I was searching the web again for a small portable TV with an ATSC tuner and I haven't found anything yet. Surprisingly, I still see stores selling portable TVs with NTSC tuners. Are people really buying these not realizing that they cannot tune into NTSC broadcasts in a couple of years? I suppose it will be a while, but it seems as if the industry is concentrating on big, but there might be a few of us that would also like a small TV that will tune digital broadcasts.

It looks like Engadget has also asked that question:
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/12/11/where-are-the-portable-atsc-tvs/

I think you are right, that people are buying them without knowing their usefulnes is going away soon.

I don't think the manufacturers are quite ready to do a battery operated set right now, mostly due to power consumption. The new, "subsidized" STBs might be a good bet for an outboard tuner, when they are available. The LG prototype needs 6 VDC, at about an amp, from a "rug lump" power supply. So, it might be a forerunner to the portable SDTV of tomorrow.

I was searching the web again for a small portable TV with an ATSC tuner and I haven't found anything yet. Surprisingly, I still see stores selling portable TVs with NTSC tuners. Are people really buying these not realizing that they cannot tune into NTSC broadcasts in a couple of years? I suppose it will be a while, but it seems as if the industry is concentrating on big, but there might be a few of us that would also like a small TV that will tune digital broadcasts.

It looks like Engadget has also asked that question:
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/12/11/where-are-the-portable-atsc-tvs/


Just hang tight it will come out soon. There will be alot of new models as in small TV's 13" and up , OTA Digital STB and DVD w/ ATSC Tuners will begin to come out between now and into the summer. Some of new one won't come out until July. As smaller one will most likely will come out in 2 or 3 quaters in 2008. If I remember right as of 2-2007 all TV's 13" and larger must have Digital tuners built in and all DVD and VCR with built in Analog tuners must have Digital tuners also.

-Willie

...If I remember right as of 2-2007 all TV's 13" and larger must have Digital tuners built in and all DVD and VCR with built in Analog tuners must have Digital tuners also.
The original phase-in edicts were changed. As of March 1, 2007, all TVs with tuners that were manufactured or imported after March 1 must have an NTSC tuner. Whatever sub 26" CRT televisions you see on the near-barren shelves that have only NTSC tuners are old stock. SO far, the consumer electronic stores have been holdong the line by not offering much of any sub 26" ATSC-capable TVs, so as not to effectively obsolete their inventory.

When they start making counter-top sized TVs with ATSC digital tuners, it will be interesting to see if they also QAM tune. If not, then many people living in multiple dewlling units that have separate wiring for cable TV and for its master antenna system will want to keep the kitchen counter TV connected to the master antenna system, since it won't be capable of displaying the cable company's QAM broadcast local TV.

The original phase-in edicts were changed. As of March 1, 2007, all TVs with tuners that were manufactured or imported after March 1 must have an NTSC tuner.
... and ATSC tuner. :)

The original phase-in edicts were changed. As of March 1, 2007, all TVs with tuners that were manufactured or imported after March 1 must have an NTSC tuner. Whatever sub 26" CRT televisions you see on the near-barren shelves that have only NTSC tuners are old stock. SO far, the consumer electronic stores have been holdong the line by not offering much of any sub 26" ATSC-capable TVs, so as not to effectively obsolete their inventory.

When they start making counter-top sized TVs with ATSC digital tuners, it will be interesting to see if they also QAM tune. If not, then many people living in multiple dewlling units that have separate wiring for cable TV and for its master antenna system will want to keep the kitchen counter TV connected to the master antenna system, since it won't be capable of displaying the cable company's QAM broadcast local TV.

I think you meant ATSC tuner not NTSC after march 1st.

The original phase-in edicts were changed. As of March 1, 2007, all TVs with tuners that were manufactured or imported after March 1 must have an NTSC tuner. Whatever sub 26" CRT televisions you see on the near-barren shelves that have only NTSC tuners are old stock. SO far, the consumer electronic stores have been holdong the line by not offering much of any sub 26" ATSC-capable TVs, so as not to effectively obsolete their inventory.

When they start making counter-top sized TVs with ATSC digital tuners, it will be interesting to see if they also QAM tune. If not, then many people living in multiple dewlling units that have separate wiring for cable TV and for its master antenna system will want to keep the kitchen counter TV connected to the master antenna system, since it won't be capable of displaying the cable company's QAM broadcast local TV.

Ok I am sorry I was off by 1 whole month.


" As of March 1, 2007, all TVs with tuners that were manufactured or imported after March 1 must have an NTSC tuner. "

As far I know all 13" TV's and larger , DVD, VCR and any other that has NTSC tuner built in that is manufactured on or after March 1st, 2007 must have ATSC tuner bulit in also.

