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Watch Free-to-Air TV
on your Smartphone,
Tablet or Laptop
By
ROSS TESTER
The photo above is not a wide-screen TV set – though it is showing
a wide-screen free-to-air TV image. It’s actually a still image on an
Android laptop, showing a televised World Cup match in real time!
T
he internet is a wonderful,
powerful thing. Just think of
the things it lets you do every
day as a matter or course, which you
never would have dreamed of, say ten
years ago.
But there is another, seldom-thoughtof benefit of the internet: it has in fact
spawned the development of a plethora
of equipment to use this power – again,
equipment which was only the often
outlandish musings of science fiction
writers of a decade earlier or so.
24 Silicon Chip
Take smartphones, for example.
These amazingly powerful computers
(for that’s what they are) often relegate
the ‘phone’ function to a distant second place.
It’s all about apps (applications for
you Luddites!) which turn your smartphone into, well, anything you want.
Now there’s TV on the move
Add a tiny USB dongle to your
smartphone and you’re able to watch
free-to-air digital TV services wherever
you are – without using either your
phone service or even a broadband
connection.
We should add that Australian
TV services are now all-digital, with
analog TV now permanently off the air.
And perhaps we should also add
that we are talking here about Android
phones. Despite all the marketing
hype, Android holds about 70% of
the smartphone market (and its still
growing). Apple users – don’t despair:
there are similar services available for
siliconchip.com.au
you. But they’re not what we are talking about here.
Back to the Android smartphone
and TV. Recently, Altronics sent us
one of their ‘PadTV’ packs to try out.
Their Director, Brian Sorensen, waxed
lyrical on the ‘phone about how amazing the tiny dongle was. And now we
know why!
The PAD TV Tuner dongle
You almost feel cheated when you
look at the dongle. It’s not much bigger
than your thumbnail. Yet within this
tiny device is all the ‘smarts’ to turn
your Android (4.1 or higher) device
into a very high performance TV and
even a DVR.
Think about that for a minute: virtually a complete TV tuner in a package
that’s MUCH smaller than the remote
control for your home TV! Of course,
it doesn’t get anywhere without the
computer power of your smartphone
or tablet but you carry that in your
pocket anyway.
Now you can take TV wherever you
want it – obviously, assuming there
is a TV station to pick up. Whether
that’s camping out, on a boat, at a
sportsground, in a car (maybe!), at
Shown significantly oversize for clarity, the front of the PAD TV tuner has a
micro-USB plug to mate with your Android smartphone, phablet or tablet, while
the rear has a SSMB connector to take one of the supplied mini antennas. An
SSMB-to-TV antenna adaptor is also supplied to connect to an outside antenna.
work (sorry, boss – it’s research. . .),
you name it – mobile TV at its finest.
Now before you take those locations/situations as gospel, we should
point out that there are limitations.
The most obvious is that there must
be a good strength TV signal. That’s
not just a function of the dongle and
its tiny antenna (though naturally,
that does have a major influence), it’s
also a function of digital TV with its
‘digital cliff’.
You either have a picture, or you
don’t – there’s no in-between snowy
half-picture like there was with analog.
TV reception in a car is also a bit hit-
and-miss for much the same reason,
added to the fact that the moving car
is likely to be in and out of good signal
areas, between city buildings, behind
hills or mountains, even a large dense
tree can interfere with reception.
So while it might be tempting to
keep the kids amused on a long trip
with the PAD TV, it’s probably best to
have some DVDs or games available
as well!
Another limitation is the size of the
screen on your device. It might seem
pretty cool to watch TV on a 3.5-inch
phone but the lack of detail is less
than satisfying. Seeing any horse in the
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November 2014 25
Melbourne Cup is difficult; identifying
it by number or even jockey colours
is near impossible! That’s where the
larger screens of today’s phones,
phablets and tablets really makes a
difference.
Assuming you don’t have either
wrong version Android or wrong port
problems, search for the PAD TV app in
Google Play, download it and install it.
The first one we found was a freebie; there may be others offering more
facilities but we didn’t bother to go
further.
Using it
Unfortunately, it’s not simply a
matter of plugging in and playing (or
viewing in this case). First, you need
to download the appropriate app. As
an Android device, you would log
on to Google Play and search for Pad
TV. And here is where you might find
the first (and often insurmountable)
hurdle.
Remember a moment ago we
mentioned that you needed to have
Android 4.1 or higher. For the latest smartphones and tablets, that
shouldn’t be a problem.
Check it by going to ‘settings’,
thence ‘about phone’ and scroll down
to ‘software information’. If it doesn’t
say ‘Android version 4.1’ (or higher),
you’re out of luck. Yes, some phones
can be updated but unless your manufacturer has the appropriate patches,
you’re on your own.
Your smartphone or tablet must
also support USB On-The-Go, or USB
OTG. This is a specification and standard that allows USB devices such as
digital audio players or mobile phones
to act as a host allowing a USB flash
drive, mouse, or keyboard to be attached. Most devices now do
(especially those with Android
4.1+) but it’s worth checking
your specs.
