MELD Technology Pico Broadcaster
By Trip Ericson on Tuesday, July 16 2013, 03:00 - News - Permalink
A few months ago, Doug Lung had an article about MELD Technology's Pico Broadcaster. The concept is interesting; it is a white space device that will transmit an ATSC signal to other TV sets.
Those of you who know me, some of you may have followed a hunt for an ATSC modulator by myself and others over on AVSForum, and the latest iteration led to the purchase of a device to test with. To be specific, it's the Sencore HDTV998C, which I was able to obtain used on eBay for about $20.
So far, my tests with the HDTV998C have successfully output a transport stream file, but not a live transport stream, which is what I'm interested in. It looks like this product may fit the bill. At $1,599, it's not exactly practical for me or most others, but the fact that it's now out there at a lower price than any other device of its kind, to the best of my knowledge, suggests the prices are coming down and perhaps something more practical will eventually make its way to market.
It's also not yet available for sale, as best I can tell. It appears the device is waiting for an FCC waiver since its intended use is indoors where GPS signals would be unavailable. You can see the filings on the FCC's ECFS here. There are a few misplaced filings there about indecency regulations, which you can safely ignore.
For more information, here's a direct link to MELD Technology's product information page for the MT300.
Comments
Mind. Blown.
So poking around part 15, it appears that, if it's fixed, you can have an ERP of 2.4 watts.
2.4 watts seems difficult from this device, but greater than 1 watt ERP seems possible with a high gain antenna.
So-- does this mean a LPTV can operate with 1 watt with EAS and log requirements, and a TVBD can do the same thing with the same result but without the obligations of LPTV?
I have actually purchased a PVI VeCOAX modulator back in May (HDMI > ATSC.) It will transport either 720p or 1080i sources and is completely frequency agile. The RF in/out is 75 ohm so it is diplexed with my existing OTA antenna (virtual channel 1-1.) It is still a bit spendy (the one-input desktop version quotes for about $1600) but it will live transport an HD cable box and works well. Their site is "www.pvistore.com" if anyone is interested.
What are you trying to use ATSC modulators for?
For an in-house cable system I would think QAM would work just as well, and you can actually find the hardware:) That's what we did when we "digitized" our system at work.
For digital ham TV, KH6HTV(.com) sells a 1240MHz 1-watt QAM DTV transmitter. It looks like this comes up around channel 145 or so on a standard TV.
SR-Systems in Germany http://sr-systems.de/content.php?sh... makes relatively inexpensive MPEG encoders & RF modulators suitable for amateur DTV. (go to their "frontpage" for a link to the distributor) The Mini-Mod mostly only mentions DVB but there's a fleeting reference to 8VSB and information I've read elsewhere suggests this unit will indeed do ATSC.
Apparently there is a stiff licensing fee for an AC-3 Dolby encoder, so many of the amateur devices use MPEG-1 audio instead. Rumor has it most STBs won't decode MPEG-1 but many TV sets, especially newer ones, will.
European amateurs are widely using DVB-S, the satellite standard, on the 1240MHz ham band. The satellite IF band encompasses the ham band, so you simply hook a terrestrial antenna and preamp to the input of a satellite IRD & you're in business.
Richard: of course a Part 15 device gets even less interference protection than a LPTV. (which is rather difficult to accomplish :) )
I think there's a good reason this is the ONLY TVBD I've seen advertised. When the FCC gets around to doing this channel refarming they're talking about - when they get around to removing channels 38-51.. I think in much of the country there will be no "white space" left. You'll buy one of these, submit your data to the database to get a list of available channels -- and it will say "no channels available" and refuse to transmit.
(at which point the distributor will tell you to lie about your location & input 44.5N, -110.3W. Where it will find plenty of "white space"...)
Doug, ATSC is necessary given that an antenna is used in the house, converter boxes don't tune QAM, and those TVs that do tune QAM probably don't do so in "Antenna" mode.
Ah. Trip, your comment got buried by the others:), looks like you have good reason to seek ATSC.
However, if I were still active on AVS I'd be continuing to ask the "what are you doing with it" question of the other posters!
All the cool kids use ATSC to modulate their digital video :-)