Telegent Systems has unveiled a TV receiver on a chip that is designed ofr small, low power devices like netbooks and MIDs. The TLG2300 can handle DVB-T, PAL, NTSC, SECAM, and FM Radio signals. It looks like ATSC over the air HDTV signals in the US aren’t supported just yet, so you’re probably better off with a USB TV tuner if you’re looking for high def, digital TV on your netbook.
The chip consumes 300mW when viewing analog TV, or 500mW for DVB-T digital broadcasts, and as you can see from the image, it doesn’t exactly take up a lot of space, which could make it a good addition to a mini-laptop. I don’t imagine there’s going to be a huge demand for this type of thing in general purpose netbooks, as a TV tuner would just drive up the cost. But I could see a company delivering a multimedia friendly mini-laptop as a niche product with a TV tuner, perhaps higher quality audio, and I wouldn’t mind a higher resolution display like the 1366 x 768 pixel screen that HP is including on some HP Mini 2140 models.
via jkOnTheRun
Well, I’ve been viewing AlJazeera TV on my Acer Aspire one using “livestation” – and if you’re so minded you can watch Fox instead. But, it is true, I’d rather use 40kB/s bandwidth somewhere else on my network – so this device would be useful.
I don’t need one, but every time someone makes a new device that can fit in a Netbook an angel gets its wings. The next Nvidia ION chip should have an HD tuner or something.