President’s Memo

Posted on May 1, 2013 in ATSC News

ATSC IS THE PLACE!

Another NAB Show is now history, and the April show will go down as a landmark event for the ATSC and its members, emphasizing how ATSC is the place where the future of television is being defined.  With new projects well underway to fully define ATSC 2.0 and the foundations for ATSC 3.0 also taking shape, the 2013 show was a great opportunity for showing how broadcast TV standards will evolve:

• Now that the Mobile Emergency Alert System has been standardized, work continues to build interest in using mobile DTV as a backbone for enhanced alerts with video, text, audio, maps and other capabilities.

• ATSC 3.0 drew interest and headlines during the 2013 NAB Show.  With higher capacity to deliver Ultra-High-Definition services, robust reception on mobile devices and improved spectrum efficiency, television broadcasting will continue to advance into the future.

Speaking of ATSC 3.0, a major milestone is our call for proposals for the physical layer of ATSC 3.0, a process that echoes the early days of ATSC when advanced TV was only a concept.

Technology continues to advance and we are always looking to the horizon.  Internet technology now permeates the consumer experience, and mobility has become a requirement.  As we look forward to next-generation television standards, we want to take advantage of advances in compression and transmission technologies that will keep millions of people informed and entertained through broadcasting’s inherently efficient one-to-many architecture.

Initial responses to the call for proposals are due in August, and more detailed discussions about both ATSC 2.0 and ATSC 3.0 will be held during our annual meeting on May 9 in Washington.  Under the umbrella theme, “ATSC is the Place,” the 2013 ATSC Annual Meeting will indeed be the place to hear expert opinions, unique perspectives and valuable insights about the future of television.

We have a compelling program and I hope all of our members will be able to attend. Our keynote speaker at the Annual Meeting is the FCC’s Bill Lake, Chief of the FCC Media Bureau, who will shed some light on some of the important issues that the Commission is working on. And, of course, we’ll honor technical leadership, bestowing the 2013 Bernard J. Lechner Award for Outstanding Technical Contributions at the Annual Meeting.

See you in May,

Mark Richer, ATSC President

Posted in ATSC News