Portable DIGITAL Television - Page 7

(Copied over from my post in another thread in the TVs area, not sure which of these threads should be the "main" one)

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I went ahead and went to CVS and bought one...I'm watching it right now.

Nice little set.

It does indeed have a QAM tuner, which I'm using at the moment. The only pain in the whole thing is removing the scrambled channels from the list. Via TWC/Cleveland, I've got HD and SD versions of all the available locals, and whichever subs TWC actually carries from them (i.e. the former WeatherPlus on WKYC-DT 3.2, the WVIZ-DT 25.x subs like The Ohio Channel, Create, etc.)...and even an occasional channel like Sleuth and Style (?).

I don't know if those "hidden" channels I checked will still be hidden if I go back to OTA reception. I'd have to have to recheck that long list of some 200 channels each time I want to hook to cable!

Better PQ than the old Insignia 5" I bought from Best Buy - the screen on that one was destroyed by water damage, so I can't use it anyway.

I haven't hooked up an OTA antenna here, but I played with it when I was at the CVS... but I was in a bad reception location re: the local antenna farm, about 15 miles further way southwest of where I live. I wasn't expecting much. I did get the DT OTAs in that general area (WDLI-DT 17.1-17.5, WEAO-DT 49.1-49.2), which are about 5 miles up the road.

Oh, I was in a car behind a grassy hill and a tree.

I don't expect these small TVs to perform as well as a Zenith DTT901 CECB. But if I wanna take the Zenith along, this set has *standard*, built-in RCA yellow/red/white video/audio jacks on it. That's right, no dongle!

Still playing with the picture settings for best picture. It has brightness/contrast/tint, etc., and four separate "picture" modes, including "Personal", "Standard", "Dynamic" and "Soft". Obviously, this screen isn't HD (downconvert to 480i, I believe), but it's certainly more than watchable.

Overall, it appears somewhat worth the $99 I paid. (I'd have gone to Office Depot, but the gas back and forth from Pittsburgh would have eaten up the $10 savings )

And yes, as always on these things, the built-in pole antenna basically stinks, though even it was picking up the 17 and 49 signals in that car behind the tree.

Nitpick? There's no signal meter, anywhere, that I can see. It does put up a "Good" for signal on the Info screen of each channel, but I have no idea what that means, or if there's a "Fair" or "Poor".

It appears to be the same model pictured by me earlier in the thread, and appears identical to the pictures I've seen of the Haier. I don't know if that means it's the same unit.

I picked one up at Office Depot today... and it does look exactly like the Haier.

Haven't tried QAM yet, the included antenna is not made for UHF and as everyone has noticed, sucks at reception. I have an old Radio Shack double bowtie antenna (12"x12") that I hooked up, and it works well, picking up all the locals.

Channel memory is not lost when the power switch is turned off.

If you go from QAM to OTA, then back to QAM, it will require another scan, and you'll almost surely have to delete all those channels again...(at least that's the way my other digital tuners work...)

I'm happy with it as an emergency tv.

Notice the many pieces of paper where they hammer the message "...you don't have to return the tv to the store...", if you have questions, call...

Must've had a lot of returns from people that didn't know what they were getting...

Re: the signal strength indication--I had a poor on one channel, and on a few, had no strength at all...

I asked because when I did switch to Cable AUTO mode, it complained about not having a database (!), because I hadn't yet done the initial scan for the Cable site. I don't know if that means anything, but it'd be nice if it didn't eat the data switching back and forth.


I can see why. For one, the included single-pole antenna is really bad unless you have signals strong enough that anything will pick them up.

I see the comments constantly on Amazon for the sets like this one. "Couldn't pick up any channels". Then others gently suggest that a simple antenna change (even to a modest rabbit ears/UHF loop combo) will work, and sure enough, their opinion of the set changes.

I understand why these set makers include the pole antenna, but it's basically useless for all of them.


I got a "Bad" on one channel as it was breaking up last night. Sometimes, I get no message at all, even on a strong signal.

