TV tuners for Netbooks

News has it that Maxlinear and Hauppauge (I never know how to spell that company name without looking it up) are teaming up to make a netbook TV tuner.

Now this is all well and good, Netbooks are the perfect size for portable TV's, which with the onset of digital TV in North America and the rest of the world are obsolete. Going to the beach? Bringing your netbook? Now you can watch whatever signals you pick up there. Although if that happens to be any beach in Manitoba, that's still 0. But my blog is read by people worldwide who don't live in backwards garbage dumps, so for them, It'll be great.

Apparently the only current netbook with a built in TV tuner (or option) is the Dell Mini 10. Now, the Dell mini's (aside from the 9) are generally pretty decent looking computers. The mini 10 with its HDMI out almost got me, except of course for the lack of a scroll in the touchpad that it comes with. If I can't have a trackpoint, I AT LEAST need to scroll with the touchpad. I'm also iffy on the fact that the buttons are included in the touchpad assembly. It'd be nice if they could make a netbook with a trackpoint instead. Same specs but with a trackpoint only? I AM SO THERE. Although I'd prefer a top of the line atom processor or via neo in a 10 inch size machine.

But I digress, The point I was originally going to make is that while its all well and good, We do not currently have a standard for Mobile ATSC-M/H. ATSC signals cannot be locked on to while driving or running around, which makes mobile ATSC standards a necessity. Eventually you'll have digital television tuners in cell phones too, but all the same, there needs to be a standard set and agreed upon first. Sure current netbooks will be obsolete anyways by then, but It's still premature I think for TV tuners to be standard on netbooks.