Sony has joined NEC and Samsung in offering cell phone handset DTV tuners. Sony's BTD-23611 digital tuner module is designed for use in various mobile products. The ultra-small digital tuner has external dimensions of approximately 20mm x 16mm x 2mm and consumes less than 150 mW power. As with the other products, the tuner uses one segment of the COFDM DTV signal reserved for mobile applications and is not compatible with the U.S. ATSC DTV transmission system.
According to the Sony Press Release announcing the article, the transport stream is MPEG-2. This may be an error in translation, as other cell phone DTV tuners announced for Japan use MPEG-4 video compression. Sony said the digital tuner module uses a low-IF, which reduces power consumption and eliminates the need for an external filter.
