President’s Memo

Posted on April 2, 2015 in ATSC News

Coming Soon:  Candidate Standards

The arrival of spring brings cherry blossoms to Washington and a lot of anticipation about the technical innovations coming to the NAB Show in Las Vegas. As more progress is made on the ATSC 3.0 standard, we are looking forward to both a productive NAB Show in April and an informative ATSC Broadcast Television Conference and ATSC 3.0 “Boot Camp” coming up in May.

ATSC 3.0 at the NAB Show

I expect to see working prototypes of ATSC 3.0 related technologies from a wide assortment of multi-national companies at the NAB Show. The ATSC Pavilion in North Hall will include demos from Korea’s ETRI, Spain’s University of Basque Country, China’s NERC, and the USA’s Triveni Digital, Unisoft and Verance. Other exhibitors are also expected to show various technologies to power ATSC 3.0.

Those attending the NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference in Las Vegas during the NAB Show will have the opportunity to learn more about the status of ATSC 3.0 during the “Building the Next Generation Television Service” three-hour session on Sunday, April 12. Leaders of the ATSC 3.0 working groups and subcommittees will be on hand to update engineers about the latest developments.

ATSC congratulates two of our board members who will be receiving well-deserved recognition at this month’s NAB Show. Richard Friedel of Fox will receive the 2015 NAB Television Engineering Achievement Award, and fellow ATSC Board Member David Siegler of Cox Media Group will receive Broadcasting & Cable’s 2015 Technology Leadership Award. Both Richard and Dave are tireless supporters of ATSC’s work, devoting many hours to the collective effort to enhance and improve TV broadcasting.

ATSC 3.0 Progress

Work on the ATSC 3.0 standard is progressing as expected, with the initial elements of the Physical Layer for transmission likely moving to Candidate Standard balloting in the coming days. A consensus decision by the S32 specialist group to split the Physical Layer (for transmission) into separate pieces means that the System Type Discovery including the “bootstrap” startup sequence for ATSC 3.0 is likely to be the first part going to ballot for Candidate Standard. Significant progress in the Applications & Presentations Layer for watermarking technologies. Preliminary decisions are being made now for both video and audio watermarking methods. All of this progress would not be possible without the dedicated input of more than 370 individuals representing 110 companies making contributions to the future of the medium.

Peter Siebert, Executive Director of DVB, Nick Wells of the BBC, and the ATSC’s Mark Richer talk standards during the DVB World conference.

Last month, I was pleased to update our European colleagues about ATSC 3.0 during remarks to the DVB World conference in Copenhagen. Of course, it wasn’t so long ago that the ATSC and DVB were viewed as major competitors in the world of digital television broadcast standards. Our next-generation systems will have many technologies in common and some different, but we are working together to advance terrestrial broadcasting. The ATSC was well-represented at the three-day conference, with a number of member representatives, including Dolby, DTS, Fraunhofer, LG Electronics, Qualcomm and Sony, speaking on panels.

Luminary Super Panel

In mid-May, we’re delighted to announce that three industry luminaries will address the 2015 ATSC Broadcast TV Conference, “Tune In to the Future,” in Washington. As a centerpiece of the event, we’re convening a “super panel” of experts to discuss changing consumer tastes, new expectations and evolving technology – including ATSC 3.0. Gordon Smith, President and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), Michael Powell, President and CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), and Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA®) will each speak on a panel moderated by former FCC Chairman Richard Wiley, now Chairman of WileyRein.

The Broadcast Television Conference on May 14 will include a variety of sessions and will be preceded by a day-long ATSC 3.0 “Boot Camp” on May 13 at the Reagan Commerce Center. You can register for both the ATSC 3.0 Boot Camp” seminar and the annual Broadcast Television Conference here. Members pay only $200 to participate in both events.

A New Front Door: ATSC.org

Behind the scenes, ATSC has also been working on a refresh of the ATSC.org public website. Starting today, if you pay us a visit you’ll find a new “front door” with much improved navigation and updated design. We’ve kept the familiar elements for visitors wanting to see our standards, subcommittee descriptions and stories written for this newsletter. And we’ve made it easier to find the information you need – whether that’s details on membership or copies of our standards and policies.

We hope to see you in Las Vegas, and then in Washington, in the coming weeks.

Mark Richer, ATSC President

Posted in ATSC News