The 2018 ATSC Next Gen TV Conference, “The Road to ATSC 3.0,” is one for the history books. The record attendance, passionate speakers and an unprecedented level of cooperation and enthusiasm speak volumes about where we are on the journey along the Road to ATSC 3.0.

Mark Corl received the 2018 Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award, the ATSC’s highest technical honor, at the ATSC Next Gen TV Conference. Corl, who led the development of the A/344 Interactive Content Standard, chairs the ATSC’s ad-hoc group working on the Runtime Environment for ATSC 3.0 applications.

In the Chat Room this month, THE STANDARD sat down with the Honorable Richard E. Wiley.  Widely known as the “Father of HDTV,” the former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission chaired the FCC’s Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service from 1987 to 1995.

The broadcast engineers (who constituted most of the audience) at the annual Advanced Television Systems Committee meeting in Washington last week (May 23-24) heard something they rarely encounter: the role of advertising and audience measurement in the imminent rollout of the NextGen TV (also known as ATSC 3.0).

Real-world deployment and testing of the ATSC 3.0 Next Gen TV standard was front and center at the Advanced Television Systems Committee Conference with reports from Pearl TV, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Capitol Broadcasting, NAB and public broadcasting.