On Monday, David Neff, president of Axcera, told me off the record that his company was planning to announce its endorsement of one of the three technologies — Harris/LG’s MPH, Rohde & Schwarz/Samsung’s A-VSB, and the Thomson/Micronas solution — being considered by the ATSC as a digital mobile TV standard. I deferred to his request to keep this information hush hush, but couldn’t help blurting out, “I bet it’s A-VSB. You mentioned the benefits of Single Frequency Networks several times today.” In response, Neff would only say, “You are quite perceptive.”

Of the three candidate standards, A-VSB makes the most explicit use of SFNs. I’m sure there is nothing about the other candidate standards that precludes the use of SFNs, but it seems Rhode & Schwarz and Samsung have been the most vocal about using these kinds of set-ups to ensure adequate signal coverage. So this is how I guessed it was A-VSB that Axcera would endorse. I’d love to chalk this up to my being the queen of broadcast technology, but I’m afraid it’s more that I’m a journalist and therefore good at picking up on patterns.

Last night, Axcera made it official: It’s endorsing A-VSB, and is developing transmission solutions for the commercial deployment of single frequency networks. According to Neff, his company decided to go with A-VSB because it has the longest track record of development (it’s been around since 2005) and is being developed through a collaborative and open process. In addition, third generation chipsets have been implemented for handsets and mobile devices that are compatible with A-VSB.

The company is holding demonstrations of A-VSB at booth C1307 in the Central Hall. If you can stop by before the show floor closes at 4pm today, you’ll be able to view what A-VSB pictures look like on some of the latest mobile handsets and devices.

When it comes to “hot” mobile TV products on the show floor this year, the focus seems to be mostly on exciters and multiplexers. This makes sense, since many broadcasters already have the transmission infrastructure in place to run a mobile TV service: They just need to integrate mobile TV-compatible exciters and multiplexers into their transmission networks in order to get services up and running.

Still, I’d feel remiss if I did not mention how some of the transmitter, antenna and power amplifier manufacturers are playing a role in mobile TV deployment. Thus far, I’ve met with a few companies in each of these spaces at NAB, and all have something to offer with regards to mobile TV. more

This morning, I got the chance to view a live demo of two of the three technologies being considered by the ATSC as a mobile digital TV standard — A-VSB and MPH. The Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC) has set up a van in the Central Hall outfitted to recieve two live channel feeds — one UHF and the other VHF — to demonstrate how each system performs.

For the demo, I squeezed myself into the backseat of the van, where a monitoring wall was set up behind the driver and passenger seats. The two main video displays depicted a live, MPH-enabled feed from a local UHF channel and another live, A-VSB-enabled feed from a local VHF channel. According to Victor Tawil, senior vice president of technology for MSTV (which is performing the trials of all the potential ATSC technologies on behalf of the OMVC), the two systems are periodically swapped between each channel, so that the UHF channel might be getting an A-VSB feed and the VHF channel the MPH one. This keeps things as objective as possible, and is also the protocol for the actual field trials of the systems. more

I visited the RF Technologies booth yesterday afternoon, and learned the company is releasing a new low RFR SFNstar broadband slot antenna. It has up to 7 channels (42 MHz) of bandwidth at 700 MHz, and is designed for use with upper and lower 700 MHz mobile TV networks, as well as mobile video and DTV transmissions. Probably what a broadcaster would find most handy about the antenna is that its bandwidth is wide enough to handle multiple 700 MHZ transmissions. Also, because of its low RFR performance, it is possible to place it on rooftops and short towers and not run afoul of radiation safety thresholds.

A typical 10-bay broadband SFNstar antenna with a 50 kW ERP and mounted with a center of radiation of 22 feet above ground or rooftop will produce less than 50% of the maximum general public RFR limits. This gives broadcasters looking to deploy an SFN network as part of a mobile TV network much more flexibility in terms of where they can mount the antennas.

RF Technologies is offering the Broadband SFNstar antennas with input power ratings from 7.5 to 50 kW, allowing several DTV or mobile TV transmissions from a single antenna. The antenna also uses circular polarization technology, so no matter what direction an end user turns his or her mobile device receiver, the coverage remains the same.

Amid all the hoopla surrounding the potential ATSC mobile digital TV standard at this year’s show, one established European standard made a quiet, though possibly momentous entry into the U.S. scene: DVB-SH. The satellite company ICO launched into space at 4:12pm Eastern today, Monday, April 17th, its G1 satellite, placing it into its initial geosynchronous transfer orbit at 4:56pm. After making an initial telemetry and command contact with a ground station in Perth, Australia, it will go into its final position where it will be miles above the eastern Pacific, providing services to the continental U.S., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The satellite will operate in the 2GHz S-band.

ICO is using the satellite to trial its ICO mim, an interactive mobile video, navigation and emergency service, which is based on DVB-SH, a hybrid digital terrestrial/satellite mobile TV standard. The company wants to launch the service by 2009, and is envisioning it as an in-car type service. It would be sort of like a Sirrius satellite radio service – except based on video. It’s generating a fair amount of buzz at the show. more