1. PC-TV for Notebook Platforms
Options for adding TV functions
July 13, 2006
2. Platforms for adding broadcast TV
function
• Internal Solutions
– Mini-PCI
Custom design, OEM only
– PCI Express Mini Card
Custom design, OEM only
• External Solutions
– USB 2.0
USB sticks
External boxes
– PCMCIA Cardbus
– ExpressCard
ExpressCard/54
ExpressCard/34
– Network PVR (New)
– SDIO cards
– 1394 (Very rare)
Elgato EyeTV 500 (1394 for iMac)
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3. USB Sticks
• USB 1.1 or 2.0
– Bus powered
– Single channel
Analog
Digital (DVB-T, ATSC)
Hybrid (DVB-T/PAL)
• Advantages
– Low cost
– Easy to use
– A great retail upgrade
• Disadvantages
– Easy to breakoff
– Only single channel
– No HW MPEG
– Video Quality
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4. USB Boxes
• USB Boxes
– External power supply
– Single Channel analog
– Dual Channel analog
– Single Channel hybrid
– Dual Channel hybrid (none in the market)
• Advantages
– Better noise immunity
– No thermal issues
– Dual channel possible
– Hardware MPEG possible
• Disadvantages
– Bulky
– Power supply required (unacceptable to OEMs)
– Costs more
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5. ExpressCard
• Two form factors
– ExpressCard/54
– ExpressCard/34
• Two interfaces
– USB 2.0
– PCI Express
• Solutions today only support USB 2.0 interface
• Flavors of ExpressCard TV solutions:
– Single channel analog
– Dual Channel analog
– Single channel hybrid
• Advantages
– Easy to upgrade
– Hot pluggable
• Disadvantages
– Legacy notebooks don’t have Expresscard slots
– No retail channel at this time
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6. Mini PCI
• Still the most popular option for Notebooks
• Popular with Japanese OEMs
• Flavors of Mini-PCI cards
– Single Channel Analog
– Single Channel Analog with HW MPEG
– Single Channel Hybrid
• Advantages
– Based on legacy PCI tech.
– Customize to fit OEM req.
– Low cost
• Disadvantages
– Not for retail
– Not possible with Dual Channel
– Not easy to upgrade
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7. PCI Express Mini Card
• Meant to be a replacement of Mini-PCI addon cards
• Very few in existence today
• Same advantages as Mini-PCI
– Half the width of mini-PCI
• Same disadvantages as Mini-PCI
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8. PCMCIA Cardbus
• Flavors of PCMCIA cardbus TV cards
– Single channel Analog
– Single channel Analog with HW MPEG
– Single channel hybrid
• Advantages
Single analog with HW MPEG
– Works reasonably well with silicon tuners
– Supports all Laptops
– Hot Pluggable
• Disadvantages
– Cardbus is getting phased out
hybrid
– Video quality is poor in general
– Runs hot after extended viewing
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9. SDIO TV
• Finally, TV on our PDA!
• Flavors
– PAL/NTSC analog
– DVB-H
• Truly portable TV
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10. Network PVR
• External Box with TV tuner, MPEG encoder and uPnP
capability
• Network PVR acts as a filling Station for iPOD, PSP
and laptop computers
• NAS devices can be supported
• Streaming audio and video over wireless networks
• Uses Windows Media Connect
Media Server
Streaming media over
wireless network
Notebook downloads content
Network PVR/DHT
Notebook with Docking station
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11. A primer on TV standards
• Analog TV standards (interlaced video)
– NTSC (525 lines, 29.97 frames/second)
– PAL and SECAM (625 lines, 25 frames/second)
• Digital TV standards
– ATSC, DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-C, DVB-H, DVB-S2
– T-DMB, ISDB-T, ISDB-S
Location Cable Satellite Terrestrial
North America ITU-T/J.83B (QAM) DVB-S (QPSK), ATSC (8VSB)
DSS (QPSK), and
8PSK/TC
Europe DVB-C (QAM) DVB-S DVB-T (COFDM)
(QPSK),DVB-S2
(8PSK/16QAM)
China DVB-C, DTV-C DVB-S TDS-OFDM
(QAM)
Japan ITU-T/J.83B (QAM) ISDB-S ISDB-T
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12. Terrestrial Analog TV standards
Switch off of analog TV for various regions likely in 2010-2014
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13. Terrestrial Digital TV standards
ATSC only in US, Canada and Korea
DVB-T in Europe and Asia except Japan, Korea and China
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14. DVB-H Adoption map
Purple indicates countries with DVB-H trials
Green indicates alternative standard adoption
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16. DVB-H: A truly mobile standard
• Digital Video Broadcast for Handheld terminals
• Largely in trials and early stages of launch
– Crown Castle Inc and Modeo are developing cell phones with DVB-H in
US
• Possible to add DVB-H capability to notebooks
– Avermedia will be shipping SDIO addin card
– Eopstech also has a product
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17. Premium content on Notebooks
• Use IR Blaster to control Cable Set Top or Satellite
Set Top boxes
• No other way to address this problem until Vista
with OCUR is launched
– Only unidirectional, so, no VOD, PPV and EPG
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18. Challenges for PC-TV on Notebooks
• Size and thickness constraints
– Form factors of silicon
– Tuners
• Low power requirements
– Most silicon are not designed with low power in mind
• Thermal dissipation issues
– 2.5 Watts maximum limit
• Noise issues
– Hard to get good video quality
• Too many different hardware options
– Single channel vs dual channel, analog vs digital vs hybrid
– Hardware MPEG vs Software MPEG
• Various analog and digital standards
– ATSC is not a mobile standard
• Premium content not supported
• Antenna for digital TV
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19. Silicon Vendors
• Philips
• Conexant
• ATI
• NEC
• TI
• Micronas
• Techwell
• VIXS
• DibCom
• Intel Zarlink
• Zoran
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20. Board Suppliers
• Hauppauge-Leading retail in US and Europe
• Avermedia-Strong presence in US and Europe
• Animation-Intel invested in this company
• Pinnacle-Strong in editing software.
• KWorld-Low cost leader, retail focus
• Yuan-Strong ODM, especially with Mini-PCI, USB
• Leadtek-Good brand name in Graphics
• Prolink-Supplies graphics to OEM
• ADS-Good presence in US. Still working on Europe
• ASUSTek-Major supplier to HP worldwide
• 10Moons-Strong retail in China
• Terratec-Strong in Audio.
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21. Summary
• Internal options are more suitable for Notebook
OEMs
• TV tuner attach rate for Notebooks outside of Japan
is very low
• Next big thing is to enable Digital TV on notebooks
– DVB-T (mature technology)
– ATSC (limited due to reception issues)
– DVB-T (For high speed mobile applications)
• Hybrid TV solutions will continue until analog switch
off
– Depending on regions, analog switch-off in 2010 and beyond
• Premium content for Notebooks not likely to pick up
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