During large scale disasters or weather events, often local TV stations will have better information than local radio stations because they have more resources available to go out and collect information themselves. However, when broadcast TV went digital, it made various electronics obsolete, like my AM/FM/TV band transistor radio.

I just ran across this article about a new line of portable TV's by RCA. And not only will they receive digital TV, but also something called mobile DTV, which I have never heard of before.

From a preparedness perspective, the smallest 3.5 inch model intrigues me since it can be powered by AA batteries (if only I could get a AA-powered mobile phone...). There's also a car tuner model, which is also intriguing since it can easily be powered through the car.

Is anyone familiar with mobile DTV? What kind of programming is available with it?

Never heard of DTV, but just got a 7" digital TV for Xmas. Runs off an antenna. So far OK-ish reception, kind of finicky at the airport,but good in town. Lots of channels that wouldn't be typically available over broadcast TV (like 7a, 7b, etc), but still probably only got 10-15 channels.

Rechargable, runs off 110 and 12V systems.

I thought it was just an abbreviation for digital tv. Back when they were running ads for the change over they would just shorten to dtv instead of digital tv.

I got myself one of these. Plugs into USB, and has a small antenna. Watch HD digital broadcast TV on your computer for free. Works great.

http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-ATSC-Receiver-Tu...1#ht_2695wt_906

Mobile DTV is a dialect of the new ATSC digital television standard that replaced the old NTSC video system.

The original ATSC specification didn't allow for the possibility of mobile devices (doh!) and so a new specification was hastily created and rolled out in October 2009.

http://gizmodo.com/5383507/america-finally-has-a-mobile-dtv-standard

There are some stations broadcasting with this standard:
http://www.openmobilevideo.com/

About 40% of the US Population is covered to some extent by Mobile DTV.

Note that a portable ATSC television - IF it's not moving - works just fine if it's in reach of the notoriously finicky digital signals from the ATSC transmitters. You can get a portable ATSC TV at places like CVS stores for about $100 or less.

I was just watching a TV commercial for ATT's U-verse video service on smartphones, laptops, etc. Any 3G/4G video service will likely be overwhelmed during some large scale emergency where many people are trying to stream video, so that's certainly a survival-related application where a broadcast technology like Mobile DTV would shine. Rolling down the freeway evacuating from a hurricane or otherwise bugging out would be two examples of situations where 3G would get bogged down quickly if many people in those cars were using the service at the same time.

From the Mobile DTV technical descriptions, it seems to use additional error correction plus a lower bandwidth signal, making it quite robust. I don't know, does regular digital TV pixelate in heavy weather like my satellite TV does? I haven't been around really bad weather since broadcast TV switched over to digital, but if it does, that's another plus for Mobile DTV. It's not 1080p high-def, but who needs that in an emergency situation?

The "burst" capability of Mobile DTV (if I'm reading the descriptions correctly) is also intriguing to me. If electricity is scarce, either on the transmitting or receiving end, seems like you could use this capability to download news updates as fast as possible and lets you watch it when you want, say when power is more readily available.

I do have a little AA charger for my phone.. ebay I think

To me, the digital (over the air) signal just blanks off and on instead of pixelating. You either have the signal or you don't, in my experience.

Just a thought that may rely on the receiver not the signal on what occurs during signal lose just like on some TVs you get scrambled or snow or blue screens using cable

{edit)
If you mean Cable Digital TV it pixelates often when mass people tune in at once it seems almost always around 7-9 PM or so I never noticed the exact cause to the issues but it rarely seems to be a weather issue more of a overload issue

I'm referring to digital broadcast TV signals (ATSC) and its robustness in foul weather compared to Mobile DTV reception. However, if ATSC reception is not really affected by bad weather, the way that satellite TV can be, then the robustness of Mobile DTV isn't quite the advantage that I might have thought.