Local tech brand Starmobile, the fourth largest vendor of tablet in the country as ranked by analyst firm IDC, said it recently wrapped up its first ever Digital DTV (DTV) signal testing in Metro Manila.
In compliance with the directive of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), local broadcast firms have started their migration to the Japanese DTV standard ISDB-T.
The series of tests of Starmobile, conducted from 10-19 April 2015, revealed that GMA 1SEG and GMA News TV lead with coverage presence in 10 out of the 14 test locations. This is quite surprising since GMA-7 was initially hesitant to adopt the ISDB-T standard and preferred the European DTV standard DVB-2.
They were followed by ABS-CBN Sports, ABS-CBN, and ABS-CBN One Seg, which is present in nine locations.
In terms of signal quality (where signal is present), ABS-CBN Sports has the highest average signal strength with 3.9 bars out of a possible 4, followed by ABS-CBN and Aksyon TV both with an average of 3.8 bars each.
The tests were performed in selected Starmobile concept stores and kiosks in Metro Manila through the use of the new Starmobile Knight Vision, the first Filipino-branded Android smartphone with a built-in DTV tuner that complies with the ISDB-T standard.
?This is a landmark test not only for Starmobile but for the industry in general,? said Starmobile president Ulysses Lao. ?Our test demystifies DTV as an ?alien? technology, and translates it into something practical which the Filipino masses could experience,? he added.
Lao refers to the simple yet scientific methodology, which Starmobile used to conduct the test.
By running the Knight Vision?s scanning feature and browsing through all available channels, Starmobile was able to quantify broadcast coverage, strength, and quality.
?This is a 100 percent independent and consumer-centric test which we feel should be known by the public especially with the on-going shift from analog to digital broadcast,? said Starmobile Product Development Head Michael Chen.
?We will continue to conduct DTV tests nationwide so that we could better assess the proliferation of this technology,? Chen ended.
The Starmobile Knight Vision, which sells for P9,990, is a 5.5-inch Android device with an HD Screen and 2GB of RAM.
Apart from being compatible with DTV in over 65 countries, it also boasts of being the first Pinoy cameraphone with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) technology, a feature commonly found only in high-end models of multi-national brands.
