Mirics Semiconductor and Shanghai High Definition Digital Technology Industrial Co. are showing their “digital TV reference design” geared to providing HD/SD video to a wide array of laptop and desktop PC devices.
Mirics said it’s currently demonstrating the DTTB (Digital Television Terrestrial Broadcast) reference design at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair this week, Oct. 13-16, (Booth CHB04).
Both firms said the reference design addresses both SD and HD transmission modes supported by the DTTB standard (reference codec GB20600-2006) —a standard that in 2007 became the mandatory DTV terrestrial system for all Chinese broadcasters.
Under a partnership first announced last June between both companies, Shanghai HDIC said this week the “production-ready” reference design is now available in USB dongle form. Among the design’s features is a new Mirics chip tuner, a low-power demodulator, USB interfacing and proprietary PC software (basically to enable audio/video playback).
The dongle design allows current PC/laptop platforms to support DTTB-based TV reception — thereby permitting computer users in Hong Kong and mainland China to view DTTB digital TV, including HD.
And it can never be stressed too often: China has 1.3 billion people.