There's no size limitation - it's all TVs - including those below 13".

I think you meant ATSC tuner not NTSC after march 1st.
Oops! :eek:

As far I know all 13" TV's and larger , DVD, VCR and any other that has NTSC tuner built in that is manufactured on or after March 1st, 2007 must have ATSC tuner bulit in also.

No, as far as you knew, all TVs 13" and larger were to be required to have ATSC tuners, but that Order was changed to include all TV with tuners.

There's no size limitation - it's all TVs - including those below 13".


Hi biker19, I did have a outdated FCC 1st report information, but I never gotten the 2nd report that they made the date changes and size, and now I have read the 2nd report and the final order and see that now all sizes TV's included the portable included the battery operated must be digital ready also. :)


-Willie

No, as far as you knew, all TVs 13" and larger were to be required to have ATSC tuners, but that Order was changed to include all TV with tuners.


Ok with the information the 1st report I had, but I never knew about the FCC 2nd report (modified) and the final order that changes the sizes and the date. :) It already require the NTSC tuner, but it must have the ATSC tuner also.


Quote:
Originally Posted by AntAltMike
The original phase-in edicts were changed. As of March 1, 2007, all TVs with tuners that were manufactured or imported after March 1 must have an NTSC tuner. Whatever sub 26" CRT televisions you see on the near-barren shelves that have only NTSC tuners are old stock. SO far, the consumer electronic stores have been holdong the line by not offering much of any sub 26" ATSC-capable TVs, so as not to effectively obsolete their inventory.

When they start making counter-top sized TVs with ATSC digital tuners, it will be interesting to see if they also QAM tune. If not, then many people living in multiple dewlling units that have separate wiring for cable TV and for its master antenna system will want to keep the kitchen counter TV connected to the master antenna system, since it won't be capable of displaying the cable company's QAM broadcast local TV.

I don't understand why these threads aren't more popular. :confused: I'm bumping this one as well.

2 years later and I'm looking for one now, but so far all that had reviews say they all have the same problem with reception.

So has anyone bought one of these that will pick up your local stations?

I don't understand why these threads aren't more popular. :confused: I'm bumping this one as well.

A year later and I'm looking for one now, but so far all that had reviews say they all have the same problem with reception.

So has anyone bought one of these that will pick up your local stations?I recently picked up a neat little 7" Haier LCD TV from Amazon. I'm 29 miles from the Los Angeles towers and the supplied rod antenna barely pulls in any channels no matter how i orient it. But when i connect my Philips (Zenith clone) Silver Sensor i get pretty strong reception on most channels. But the tuner in my Radio Shack DTX9950 DTV converter pulls them in a little better.

Also, the tuner in this TV is QAM capable, and i discovered that it stores and remembers the OTA channel map and Cable channel map separately which really surprised me. I can have it connected to TWC cable straight from the wall and watch all my local QAM "HD" cable channels and analog cable channels, then when i take it down to the garage and connect it to my indoor antenna, i then go into the setup menu and change the setting from CABLE to AIR and the stored OTA channel map becomes available. My whiz-bang Panasonic plasma won't even do that :)

I recently picked up a neat little 7" Haier LCD TV from Amazon. I'm 29 miles from the Los Angeles towers and the supplied rod antenna barely pulls in any channels no matter how i orient it. But when i connect my Philips (Zenith clone) Silver Sensor i get pretty strong reception on most channels. But the tuner in my Radio Shack DTX9950 DTV converter pulls them in a little better.
:( Unfortunately that seems to be the problem with all of these. I don't understand why someone would make a portable TV that can't tune any stations with its own antenna. :confused:


Also, the tuner in this TV is QAM capable, and i discovered that it stores and remembers the OTA channel map and Cable channel map separately which really surprised me. I can have it connected to TWC cable straight from the wall and watch all my local QAM "HD" cable channels and analog cable channels, then when i take it down to the garage and connect it to my indoor antenna, i then go into the setup menu and change the setting from CABLE to AIR and the stored OTA channel map becomes available. My whiz-bang Panasonic plasma won't even do that :)
I've seen some that are QAM capable, I have a 16:9 LCD 7" that's only NTSC and it will work with all cable channels using a RF>mini jack adapter. But it won't remember the channels as you described which is nice. Each time it's hooked up to OTA, you have to rescan (which is odd for an analog TV), and it also frustratingly assigns virtual channel numbers! If "channel 5" is the first channel it detects, it calls it channel 1!! And so on! It doesn't do that with cable channels.

Thanks.

