Low cost mobile DVB-T - the DigitMobile 3

3" LCD, DVB-T tuner for 6, 7 or 8MHz channels, up to four hours viewing using the battery. Nice! And Amazon.de are selling it for 130 €UR.

ATSC prices falling - but DVB-T still cheaper

If this post from dtvfacts.com is anything to go by, the newest low-end ATSC set-top boxes (or converter boxes, the term that's used in the US) will be priced at US $60-70. This is indeed quite cheap, but it's still 30% more expensive than the cheapest DVB-T boxes.

It seems the US government will try to push take-up of DTT through the use of a coupon scheme, whereby all consumers will be able to apply for a US$ 40 voucher that they can redeem against an approved list of products sold at an approved list of retailers. The same website includes a detailed explanation of how that scheme will work.

DVB-T STB prices in Australia

Australia is an interesting market for DTT, having introduced high def broadcasts (using MPEG-2 video coding) on DVB-T more than five years ago. I believe they are beginning to think about a move to MPEG-4 in the coming years there, but for the moment the receiver market is entirely MPEG-2....and there are some very cheap boxes available.

This standard definition box from Ultraview is available at AUS $ 50, which is about 30 €UR or US$40. That beats any price I've been able to find online for the UK or elsewhere (although I'll keep searching). By the way, this box can output both PAL and NTSC signals - this is a key point for the markets in Latin America.

Arguably, what's really impressive about the market in Oz is just how low the prices for HD receivers have fallen. For example, the Legend box pictured here is available for AUS $ 130 - that's just over 80 €UR for a box that can do SD and HD, with DVI video output and SPDIF for the audio. That's pretty inexpensive HDTV by any standard! (Again, it can output both PAL and NTSC.)

There's a long list of receivers available for the Australian market on the DBA website, although the recommended retail prices listed there seem a little high when you search some of the online retailers.

Receiver trouble in Brazil

This recent report from AdvancedTelevision.com suggests that the decision to go with a variant of the Japanese system for DTT in Brazil may not be boosting the manufacturing industry there in the way the Brazilian authorities hoped it would.

"The Brazilian Government has threatened to liberalise imports of digital TV decoders from China if Brazilian manufacturers do not succeed in meeting the December 2 deadline (when DTT broadcasts are set to initiate) and offer boxes which do not cost more than $100. The issue will be discussed this week by the Committee for the Development of the Brazilian Digital Television System (SBTVD). Manufacturers claim that it will be difficult to produce the set-top boxes which will permit the reception of digital TV on conventional (analogue) TV sets for less than $200. The industry has requested tax benefits that could reduce costs by up to 36 per cent. For its part, the Government says it could import equipment from China for $75."


I don't know much at this point about the prices consumers are paying in Japan for ISDB-T set-top boxes - I'll do some research and report in a future post - but a quick glance at the ISDB-T entry in Wikipedia suggests that the bottom end of the market is around 125 €UR, or US$ 165. Maybe the US$ 100 target in Brazil is a little ambitious...?

MPEG-4 receivers in Estonia

People are starting to talk about MPEG-4 video coding as a real option for launching DVB-T services now. The headend equipment is certainly available and getting better all the time. The Estonians have launched DVB-T services this year and are using MPEG-4 right from the off. The big question is will the receivers be affordable. Everyone knows that standard MPEG-2 DVB-T boxes are as cheap as chips (literally, if you get my meaning!), but there isn't yet a mass market for these new-fangled MPEG-4 boxes. So, what's happening in Estonia....?

Well it seems that one manufacturer at least has put a line in the sand in terms of a price point. This box from Kaon is, I am reliably informed, retailing at 109 €UR, plus sales tax (which is a not insignificant 18% in Estonia). The box, which is not a bad looking piece of kit, can handle MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, both SD and HD, and has HDMI output. You'll find the full spec here. (Takes a while to load for some reason.)

ATSC Tuners

As a result of the tuner mandate the USA, most new TVs come with a built-in ATSC tuner. This makes it hard to make like for like comparisons between the prices of DTT receivers in the US, compared to, say, Europe. There doesn't seem to be a big market for standalone ATSC receivers, so perhaps price comparisons aren't really worthwhile anyway.

Still, I did a bit of searching to find prices and it seems to me that a basic ATSC set-top box is coming in at around US$ 80 - 90. Try this box from Kworld, for example.

I'll look at this a bit more in the coming weeks and maybe try comparing the prices of TVs with integrated digital tuners.

There's no doubt, however, that the stand alone set-top box seems, currently at least, to be more popular for DVB-T than for ATSC. Of course this has an impact on the prices for such devices, pushing them down all the time.

Cheapest DVB-T STB?

I spend a lot of time searching for and reading about DVB-T receivers and one of the things that I've noticed is how the prices just keep on falling. The biggest DVB-T market at the moment in terms of receivers sold is the UK, where the latest figures show that almost 19 million Freeview receivers of various shapes and sizes have now been sold. Naturally this has had an impact on the prices of receivers there. So I've just used price comparison site Kelkoo to try to find out what the cheapest basic DVB-T receiver is. And the winner is: the Luxor CDST900.

Now I'd love to show you a photo of this box, but try as I might I can't find one. I can find photos of Luxor TVs, so I know the brand exists, but I guess this box has just come to market now. The websites list is as having the following specs:

Plug and Play
Digital Text
2 x Scart sockets
Remote contol

...which is indeed very basic. But hey, at UK£ 23.99 (or about 35 €UR) who's complaining?!!

Do you know of a cheaper DTT set-top box (retail price, anywhere in the world)? Let me know...