Things I'd change about this set, if I were designing it: A true signal level meter, and the ability to manually add new RF channels (a la the Zenith/Insignia CECB). The full scan doesn't take an inordinate amount of time, but I don't wanna go through that every time I want to try to add a channel that might be new, or was too weak to pick up the last time.

Oh, the manual urges repeatedly that you have to rescan "every time you relocate the set". What, even 5 feet?

I have several posts located in the thread about Portable LCD TVs with Digital Tuners located in the LCD Display forum. These give lots of information about settings on the Prism ATSC-710 and a comparison of it and the Accurian 7" available from Radio Shack. There are also posts by others commenting on differences between the Prism set sold by CVS and the Prism from Office Depot.

Bill Cushman
Widescreen Review Contributing Editor
SMPTE Life Member

I'm 40 miles from NYC and reception on the Prism is very poor. What model has the best sensitivity or best tuner to pull in stations?

The portable TV's we all own or are looking into definitely have different tuner sensitivities, But as others have stated you can't say your TV sucks because you cant get a signal inside your house 40 miles away from the broadcast tower.

You can say it sucks if another portable TV in the same exact spot using it's single dipole antenna gets the channel.

I think the tuners quality would be more noticeable when trying to lock onto channels which have co channel or adjacent channel interference.

I recommend you go onto the TVFOOL.com website and find which channels are available in your area, and read the FAQ which explains the adjacent and co-channel interference

Unless somebody gathers all the TV's together and does scientific method testing of them then any reply to your question of "which is best" will be guesses by those who want to think theirs is the best or the worst.

An as others have stated the single dipole is next to worthless if your more than 10 miles from a strong broadcast signal.

I use my LCDDIGITAL ATSC7 in my RV. With it's single rabbit ear inside, it can lock onto 2 stations. Sitting on my roof I can lock onto 18 stations with it when aiming the antenna at the towers North and south.

When I made a tiered bowtie antenna and stuck that on my roof I can lock onto between 40 and 92 stations depending on atmospheric conditions.

Don't blame the TV unless you can do a good scientific comparison with all the variables constant. And that will still be inaccurate because you cant control atmospheric conditions, and you can't run 2 tv's in the same exact spot at the same time, and side by side they will interfere with each other.

If anybody is in the north county San Diego area and wants to to compare their TV against mine let me know.

I have to agree with landyacht...I don't blame my TV. Unless I can move from where I live, which is as likely as moving the mountains that block all the best signals () I won't get better reception than I do, with the TV I have and the Radio Shack antenna I bought to use with it. (It's a combo rabbit ear antenna, VHF/UHF/FM kind).

Ah well...I didn't buy the portable to watch it all the time, just to have in an emergency and still be able to watch at least 1 channel (which it will supposedly do). Better would be nice, but I have to deal with what I'm stuck with. I imagine if the reception was better, the TV would get many more channels. (It looks great when I hook up the cable feed to it... )

DGK

Gary, with 600+ posts to your credit, I'd have thought you would've read at least the last few pages of this thread and realized that the included antenna is not adequate for UHF reception--if for no other reason than almost all (not quite, but almost) digital stations in the US are using UHF frequencies--a whip antenna is not optimized for UHF. And 40 miles away is fairly far--go to antennaweb.org and see what antenna they recommend for 40 mile reception... it won't be a little whip antenna...

I'd be willing to bet that there are at most a couple of OEM's that produce these portable tv's, and that they probably use the exact same tuner--so looking for another brand will not likely provide better results.

Here's an experiment you can try: hook up that little whip antenna to any other digital tv you have (of any screen size), and see what stations you receive...

Again, as others say...the little included aerial is useless for picking up all but the strongest signals. On the Prism, on the Accurian, on the Haier, on ANY digital TV.

If you hook that aerial into a CECB like a Zenith, it'll be pretty much identically awful. (The Zenith has a decent tuner, so maybe you'll get a marginal station or two...but not much more.)

