Freeview HD will aid takeup of mobile telly

IF TABLET TELLY is a dream feature you want to see then the High Definition DVB-T2 standard that is up and running in the UK might deliver it soonish.

There was a standard for mobile telly, it was called DVB-H, but it was dogged by problems like bad reception, never a good thing for telly addicts. According to one of the TV industry's techie standards organisations the Digital TV Group (DTG) the prospects of mobile telly on your smartphone, tablet or laptop will improve following the introduction this year of products using the HD DVB-T2 standard and the switching off of analogue TV signals in 2012.

The end of analogue telly broadcasts is as important as the introduction of DVB-T2 says the DTG. It told The INQUIRER, "with the power increases with the switchover it will make it possible." The switchover is when all the analogue signals used today for TV channel broadcasts will be switched off, freeing up radio frequency for other uses such as digital HD TV channels.

Perhaps foreseeing this, telly for your computer company Hauppage Computer Works announced at IFA that its DVB-T2 dongle will be on sale next month. While DVB-T2 Personal Video recorders able to record HD channels broadcast by Freesat came on sale earlier this year, internal tuner cards are yet to pop up.

Another advance for the digital telly domain that will aid tablet or smartphone viewing is the DTG's next version of its digital TV technical standards. Expected in December, it will set out a common standard for Internet protocol TV. Companies like Sony, Philips, Sharp and Loewe all have their own Internet connected televisions but they all use their own standards and content providers have to abide by each of them. That is probably going to have to change, and it looks like it will. µ