Tied up with this is another
potential sticking point – the
USB port itself. The micro
USB male plug on the PAD TV
dongle needs to mate with a
USB micro female socket (also
known as, respectively, type B
and type A).
Fortunately, these days most
smartphones have that micro
USB type B port we mentioned
earlier. That means the PAD TV
dongle will plug straight in.
But it’s not always the case.
And if you can’t find PAD TV?
Once the app is downloaded and
installed, setup is straightforward,
logical and quick.
There are (currently) four types of
USB ports: the ‘standard’ type A male
and female, the smaller type B male
and female, the Mini-A, the Mini-B
and finally the Micro-A and MicroB. As their name implies, the micro
USB ports are the smallest. There is a
combined Micro-A and Micro-B socket
which is designed to allow USB OTG,
as mentioned earlier.
Incidentally, despite countless millions in use, Mini-A and Mini-B USB
sockets are now regarded as obsolete.
Unfortunately, tablets often have
only standard or mini USB ports (or
perhaps even a proprietary data connector). You might be able to find an
adaptor (did your Tablet come with
one?) but if you can’t connect the
PAD TV, you’re out of luck . . . again.
We found female micro USB adaptors almost impossible to buy. Note
that we did say almost! We
eventually found one on
ebay for the unbelievable price of $2.39
(including postage from China!).
Here are the two antennas supplied – the
small loop antenna shown plugged into
the PADTV Tuner (above) and the small
whip antenna on a base, as seen at left. Just be
aware that small antennas such as these don’t pick up a whole
lot of signal so you need to be in a strong signal area.
26 Silicon Chip
We mentioned earlier that the PAD
TV dongle requires Android 4.1 or
higher to operate.
If you cannot find PAD TV when
you log onto Google Play and search
for it, the chances are your smartphone
is not Android 4.1 – Android is clever
enough to only show those apps that
will operate with the Android iteration
on your smartphone. (Go to Google
Play from Windows, for example, and
you’ll see all that are available).
Setting up
Once the app is installed, when you
plug in the PAD TV dongle, the app
will automatically find it and load it.
Then you need to set it up. First,
you will need to select the appropriate
country from the ‘settings’ menu then
scan for available channels. This takes
a few minutes, particularly if you’re in
an area with lots of TV signals.
Here’s where you might discover
one or more of those wrinkles we mentioned earlier. Our first scan, indoors
(wet brick walls), discovered 16 channels but no ABC, 7 or 10.
And when we tried to view any of
them, they all said ‘No Signal’.
Our second scan was outside and
this yielded 60 channels, including
multiple ABCs, 7s, 9s, 10s, Gems, etc
etc. However, not all worked – again,
many said ‘No Signal’. But the ones
that did work ranged from patchy
to excellent.
Obviously the PAD
TV was picking up
translators from
here, there and everywhere – but most
didn’t have enough
power to give us a picture.
You can sort the channels into
the order you want them by selecting
‘sort channels’ and dragging the three
horizontal bars on the right side of
the listings and dropping them into
position.
It would make sense to place the
unusable channels at the back of the
queue (so far, we haven’t worked out
siliconchip.com.au
how to delete them but there must be
a way!)
Antenna adaptor plug
If you can’t find any channels, or if
you can’t get a picture on any that are
found, Altronics include an SSMB-toPAL adaptor which allows you to plug
the PAD TV dongle into your home
TV antenna.
Assuming you have a reliable picture on your home TV, this is a proofof-operation which will allow you to
go through the above steps and make
sure it’s all working for you.
Of course, reverting to the tiny loop
or whip antennas might not give you
any joy but at least you’ll know that
it does work with your smartphone.
The phone’s ringing!
And speaking of your smartphone,
what happens if you are watching TV
and someone calls you? No problem
– the phone becomes a . . . phone! (It
reverts to TV when the call is over).
Power
While we haven’t measured it, we
would imagine that watching TV on
your smartphone would be fairly hun-
gry on the battery.
In fact, the PAD TV dongle itself
gets fairly warm with continual use,
suggesting that it is dragging a bit of
power.
So if you need your phone to be
always available for phone calls, that’s
something to keep in mind. We noticed
the battery level symbol had dropped
down a couple of notches in the time
we were playing researching.
Obviously, you can’t plug in a
charger while watching TV as they
both use the same Micro USB socket.
The verdict?
Even at significantly higher price,
we would rate the PAD TV dongle as
a bargain.
Of course, there’s plenty of apps
around to let you stream live TV to
your device (want to watch TV from
outer Mongolia?) but all these cost you
bandwidth – and significant bandwidth at that.
On a limited plan, that’s going to
cost you plenty.
Not so the PAD TV. Because it
receives its signal off-air, there is no
bandwidth overhead once you’ve
downloaded the PAD TV app (about
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16MB). So, with the proviso that you
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We love it!
Where from, how much?
The PAD TV Digital TV for Android
phones package (dongle, loop antenna,
tiny whip antenna and PAL-SSMB
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SC
com.au). Cat no is D2800.
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November 2014 27
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