait to be sure your TV is storm-ready - New storm TV models, and lower prices, arrive for 2010 hurricane season.

    "This hurricane season marks the first full season since the DTV switch and arrives amid concern that many uninformed residents in hurricane-prone South Florida may wrongly believe their antiquated analog TV sets will work after a storm," said Vasquez.

    His biggest concern is that set users may now find out they won't work until after the power goes out. He advises customers to look at projected battery life, whether the batteries can be recharged, ability to connect to other devices such as portable DVD players, and the presence of an external antenna input.
Doug Lung
Doug Lung

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack. A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.