Digital TV is all about the antenna, and position. I've found the Prism is very good with more than the aerial...it has no trouble picking up the strongest Youngstown market DTV signal in my car in the parking lot of a store in Kent, which is an eastern Akron suburb, using a modest UHF loop on the top of my car's roof.

I opened up the Target ad this morning and saw that they have the Haier 7" Portable Digital LCD TV (HLT71) for sale for $99.00.

http://www.target.com/Haier-Portable...3Ahaier&page=1

It looks like Amazon has quite a few reviews on this already
http://www.amazon.com/Haier-HLT71-7-.../dp/B001E78UQY

I also note that the paper ad has the disclaimer about using this while stationary. Ironically, in the online ad I noticed "...use it to occupy the kids on a long road trip..." I guess if somebody gets this to use while in motion they will have a little surprise on there hands! I have yet to see combination ATSC TVs of this size with DVD players. Something like that may be a good choice for many people. That way they can watch DVDs while in motion, but still have the ability to watch over the air while parked.

As for me, I am going to continue to try and hold out for Mobile DTV http://www.openmobilevideo.com/about-mobile-dtv/

Not surprising I suppose. Our local TV station was doing a report last night about the whole transition, and mentioned at the end that older portable TVs use analog and wouldn't work anymore after today...but mentioned that there are some portable TVs with tuners that will work, and they showed the Haier TVs still in stock at a local Target store.

I'm glad I got mine, just wish I'd waited a little longer, since the prices have gone down since I bought mine. Ah well!

BTW that waterproof Sony portable they have pictured in that report looks kinda cool. I may just have to get one eventually, just because!

DGK

I have a Sony Walkman SRF-M80V that allows me to listen to AM, FM, Weather and, until Friday, VHF Television channels.

I have been looking for an equivalent device to continue listening to local television channels while out walking around. I was a little surprised to not see such a device on the market, but having read some of the posts here it would appear that ATSC tuner and truly portable is an impossibility.

I am a little surprised that the FCC thought this was an acceptable situation.

I am wondering if T-V stations have any plans to make their audio available on a radio frequency that a truly portable device could use.

It may be that my best hope would be for streaming video on a smartphone using the cell phone network as the delivery system.

It sounds like a portable ASTC T-V works - as long as you are not moving around.

Am I missing something?

I can confirm that the VHF band on my Sony Walkman SRF-M80V is silent.

Verizon and XM Satellite Radio must like this [does XM Radio carry Television Programming?]

Hope on the Way?

Full-motion, mobile digital television is the most prominent of these services currently being developed.

http://www.openmobilevideo.com/about-mobile-dtv/

Mobile DTV Public Safety Benefits

Every day of every year, radio and television stations make substantial public service contributions to their local communities - contributions that have great value and impact. Whether raising money for local charities, contributing airtime for public service announcements, keeping communities connected in times of crisis and disaster or engaging in other extraordinary activities, broadcasters are improving the quality of life in their local communities.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) National Report on Broadcasters' Community Service, and www.broadcastpublicservice.org, highlight real examples of stations' public service and disaster relief efforts, along with state and national statistics quantifying the value of these initiatives.

NAB supports the Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), which represents more than 800 commercial and non-commercial television stations. The OMVC is working to bring broadcast DTV service to mobile and handheld devices and develop a technical standard for mobile DTV reception, which could greatly increase the ability of stations to immediately reach citizens in times of crisis.

By 2012, there will be approximately 130 million phones and 25 million media players able to receive mobile DTV signals. This technology would enable broadcasters to deliver emergency weather alerts and other important information straight to consumers' fingertips. Imagine the power of an AMBER Alert delivered directly into cell phones or vehicles, or the lifesaving potential of weather radar systems broadcast into automobiles when hurricane or tornado warnings are issued. NAB and the OMVC are leading broadcasters into the future, and the possibilities of the digital era are endless.

ATSC Mobile DTV Standard

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ASTC) has approved the Candidate Standard for Mobile DTV. This technology will supply local broadcasters with significant opportunities to provide consumers with new services in their over-the-air digital channel. This new Candidate Standard is the result of an intense development effort involving participants from all over the world and across television and mobile device industries. As experience is gained with the service, the final steps in the ATSC standardization process for this technology are expected to be complete in mid 2009.