Has anyone heard anything about the Stellar Labs 9" AT-90T? Apparently they only put their name on it because when searching for that model # along with the brand, the only website is MCM. But the model # alone only returns hits from Chinese websites (Lilliput, distributors) and I can't find out who makes it, nor any reviews on it. The specs are also different at every website, MCM even sent me a manual and that doesn't even match what's at their own website! So the specs are unknown.

Another odd thing is the remote has no decimal/period key, so I don't understand how one is supposed to enter digital channels.

I recently picked up a neat little 7" Haier LCD TV from Amazon. I'm 29 miles from the Los Angeles towers and the supplied rod antenna barely pulls in any channels no matter how i orient it. But when i connect my Philips (Zenith clone) Silver Sensor i get pretty strong reception on most channels.


:( Unfortunately that seems to be the problem with all of these. I don't understand why someone would make a portable TV that can't tune any stations with its own antenna. :confused:


when there is a single rod it is a vertical antenna with a poor ground plane. this is a poor antenna for tv and so is only good for strong signals. to get better signal place the antenna horizontal. use an external rabbit ears or loop/bowtie for better.

when there is a single rod it is a vertical antenna with a poor ground plane. this is a poor antenna for tv and so is only good for strong signals. to get better signal place the antenna horizontal. use an external rabbit ears or loop/bowtie for better.
Yeah and you'd think the manufacturers would know this about DTV and use an antenna on the TV's that worked. :confused:

I have a 16:9 LCD 7" that's only NTSC and it will work with all cable channels using a RF>mini jack adapter. But it won't remember the channels as you described which is nice. Each time it's hooked up to OTA, you have to rescan (which is odd for an analog TV), and it also frustratingly assigns virtual channel numbers! If "channel 5" is the first channel it detects, it calls it channel 1!! And so on! It doesn't do that with cable channels.


That kind of behaviour (with a slight exception) is totally standard in many countries - particularly in Europe.

In the UK we NEVER refer to the broadcast channel number of a TV station - as we have nationwide networks. The network itself has a universal "virtual" channel number (on digital TV this is known as an LCN - Logical Channel Number) BBC One is 1, BBC Two is 2, ITV(now ITV1) is 3, Channel Four (S4C in Wales) is 4, five is 5. Whenever you watch OTA TV anywhere in the UK (apart possibly from hotels) - BBC One is on 1, BBC Two is on 2 etc. (On satellite 101, 102 as all the TV channels have 3 digit stations, and the 0xx stations are reserved for non-public use - such as testing new channels, viewing "hidden" interactive TV streams, and "out of region" channels etc.)

This is true wherever you watch TV in the UK - the RF channel number is never discussed on-screen and about 99% of viewers wouldn't know if they were watching BBC One on C34 or C52 - as far as they are concerned it is on "channel" 1.

It is true in most European countries - SVT1 on preset 1 / SVT2 on preset 2 in Sweden, TF1 on preset 1 / FR2 on preset 2 in France, ARD - aka Das Erste (tr: The First) on preset 1 / ZDF - Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (tr. Second German Television) on preset 2 in Germany etc.

Older TVs would do what your TV does - scan the broadcast TV band and load the first station the TV found to preset 1, the second to preset 2 etc. On all of these types of TVs you could then manually go into the TV set and re-order the channels so that BBC One was on 1, BBC Two on 2 etc., even if it had loaded them as ITV1 on 1, BBC One on 2, Channel Four on 3, BBC Two on 4 etc...

However for many years this has been done automatically, as every UK (pretty much every European) TV analogue station broadcasts Teletext (a simple 40x25 page-based digital text service), which includes the station ID, so the TV "knows" what channel is on what frequency as it tunes, and correctly assigns BBC One to preset 1 etc. Even the cheapest analogue TVs have done this for years (certainly since the 80s).

I wonder if the set you have was designed mainly for this kind of environment - which isn't really logic applicable to the North American TV environment - where NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox stations don't have fixed nationwide "channel" numbers?

I wonder if the set you have was designed mainly for this kind of environment - which isn't really logic applicable to the North American TV environment - where NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox stations don't have fixed nationwide "channel" numbers?
I don't know if we're talking about the same thing. What I was talking about is any (analog) OTA TV in this area will pick up the local channels 2, 9, 27, 33, and 44 (and some independent channels), and those are the channel #'s they will display, and you can enter the channel # to go to each specific channel. But with this TV, channel 9 would be shown as channel 2! Since it's the second channel found. Ch. 27 would be 3, etc.

But for cable, it's the same was as any other TV that can receive cable.

They have these on sale right now at CVS pharmacy for $99.99. I don't know if it's the same brand but it looks like the same exact thing.

Seen in the flyer.

