ATSC Ballot Update

Posted on February 3, 2014 in ATSC News

A/72 and A/107 Votes Due This Month

A TG1 ballot is currently open on the “A/107 Working Draft ATSC 2.0 Standard.” This document is a top-level specification of the ATSC 2.0 fixed-broadcast digital television services, which augment the digital television services defined in the A/53 ATSC Digital Television Standard. As a top-level document, this standard references other ATSC standards as well as standards developed by other organizations. The TG1 ballot closes on Feb. 25.

A substantial revision of ATSC standard, “A/72 Video System Characteristics of AVC in the ATSC Digital Television System,” is nearing completion with two documents currently at ballots of the full ATSC membership. Late last year, three specialist groups worked to update the standard—TG1/S6, which focused on Part 1; TG1/S8, which focused on Part 2; and TG1/S12, which developed a new Part 3.

The TG1 ballots on Parts 1 and 2 were approved without comment and are currently at membership ballots, which close on Feb. 18.

Part 3 was approved with one comment, which is currently being addressed in TG1/S12. Once resolved, Part 3 will be posted on the ATSC Web site as a Candidate Standard. Publication of Part 3 is expected by mid-February.

Details on each Part are provided below:

• A/72 Part 1, “Video System Characteristics of AVC in the ATSC Digital Television System.” Changes contained in the document can be divided into three main categories: 1) re-alignment of constraints with SCTE 128, 2) relaxation of image format constraints in line with A/153, and 3) updated references and document boilerplate.
• A/72 Part 2, “AVC Video Transport Subsystem Characteristics.” Major changes include: 1) updates to references and boilerplate language, 2) extensibility of Stream Info details for AVC Stream Type (0x1B), and 3) alignment of constraints to SCTE 128-2.
• A/72 Part 3, “Video and Transport Subsystem Characteristics of MVC for 3D-TV Broadcast in the ATSC Digital Television System.” This document provides the coding and transport constraints for the use of Annex H of the AVC video coding standard (ITU-T Rec. H.264 | ISO/IEC 14496-10). This will permit the use of the coding tools documented in Annex H, collectively called “MVC”, within an ATSC 3D-TV service.

In addition to A/72 Part 3, there are three other documents that have been approved by TG1 as Candidate Standards but are not yet published because of ongoing comment resolution. The documents are:

• A/104 Part 5, “3D-TV Terrestrial Broadcasting, Part 5 – Service Compatible 3D-TV using Main and Mobile Hybrid Delivery”
• A/104, Part 6, “3DTV Terrestrial Broadcasting, Part 6 – Independent Coded 3D Using Real-Time Delivery”
• A/106, “ATSC Security and Service Protection Standard”

Resolution of the outstanding issues is expected soon.

ATSC Ballot Process Reminder

As a reminder, all ATSC ballots close at 11:59 p.m. ET on the closing date. One vote per company.

For ballots of TG1, all TG1 member companies who have voting eligibility (as defined on the current Voting Eligibility List) may vote on TG1 ballots. Because voting eligibility is determined by attendance at TG1 meetings, it is very important to record your attendance on Kavi for all TG1 meetings.

Ballots of the full ATSC Membership are conducted on a dedicated group on Kavi known as the Member Representatives group. This group is made up of the primary representative from each member company.

The Kavi system sends out a notification when each ballot opens. All ballots open at 6 p.m. ET. Reminders are sent to members who have not already voted one week before the ballot closes, and then again one day before the ballot closes. Ballot results are posted the next business day following the close of the ballot.

Posted in ATSC News