[opendtv] Re: Zenith box at Radio Shack
----- Original Message ----- From: "Craig Birkmaier" <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
1. Use the mass produced chips that are in almost every new TV and disable the other tuners;
These tuners won't work without an onboard processor running code to control them. It is less than trivial to 'disable' the QAM and NTSC features of any chipset with a simple software mod.
2. Develop chips specifically for these boxes that must include the costs for NRE and up front fab costs. This quite possibly makes these dedicated chips cost as much or more than the more capable chips that are mass produced.
I'd wager that any new chipsets designed for CECBs will eventually find their way into new build televisions.
As long as we are discussing this, it might be interesting to speculate if the new dedicated chips are designed to tighter performance specs than those used in TVs?
TVs are not required to meet A/74 or any other performance standard, so I'm sure they will continue to use whatever tuner chipset they were designed with. When the TV set is redesigned, they may use the newer and higher performance chips.
It would indeed be ironic if the DTV convertor boxes perform better than integrated TVs. Then again, the odds that a new TV will be connected to an antenna are slim, while the DTV convertor boxes are only useful when connected to an antenna...
It was ironic that for a time the only product that you could buy that used the LG 'cold fusion' chipset was an integrated television set, and some huge honker to boot, as I recall Bob Miller saying.
It is normal for the newest designed product to use the newest (and hopefully highest performing) tuner chipset.
In a year or two, flat screens may have chipsets that outperform the current crop of CECBs.
In a year or two we may also see these same CECBs, with a simple software upgrade, that will also allow ClearQAM cable reception. This will not happen until after the coupon program has expired, and doing so will make the boxes more desirable in a post-subsidy environment. Look for the Zenith DTT900 to be remarketed as the "DTT990"
Any bets on when the first 'hacks' come out to mod these boxes to tune ClearQAM? 

John






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