The ATSC Mobile DTV system achieves the robustness necessary for mobile reception by adding extra training sequences and forward error correction. The Mobile DTV system converts the current 8-VSB emission into a dual-stream system without altering the emitted spectral characteristics. It does this by selecting some of the MPEG-2 segments (corresponding to MPEG-2 Transport packets in the current system) and allocating the payloads in those segments to carry the Mobile DTV data in a manner that existing legacy receivers ignore. Click here to read more about the ATSC Mobile DTV standard.

History

The standards-development process to enable broadcasters to deliver television content and data to mobile and handheld devices using the DTV broadcast signal began in April, 2007. Since then, a number of committees have been formed to work in three primary elements: a physical layer encompassing backward-compatible additions to the DTV emissions stream to facilitate mobile and handheld reception; a management layer including signaling, announcement, file delivery and other functions such as conditional access and content protection; and a presentation layer, which focuses on the video and audio formats and compression systems.

A significant milestone for ATSC Mobile DTV process so far was an Independent Demonstration of Viability (IDOV) field test conducted in San Francisco, CA in the first quarter of 2008 and supervised by the OMVC.

Click here to read more about IDOV.

The ATSC Standards-Setting Process

A Working Draft standard is written by specialist group (S4) with help from its subgroups. Technology and Standards Group (TSG) develops a consensus recommendation to move the draft to a Candidate Standard for a period of time. It is during this time that the industry is expected to begin to test the standard (i.e., begin product development). TSG members vote to advance to a Candidate Standard.

After the Candidate Standard period, TSG votes to elevate to the Candidate Standard to a Proposed Standard. The Proposed Standard is then balloted to the full membership of the ATSC via a letter ballot. To become a Standard, the ballot must gain a 2/3 majority of all voting ATSC members.

See the ATSC website for more information www.atsc.org.

http://www.openmobilevideo.com/about...dtv/standards/

One comment about the Haier. I had a little portable TV I used for emergencies (hurricanes and other power outages). So I went to Target to look at the Haier. The Haier battery (an odd looking battery) is rechargeable - but only with electricity (or another power source). It cannot use conventional batteries (at least not in a way that I or the sales person could figure out). So it really can't replace my old "emergency" TV. At this point - at least the weather band on my portable radio still works . Robyn

I would bet there are a bunch of portables that manufacturers have held back until after the transition. Why? Most likely because they only have ATSC tuners (or possibly QAM in addition).

J. C. Penney's ad on Sunday listed an Eviant 7" HD (that's what the ad says; it's SD in reality, of course) TV, regular $199.99, sale $129.99, net $99.99 after $30 mail-in rebate.  On their web site, though, it's listed at $149.99 and there's no false claim of HD.

The URL to the page is pretty nasty; if it doesn't work, go to J. C. Penney's home page and enter "683-2009" in the Search box there.

Fry's has a portable digital tv for $99 although I can't remember the name of it. They had one on display working. I felt it wasn't all that important to me after that. Besides I have my Archos 704 for video if I need it.

i own the Prism. keep in mind i'm no expert, but i like this unit so far. i got it for $96.24 total from CVS. using the included telescoping antenna, i'm pulling in channels 5 and 9 pretty good, 2 and 7 are a little dicey (Chicago south side). but for the price and the planned tinkering i plan on doing, this is just fine.

i plan to not only use it for power outages but to drag around on occasion--which leads to these two questions.

i've seen a few mentions of alternate antennas but nothing specific. what i'm trying to find is a mini antenna or just an alternate that i can take around with me. any suggestions?

also, i opened the battery compartment and i see the battery. it has a small snap connector like some of the phone batteries i've seen (i've disconnected/reconnected it once already). i have contacted the company for info on purchasing a separate battery.

but have any of you seen any small power adapters/chargers that work with TVs such as this? i've seen the larger ones some of you mentioned above for home use, but i'm looking for something smaller to take around with me if possible. i've seen some of the external power units that power portable devices (like the Kensington Portable Power Pack and EveryReady one that power phones, MP3 players, IMTs) and i was wondering if a TV this size would be a candidate.

