President’s Memo

Posted on June 3, 2013 in ATSC News

Our 2013 Annual Meeting last month in Washington lived up to our theme, “ATSC is the Place,” with updates on how the Internet and our mobile society are impacting broadcasting’s future and an insightful keynote address by FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake.

Bill’s remarks, excerpted in this issue of THE STANDARD, and the panel discussions about Mobile DTV, ATSC 2.0, Smart TVs and Second Screen, and ATSC 3.0 confirmed that our work is extremely important to the future of broadcast television.

Even in this connected world– where it seems that people rarely go more than a few minutes without checking their smartphone, laptop or tablet — the new technology discussion and presentations kept most of those in attendance engaged and not distracted by the usual multitasking. In fact, I would call them “MUST See” sessions (standing for Mininum Use of Smartphones and Tablets!)

In addition to thanking our outspoken and articulate panelists from Dyle, Mobile500, Harris Broadcast, Trevini, Cox Media, LG Electronics USA, NBC Universal, Videon Central, Hearst, Sinclair Broadcast Group, LIN Media, Capitol Broadcasting, PBS, and Fox, we owe a debt of gratitude to moderators Myra Moore, Gary Arlen and Dave Arland.

Our hearty congratulations go out to Mark Aitken of Sinclair Broadcast Group for earning well-deserved recognition as the 2013 receipient of the ATSC’s highest technical honor, the Bernard Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award. We are indebted to Mark for his tireless leadership and work to make ATSC stronger.

Of course, no event of this magnitude is possible without the sponsorship by our supporters from Samsung, LG Electronics, Zenith, CEA, IEEE BTS, Linear Acoustic, Cox Media Group, Dolby, BIM, Ericsson, PBS, and Vizio. On behalf of the ATSC board and membership, I thank them all for making the Annual Meeting possible.

I was pleased to participate in a special dinner just after the ATSC Annual Meeting to mark the 20th anniversary of the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance that came together to forge the “best of the best” elements that today are the foundation for the ATSC Digital TV suite of standards. Now, two decades later, our work is far from done. In fact, as we embark on groundbreaking ATSC 2.0 and 3.0 standards, it’s reminiscent to the excitement surrounding those early days of HDTV.

The new Implementation Teams at work on ATSC 2.0 and the Mobile Emergency Alert System for Mobile DTV are making great progress. The M-EAS Implementation Team is focused on system architecture and workflow design and the ATSC 2.0 Implementation Team is looking at potential applications. The article in this issue of THE STANDARD from Triveni’s Mark Corl about the Open MediaHub discusses one of the exciting prospects for ATSC 2.0.

Our annual board of directors strategic planning retreat is coming up in mid July, and if you have thoughts about the ATSC’s future activities, you should feel free to contact me, Board Chair Glenn Reitmeier, or any of the ATSC board members.

Mark Richer
President
Advanced Television Systems Committee

Posted in ATSC News