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The ATSC Technology and Standards Group, with due regard for existing standards organizations and activities, develops and recommends voluntary, international technical standards for the distribution of television programs to the public using advanced television technology.
Technologies considered may be improvements to current systems or entirely new systems that are compatible or incompatible with current systems. All forms of distribution systems may be considered, such as terrestrial broadcasting, cable systems, direct satellite broadcasting, and pre-recorded media. With respect to distribution systems, sound, vision, display, conditional access, and data sub-systems may be considered.
John Henderson chairs the Technology and Standards Group. The secretary of TSG is Jerry Whitaker, ATSC. Policies relating to the ATSC, in general, and TSG, in particular, can be found on About ATSC. For more information on the TSG, ATSC members can access the ATSC Members Only website and visit the TSG Home Page.
 PSIP Metadata Communication. Chair: Art Allison, NAB
This specialist group is defining specifications and standards for exchange of PSIP-related metadata between DTV systems and equipment that affect production of the transport stream and PSIP tables. The XML-based Programming Metadata Communication Protocol Standard describes the transactions and appropriate messages to be used by each of the expected participants. Liaison continues with other ATSC Specialists Groups, specifically with TSG/S2, TSG/S8, and TSG/S13, and with other standards development organizations working on standards that include metadata, specifically with appropriate SMPTE Technology Committees. See the PSIP web site.
Advanced Common Application Platform. Chair: Thomas Jung, Alticast
The Specialist Group on the Advanced Common Application Platform (T3/S2) under the supervision and direction of the Technology Group on Distribution, shall be responsible for the ongoing development of the ACAP standard. T3/S2 will be seeded with the members of T3/S13, T3/S16, T3/S17 and other interested participants. As necessary, T3/S2 will coordinate ACAP related activities of these Specialist Groups. T3/S2 will establish a working liaison with CableLabs, DVB, SCTE and other organizations as necessary.
Digital ENG. Chair: Dane Ericksen, SBE
The Specialist Group on Digital Electronic News Gathering, TSG/S3, under the supervision and direction of the Technology Group on Distribution, will develop Standards and where applicable associated Recommended Practices for private communications services between DTV station facilities and their associated digital electronic news gathering (D-ENG) crews. Wherever possible, these standards will build on existing standards of the ATSC or other organizations.This activity will include liaison with other ATSC Specialists Groups, specifically with TSG/S8 and TSG/S13. TSG/S3 will also liaise with other organizations working on ENG issues, specifically with appropriate committees of the Society of Broadcast Engineers, Inc. (SBE).
Mobile/Handheld. Chair: Mark Aitken , Sinclair Broadcast Group
“The ATSC Specialist Group on ATSC Mobile and Handheld Services (TSG/S4) has been charged with developing a standard for mobile and handheld services using backward-compatible enhancements to the ATSC DTV emission."
Video and Audio Coding. Chair: Pat Waddell, Harmonic
The Specialists’ Group on Audio and Video Coding, under the supervision and direction of the Technology and Standards Group, develops recommendations for audio and video coding for use in the ATSC television system. TSG/S6, as directed by TSG and the ATSC Board of Directors, has the following work items:
- Investigate and document more efficient coding methods, specifically audio and video coding for the advanced transmission mode (and possibly main channel use)
- Maintain A/54A Sections 5 and 6
- Maintain other ATSC audio and video coding document
Service Multiplex & Transport Systems Characteristics. Chair: Mark Eyer, Sony
The ATSC TSG/S8 Specialist Group on Service Multiplex and Transport Systems Characteristics supports the Technology and Standards Group to describe, specify, and document all aspects of the transport subsystem of the ATSC DTV system except data broadcasting. This work includes:
- Documenting constraints against and extensions to the MPEG-2 Transport Stream specification
- Developing standards for delivery of system and service information, including caption service signaling
- Developing standard methods for conditional access
- Considering standard methods for transport of program metadata such as television parental guidelines, digital rights management data and copy protection data, including support for program metadata applicable to future as well as current programming
- Developing methods for unambiguous identification of content
- Preparing guidelines for effective use of transport-related standards
- Maintaining resulting documents
RF Transmission. Chair: Charles Einolf, Consultant
The Specialist Group on RF Transmission (TSG/S9) under the supervision and direction of the Technology and Standards Group (TSG), shall be responsible for developing technical documents and analyzing issues relating to terrestrial RF transmission and propagation with regard to ATSC DTV signals. Wherever possible, these standards will build on existing standards of the ATSC or other organizations. This activity will include liaison with other ATSC Specialists Groups.
Receivers. Chair: John Henderson, CEA
TSG/S10 will examine elements of DTV receiver designs, assessing the degree to which performance tradeoffs and complexity are impacted and their relation to FCC DTV planning factors. TSG/S10 may also consider whether voluntary performance targets and/or design guidelines might be useful.
Data Broadcasting. Chair: Michael Dolan, TBT
This specialist group will define the mechanisms for serving the needs of data broadcast applications utilizing the ATSC digital broadcast as a delivery medium. This will include television program related applications and non-television applications. Specifically, TSG/S13 will define a method or methods for using ATV broadcast to transport data streams, data files and executable code, the fundamental ingredients of both classes of applications. The group will also address other generic requirements imposed by these applications, for example low latency needs of some interactive applications, synchronization with video/audio programming, etc.
Architectural Team. Chair: Bill Miller, ABC
The Architecture Team is a permanent group that reports to TSG. Membership is composed of TSG chairs and vice chairs, and specialist group chairs. The team is advisory in nature, writing reports if necessary but not developing standards. Initial tasks include: 1) coordinate robust mode work as needed, and 2) reply to recent member request for assigning code points. The purpose and scope of the Architecture Team is to :
- Oversee ATSC technical document structure and architecture
- Facilitate communication between specialist groups
- Provide a forum for addressing inter-specialist group issues
- Provide a forum to which ATSC staff and T3 can pose technical questions of a general nature and get a formal response
- Work with ATSC Code Points Registrar in an advisory capacity
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