Thanks.

A lot of people have good things to say about the "Silver Sensor" antenna cloned by several makers. I have the Philips Magnavox version but never use it unless the cable goes out. It collapses nicely (disassebles to a flat form) into a triangular cardboard box about one foot in length.

As I understand, the Silver Sensor is a UHF-only antenna.  If any of the stations that you want to receive are using VHF frequencies, the Silver Sensor won't do the job.

Correct. A better option for UHF and VHF is the Terk HDTVi, which looks exactly the same but has rabbit ears collapsed into the pylon.

thanks, guys. i actually already own a Silver Sensor.

but i'm talking about a teeny antenna that i can take to work and back with the Prism TV. i'm just wondering if there is a small very portable antenna that will give me better reception than the telescoping antenna that comes with the Prism.

thanks.

^ Sorry, no. That's why antennae like the Silver Sensor are the size that they are. It has to do with the size of the wavelength of the frequencies we are trying to catch.

Although it is optimized for UHF, I suspect the Silver Sensor can pick up VHF as well although like many other cities in the US mine has no VHF HDTV stations for me to verify this. [Note: the fact that the tuner may call the stations "2.1/4.1/5.1/7.1" doesn't prove they are actual VHF signals; they use "channel re-mapping" to re-name them. As of this month 74% of stations in the US are UHF but to verify you might want to check a site like this to see if you need VHF.] Keep in mind even an arbitrary piece of metal like a bent coat hanger works adequately for some people so I'd think the SS would work for VHF in the same way.

The only thing I can think of that would be super portable but might be a tad better than a little stick in the air design would be a small "bow tie" (also UHF "only") that Radio Shack once had for a few bucks IIRC:



I can't remember if some of them fold in half, but if they do that would be quite tidy.

As hurricane season is about to start, I got to doing a little more thinking. In an extended outage, my friend (who is not tech savy enough for some of the suggestions here) is going to need a solution that doesn't require recharging a battery every 3 hours. I've been searching but I can't seem to find any easy solutions. Is there anything out there? Something with disposable batteries?

I also have the silver sensor but my local ABC pulled a switch and now broadcast on VHF frequency not the UHF!!

That station is very weak!!
I have to try something else.

That snap-on bow tie would seem to be a great option for these portable sets, but how would one go about actually attaching the leads to the unit?

I just bought the Digital Prism model from CVS, and while I can get the two local full-power digital VHF stations with the built-in antenna, I get nothing UHF without attaching an external antenna.

been debating between newimage and lcddigital 7" portable tv with battery pack. anyone have a preference. probably no difference with the atsc tuner, but really confused. i checked antenna web and in naples florida i don't get any yellow or green channels. i don't mind buying a antenna (suggestiions welcomed). everyone seems to be very informed on this forum. really need help! thank you

A small antenna may work very well for you but to use an antenna of this type you will also need a 300 to 75 ohm (very tiny) tranformer to go between the antenna and the TV. You can get these anywhere and cheap, i.e. Radio Shack.

Has anyone tried one of these?

http://www.batterysavers.com/Battery..._Converter.htm

I found a great 7 inch tv, its the Prism ( also sold under the Haier name). This TV has a great picture, an adapter for both car and home. I got it at CVS on sale for $99 ( most prices I've seen are from $114 -$129). Its true the rechargeable batteries are only good for 2 hours, but a car adapter you can charge the batteries or watch the tv off your car battery. I may buy another set if CVS has it on sale again, so I can watch one and have the other one charging during an emergency ( I live in the hurricane capital, South Florida ) Staples also had the Haier 7 TV (same set) on sale for $99 too. Be careful of some of the sets that are sold, as some don't have a car adapter ( you don't want a tv without it). I actually have this set in my sauna and use a wireless transmitter which i bought from x10.com. I watch all the cable channels with the transmitter.