Intel develops embeddable DTV antenna for OTA on the go
Not wanting you to miss a second of LOST while you're making the Wednesday night commute, Intel has created an embeddable Digital TV antenna for picking up that fancy over-the-air HD signal from your laptop without having to use one of those cumbersome external receivers. There isn't much to say here other than its existence and this handy diagram (the preferred DTV receptor method is on the right, by the way). With details pretty scant and the patent still pending -- not to mention the official transition date in perpetual flux -- don't get your hopes up for seeing this hit the market anytime soon.






















the last thing we need is another radio eating battery life
It would only use power when watching tv, to be completely honest DTV signals are kind of weak so I see this falling flat unless they figured out some fancy way to boost the reception.
I could see this ending up being turned into a external box that just streams it through wifi (attach a battery to it and it could work out great).
Umm Evan...question. Are you a tard? Seriously? You do realize that a radio CAN be turned off when not in use. Right? That's like saying we should axe a NIC because its taking up power....stupid.
lol ross. i read "perpetual flux" as a pun but you probably didn't mean it that way.
either way, you silly goose you.
was it me or can other radios handle this? I guess not
I liked it better when I thought it said "edible DTV antenna for OTA on the go"
this would be fantastic if they could actually get it to work well.
Whats with the red fingerprints on the pic?
good question. That's the location of its battery that's about to burst.
im not sure. but for some reason when i saw them i got that image from mythbusters in my head of grant imahara with claws for for hands acting as a robot chanting "danger! danger! warning! warning!"
...and i felt like sharing that. sorry. :(
It represents platform noise.
The external antenna is going to be better anyways because there's no parity information in DTV. So when your freaking laptop moves an inch or someone walks by you.. YOUR GOING TO LOSE SIGNAL!!!
AHHHH.
Im gonna watch lost....
Reed Solomon code actually, 20 bytes of RSC for every 187 bytes of payload. With convolution coding which scatters the bytes 52 ways. And 2/3 trellis coding. Don't think DTV lacks forward error correction, it clearly does.
The real problem is variable multipath interference (like a person walking near the antenna) gives 8-VSB demodulators hell.
I think you meant "DTV OTA OTG". You can never have too many acronyms.
It's about time something like this becomes integrated. +1
This has been a long time in coming. In Japan, even the lower end cellphones can pick up broadcast television OTA. Now that we have digital broadcasts in the US, and will soon have a lot more, every device with a screen should be able to pick it up.
In theory anyway, but more than likely won't happen. You have to remember that in this country cellphone companies control the market absolutely where as everywhere else you can develop a phone and have the phone companies comply with it. That being said, Sprint, Verizon and AT&T all have tv services and since Verizion and AT&T are the biggest players in the game, this feature would be shut out from phones entirely, just like how they've always been.
The stick the antenna in the case and think they can/should patent that? And you people think that's some advanced idea? WTF is wrong with people..
Look closer. The drawing makes a point of showing there are two antennas. Intel describes it as a "balanced antenna", they may have devised patent-worthy diversity techniques to improve reception.
That's already available for TV reception (http://www.terratec.net/en/products/Cinergy_DT_USB_XS_Diversity_1608.html), and obviously used already for a long time for wifi.
And you think that if Intel came up with a new and different diversity reception technique, it wouldn't be worthy of a patent? For that matter, the link is a DVB-T tuner, and DVB-T is a completely different animal from ATSC.
You are right.. if you think you are a person who always needs to be right, and that's not necessarily a pretty character trait.
analog is already out in charlotte - NC
Wow--add this to a netbook and have netbook ability/connectivity plus DTV on the go, with a built-in DTV tuner (plus DVR software?). This seems a no-brainer to me, to add to the marketability and differentiation of netbooks; wonder which smart company will be the first. I would buy one in a shot.
It is good to see my antenna actually implemented. During the test, internal antenna showed actually better reception of signal than external one.
doesn't the new Dell Mini 10 have a built in DTV tuner?
It could work, but would like to see it in a pmp and cellphone. Only time will tell.
Why does the press, even a site like engadget that has its own sister site dedicated to all things HD, keep talking about the digital transition with words implying that it starts in June instead of February???
The digital transition doesn't *start* in June, nor in February. It started 10 years ago and it *ends* in June.
So why would Engadget think that the change of the kill-date for analog TV from February to June has any impact on how soon this new DTV tuner for laptops will be on the market?
Empia are working on a deal to embed TV tuners in netbooks, and I presumed they would have integrated antennas like this. Details here: http://www.pixelbeat.org/systems/usb_TV/