The Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) in the United
States requires full-power television stations to
cease analog broadcasting by February 18, 2009. After
that date, households using analog-only televisions
not connected to cable or satellite service will
no longer be able to receive television broadcast
unless the television is connected to a converter
box that converts the digital signal to analog format. As
a result, the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration
(NTIA) of the Department of Commerce to create
a $1.5 billion program whereby certain households
can apply for $40 coupons to be used towards the
purchase of digital-to-analog
converter boxes.
Eligible U.S. households may obtain a maximum of two
coupons, $40 each, to be applied towards the purchase
of a digital-to-analog converter box. The NTIA
defines the term "converter box" to mean a
stand-alone device used solely for digital-to-analog
conversion. These converter boxes are essentially
small computers which contain a set of software programs. Software
has generally experienced bugs and has needed updates
regardless of the device on which is it used. From
PCs to cell phones to ATMs, software upgrades have been
installed to fix bugs, improve quality, and maintain
functionality.
The good news is that the digital television industry
has the ability to deliver software updates to these
converter boxes easily, inexpensively, and without
the need for consumer interaction. In fact,
the consumer electronics industry worked with the Advanced
Television Systems Committee (ATSC), which was
selected by the US Government to control television
standards in the United States, to create a standard
for exactly this purpose. The standard is called
ATSC A/97 and it provides the guidelines and specifications
for delivering software updates via “over-the-air” broadcasts
(also known as “datacasting”). Technology
compatible with the ATSC A/97 standard has already
been developed and successfully tested by an independent
service provider, the Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS) and several digital
television manufacturers. Other service providers
and/or television networks are able to provide similar
over-the-air datacasting services.
Digital television devices contain many different
software programs within several micro-processors. These
devices even have an operating system inside. In
fact, everything which occurs in a digital television
device is controlled by software. Software stacks
determine how to pick up the television transmissions
on channels 2-62, broadcast in various forms of digital
and high definition, display the video resolution,
format the close captioning information, change the
channels, show the emergency alert message, adjust
the volume, power on/off the set, and more. All
these software programs interact and are linked together
by the operating system (typically Linux), which fundamentally
controls the digital television device. Analog
television devices only needed a little software to
work – digital television devices do not work
without a lot of software.
Much like a PC, these software programs depend on each
other. An error in just one of these embedded
television software programs might just cause the overall
device to stop working, compromise some features, or
just slow down performance. Experience has shown
that glitches may be hidden for some time.
Fixing software glitches is a major industry and
software glitches affect many types of devices. Fortunately,
there are many pathways to deliver software updates
to most devices, from home/office visits by service
personnel to internet downloads to CD-ROM self-installations. With
the digital to analog converter boxes, given their
low price, there needs to be a low-cost solution for
software update delivery.
UpdateTV® is such a solution! |