They have these on sale right now at CVS pharmacy for $99.99. I don't know if it's the same brand but it looks like the same exact thing.CVS is selling the DigitalPrism TV-S3970A for $99.99 through Saturday; normally it's $129.99.  I'm not sure if it's still in effect, but cvs.com has been giving $10.00 off and free lowest-level shipping on orders with $60 or more of non-prescription items, so it's been even less expensive on-line than in their stores.

However, this week Office Depot has had the DigitalPrism ATSC-710 on sale for $89.99.  It is the successor model to the TV-S3970A.

Does anyone know who makes DigitalPrism? They don't even have a website. At least none that search engines can fine, and it's not DigitalPrism.com, .net, or .com.tw .

Does anyone know who makes DigitalPrism? They don't even have a website. At least none that search engines can fine, and it's not DigitalPrism.com, .net, or .com.tw .


That's simply a branding label. Here's where they come from: http://www.made-in-china.com/china-products/productviewvbgmWPzyCucV/7-quot-ATSC-TV-with-in-Built-DVD-PDA-710-.html

At the bottom is the name of the Chinese manufacturing company.

That's simply a branding label. Here's where they come from: http://www.made-in-china.com/china-products/productviewvbgmWPzyCucV/7-quot-ATSC-TV-with-in-Built-DVD-PDA-710-.html

At the bottom is the name of the Chinese manufacturing company.

Yeah it knew it was just a label like the Stellar Labs I mentioned earlier. Is that the exact same model as the ATSC-710? I don't see any "S3970" at that site. IS Asia Electronics Ltd also doesn't appear to have any website.

Does anyone know who makes DigitalPrism? They don't even have a website. At least none that search engines can fine, and it's not DigitalPrism.com, .net, or .com.tw .They're distributed by Atico, but aticousa.com has nothing about them.

That's simply a branding label. Here's where they come from: http://www.made-in-china.com/china-products/productviewvbgmWPzyCucV/7-quot-ATSC-TV-with-in-Built-DVD-PDA-710-.html

At the bottom is the name of the Chinese manufacturing company.
Yeah it knew it was just a label like the Stellar Labs I mentioned earlier. Is that the exact same model as the ATSC-710? I don't see any "S3970" at that site. IS Asia Electronics Ltd also doesn't appear to have any website.

The PDA-710 shown on that page includes a DVD player and a stand, neither of which is in the ATSC-710.  The ATSC-710 and the TV-S3970A have a hole at the bottom for a compatible stand, but the TV-S3970A's manual doesn't mention it.

They're distributed by Atico, but aticousa.com has nothing about them.
Yeah, wow, their website is a joke. :eek:


The PDA-710 shown on that page includes a DVD player and a stand, neither of which is in the ATSC-710. The ATSC-710 and the TV-S3970A have a hoie at the bottom for a compatible stand, but the TV-S3970A's manual doesn't mention it.
Oh well. Ok thanks for clearing that up.

Also, for what it's worth, digitalprism.biz has recycling info for dead units, but nothing else.

You're looking for the wrong thing. It's "mobile" these days not "portable" and there is an alliance of manufacturers and broadcasters for this:
http://www.openmobilevideo.com/

If you take an HD signal you would have to scale it down to a smaller screen requring more memory and an intensive CPU which would make sucn a set expensive. Instead the broadcasters will be supplying a subchannel that is already scaled down meaning your "mobile" set can be manufactured inexpensively. It has already been tested in this area.

Brian, the link you provide is for largely unavaliable technology.
The OP is looking for a mobile tv with built in ATSC tuner, of which there are very few choices in the marketplace.
Your link provides 0 actual devices avaliable and further it seems the mobile ATSC standard is not even finished yet.
Furthermore, some would argue this subchannel is simply a parasite to the primary HD channel and will negatively impair either/both.

The Mobile ATSC standard HAS been released (and it's even in use here in Raleigh (and a few other cities)). WRAL is demoing it with the city bus system on a few buses.

The disadvantage of it is that it's taking bandwidth away from other programming (i.e. HD and other subchannels).

I don't know how many other users of the technology are out there, but it is an accepted standard.

Where do you buy a receiver, how much was it, and what content is avaliable?
:eek:

Where do you buy a receiver, how much was it, and what content is avaliable?
:eek:

Don't know - they are pretty scarce right now, haven't seen any myself yet (not that I'm looking either)
Ditto
depends on what your local stations decide to broadcast.

There is another thread on the forum for this topic:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=955870

The delay probably slowed the rollout on Mobile DTV. The signal for the subchannel wouldn't be that much to hurt the main signal. This is a good solution unless you don't mind paying a lot for a "portable." And you can also use a laptop as a portable with a USB stick.