2nd Generation Digital Television Receiver Module Development
Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America (MDEA) is the foremost leader in consumer digital televisions with the highest market share. To maintain this position, each generation of the new products must incorporate cutting-edge new technology combined with state of the art performance. After introducing the industry's first digital television receiver with 400 megabits per second IEEE-1394 digital connection coupled with the powerful HAVi networking protocol, the 2003 Mitsubishi DTV will extend this successful platform with more features and better performance.
Background & Objective: DTV performance is under constant improvement and the aspect that receives the most scrutiny is the terrestrial digital broadcast signal reception capability. This part of the DTV system for receiving the digital signal is called the front end, consisting of a tuner and a demodulator. MERL has invented a new technique for improving the reception performance of the DTV and a patent is under preparation. MERL will further contribute to the design, evaluation, and field-testing of the front end culminating to a successful mass production of the second generation DTV receiver module. In the mean time, MERL also serves as the east coast base for investigating DTV reception problems reported by authorized dealers, most notably in the Philadelphia area and also Boise, Idaho. In these two cases, MERL was able to identify broadcast standards violations by the stations as the cause and resolved the problem without any modifications to our television sets.
Technical Discussion: The tuner and the demodulator each supplied by a different manufacturer need to be integrated and optimized to form a complete front end. The accompanying circuitry for this integration must be designed by each television manufacturer and may include new techniques that differentiate its DTV sets from that of the competitor's. A new signal processing technique proposed by MERL will improve the weak signal reception performance of the DTV. This technique can also be applied to almost any manufacturer's design and holds possible licensing opportunities.
Contacts:
Kent Wittenburg
Technology Area: Advanced Digital Television
Modification Date: January 23, 2007
