Fall 2010 Events

Autumn in the ATSC will be a busy time – please mark your calendars for two exciting events scheduled for October 2010.

First, the Fall 2010 ATSC Mobile Seminar will be held Thursday, October 7, 2010 at the Wiley Rein Conference Center – 1776 K St NW Washington, DC. Online registration and a preliminary program will soon be posted on the ATSC website.

Next, the 1st ATSC Symposium on Next Generation Broadcast Television is planned for Tuesday, October 19, 2010 from 9AM to 5PM at the Westin Alexandria Hotel - 400 Courthouse Square Alexandria, VA.

A limited number of rooms are available on a 'first-come first served' basis at the ATSC rate of $259/night for Monday the 18th – please contact the Westin Hotel at 703-253-8600 as soon as possible for reservations. The last day for reservations is September 18^th, 2010 – so call today!

Online registration for the symposium is now available.Registration is $75.00 for ATSC members, and $150.00 for non-members for each event. See you in October!

Call For Papers - Reminder

As mentioned above, the 1^st ATSC Symposium on Next Generation Broadcast Television will be held Tuesday, October 19, 2010. The ATSC is seeking information on a variety of topics related to new broadcast content delivery systems. These topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Transmission
• Reception
• Modulation
• Software Defined Radio Technologies
• Video codecs
• Audio codecs
• Transport methods
• Potential new services and applications

Written abstracts will be considered by a subcommittee of the ATSC Planning Team on Next Generation Broadcast Technology. Abstracts of less than 500 words should be submitted to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Vice President for Standards Development at the ATSC, by close of business on August 6, 2010. The ATSC Planning Team will review the abstracts and will notify submitters of their acceptance for presentation at the first symposium by August 27, 2010.

Submitters are advised that final written papers and oral presentations at the symposiums may be made available to the public and as such rights to do so will be requested by the ATSC.

First P/T Meetings Held

The first meetings for ATSC Planning Teams were held Thursday, July 15th in the ATSC offices in Washington, DC.

The ATSC Planning Team chairs Criag Todd (PT-1), Jim Kutzner (PT-2), and Rajan Mehta (PT-3) with ATSC President Mark Richer.

The 3D TV Team (PT-1), chaired by Craig Todd; the Next-Generation Broadcast Television Team (PT-2), chaired by Jim Kutzner; and the Internet Enhanced Television Team (PT-3), chaired by Rajan Mehta, discussed planned PT operations, their activities, schedule and deliverables. An open discussion on individual's visions for the Teams followed.

The scope of PT-1 is as follows: Considering broadcaster requirements, report on the likely benefits and limitations of a standard for terrestrial broadcast delivery of 3DTV.

The scope of PT-2 is as follows: Exploration of potential technologies to be used to define a new/future terrestrial broadcast digital television standard that is not constrained by a requirement to be backwards compatible with ATSC or ATSC 2.0 devices. Analysis to include assessment of the range of services that could be delivered with a new standard and consideration of potential timeframes.

The scope of PT-3 is as follows:

• Identify and review opportunities for broadcast television's use of internet connected TV's
• Identify and review various industry implementations of internet connected television services
• Consider benefits and challenges of interoperability of internet connected television service implementations
• Define requirements and recommend standards activities as appropriate

Please join the PT's email groups via the ATSC Enterprise – belonging to these groups will keep you updated on meeting schedules, work plans and progress.

TSG Update

The letter ballot on three Working Draft Amendments to Extend A/153 (the ATSC Mobile DTV Standard) to add the Scalable Full Channel Mobile Mode (SFCMM) system closes on August 9. The ballot is for elevation of the document to Candidate Standard for a period of six months. SFCMM will provide the capability to maximize the capacity used for mobile services in 6 MHz channels. SFCMM is intended for use on channels that are not encumbered with restrictions necessary for backwards compatibility with existing DTV receivers.

The Membership has given final approval to revisions of A/53 Parts 5 and 6. The updated documents can be found on the Standards Page of the ATSC Web site.

ATSC Membership

New materials for member recruitment, such as presentations, brochures, and email-formatted PDFs are available through the ATSC Staff. In our continuing quest for new participants to join the important work of the ATSC, we'd like to ask current member organizations to encourage non-member companies they may be associated with to join. Our appreciation of the work done by our current members goes without saying, but we always welcome new faces!

If you have an organization you would like to approach concerning membership, please let us know and we'll be delighted to help you help us!

ATSC Standards... Available in Print!

Recommeded Paractice A/74 has been added to the ATSC online store. Just follow the links to purchase full color professionally bound copies of recommended practices A/74 and A/85 and the Mobile DTV standard A/153. We hope to add additional standards documents for purchase in the upcoming weeks.

Save your printer ink and instead, buy a copy for the low prices listed online.

All standards and recommended practices will remain available for download at the ATSC website.

Graham Jones Retires

The ATSC family would like to convey our best wishes to Graham Jones, former Planning Committee chairman and ex-officio ATSC board member, who recently retired from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). Graham served as the Director of Communications Engineering at NAB. He was also a long-time supporter and participant in the ATSC, and we wish him best of luck in his future endeavors. As a continuing observer of ATSC activities, Graham's wealth of knowledge will remain a benefit to the ATSC.

ATSC Calendar

Copyright The Advanced Television Systems Committee, 2010