China’s National Engineering Research Center Eyes ATSC 3.0 Opportunities – Conversation with Yao Wang
More and more countries across the globe are switching from analog transmission services to ATSC 3.0 digital transmissions. To learn more about the importance of ATSC 3.0, ATSC sat down with Yao Wang of the Shanghai National Engineering Research Center of Digital Television Co. Ltd. (NERC-DTV).
What is the status of manufacturing ATSC 3.0 television sets among Chinese TV makers?
Chinese manufacturers paid close attention to the ATSC 3.0 standard deployments, including the policies, regulations, host station specifications, signal launch schedules, conformance test requirements, and so on. Manufacturers regarded the U.S. deployment in 2021 as a critical achievement. More and more Chinese TV manufacturers are developing or are about to develop ATSC 3.0 devices, including television sets, chips, set-top boxes, portable solutions, head-end modulators, gateways, etc. Some of these manufacturers joined different organizations directly as members.
How does the announcement of MediaTek’s Pentonic 2000 impact that landscape?
The ATSC 3.0 receivers will exist in various forms such as integrated TVs, set-top converter boxes, mobile, and portable solutions. The release of Pentonic 2000 is a positive signal for accelerating the market application of all-in-one integrated TV products. A single-chip platform with highly integrated global decoding and demodulating IPs will provide a more cost-effective, user-friendly, and competitive all-in-one UHDTV solution. It will significantly increase the deployment scale of ATSC 3.0 embedded TV sets.
NERC made many important contributions to ATSC 3.0 since the very beginning of the project. What contributions to the standard is NERC most proud of?
NERC-DTV has participated in the ATSC 3.0 standard development since the establishment of ATSC Technology Group 3. We are honored to work with ATSC and its members to develop the use cases, physical and protocol layer standards, and host the first ATSC 3.0 PlugFest in 2015 and the NextGen TV conference in 2018 in Shanghai. As one of the major designers of the Physical Layer “Bootstrap” (A/321) technology, we believe it is the universal system entry and provides highly efficient signal discovery, synchronization, and transmission with network convergence extensions capabilities. NERC-DTV also has developed ATSC 3.0 chip algorithm, RTL and FPGA solutions, and system equipment prototypes.
What NextGen TV initiatives or projects is NERC involved in these days?
NERC-DTV is setting up the ATSC 3.0 Shanghai Pre-certification and Field Test Laboratory (ATSC 3.0 SPF LAB) to facilitate their NextGen TV product development testing in the East Asia region with the support of ATSC, PearlTV, and Sinclair Broadcast Group. The platform will provide fabless design houses, TV manufacturers, and other equipment manufacturers with a pre-certificate environment for development prior to formal conformance testing. The indoor SPF LAB performs functional tests, simulates various complex channels for physical layer performance testing, and tests and analyzes the code system. The field test SPD LAB performs field tests in different reception points. We expect the ATSC 3.0 SPF LAB will help reduce the industry’s development time cycle and expand the services scenarios in the future. Otherwise, NERC-DTV also works with ATSC and other 11 global leading entities to research common requirements and solutions of future public broadcast television and network media via the Future of Broadcast Television Initiative (FOBTV) since 2011.
Do you have a “wish list” of new features or capabilities that you would like to see ATSC develop for the ATSC 3.0 platform?
ATSC 3.0 is the first IP-based next-generation standard stacks. We expect to see its continuous development in ubiquitous network access, broadcast broadband network convergence, broadcast core network, inter tower communications, and future immersive visual media compatibility. It can also evolve to act as the medium between the physical, human and meta world in the future.
What do you see as the future of ATSC 3.0 development?
Live public broadcast television and media service are always the most foundational, uniquely essential services for high quality and low latency local media consumption. Broadband peak network traffic often limits and reduces video quality in mass users’ consumption scenarios. In contrast, the broadcast can always provide robust and ubiquitous media distribution. The 35% household penetration and 40+ cities’ signal on the air in the US is a significant milestone. With the expansion of the broadcast signal coverage, the penetration of 4K, HDR, 3D Audio high quality audio video and data contents, and the introduction of innovative interactive and personalized media services, and the emergence of more mobile and portable applications, we believe the market will accelerate faster.
(See more details about MediaTek’s Pentonic 2000)
Posted in ATSC News
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