ATSC 3.0 Takes IBC2015 by Storm

Posted on October 1, 2015 in ATSC News

By GLENN REITMEIER, NBC Universal
ATSC Board Chairman

ATSC members were well-represented at IBC2015, Europe’s broadcasting extravaganza held last month in Amsterdam.  A technical paper session chaired by CRC’s Yiyan Wu featured presentations by TG 3 Chairman Rich Chernock of Triveni Digital, Heung-Mook Kim of ETRI, Yungeng Guan of NERC-TV and Gerard Faia of Teamcast. 

The papers and the subsequent technical discussion clearly highlighted the world-leading spectrum efficiency of the ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer (now an ATSC Candidate Standard) and its large range of operation to accommodate both fixed and mobile services.  ATSC 3.0’s IP-transport-based approach was also discussed in detail.  Dr. Chernock also described the use of DASH in ATSC 3.0 broadcasting in a separate session.

Perhaps most obvious was the broad global collaboration behind ATSC 3.0. In the IBC Futures Park, South Korea’s ETRI provided a demonstration of DASH/ROUTE hybrid delivery of content through both broadcast (DVB-T2 PHY layer) and IP broadband networks and its synchronization at the receiver.  Broadcast and broadband audio services were seamlessly selected and switched at the receiver.

On the show floor, Teamcast prominently featured its new exciter hardware platform and proudly displayed the ATSC 3.0 logo.  Teamcast CTO Faria made a series of presentations in his booth about ATSC 3.0 and its capabilities. 

Elsewhere on the show floor, HEVC compression encoding was demonstrated by Harmonic, Ericsson and others; various High Dynamic Range video approaches were demonstrated by Dolby, EBU, NHK, Samsung, Sony and Technicolor, to name a few; and Immersive Audio was demonstrated by Dolby and MPEG-H Alliance members. 

Thanks to ATSC members who demonstrated, spoke and attended IBC, proudly representing our collective progress on ATSC 3.0 to the international broadcast community.

According to show organizers, IBC2015 was widely agreed to be the most successful yet. Conference delegates heard from more than 250 top-level speakers including ATSC representatives; attendees visited booths of more than 1,800 vendors. Total visitors of 55,128 exceeded 2014’s record-breaking attendance.

Posted in ATSC News