Future of Broadcast Television Initiative Progress Report

Posted on October 3, 2013 in ATSC News

Management and Technical Committees Meet at IBC 2013

As a founder of the global Future of Broadcast Television (FoBTV) initiative, the ATSC and its members are actively involved in pushing this effort forward. During last month’s International Broadcasting Conference in Amsterdam, ATSC members were in attendance as the FoBTV Technical Committee reported progress since NAB 2013.

Here’s a short recap of the Technical Committee’s activities. A preliminary four-layered model, the specific layer scope, layer model, suggested study groups and candidate co-chairs were presented. Four study groups for the Physical Layer are MIMO, UHDTV terrestrial transmission, Cloud transmission and return link. The study groups for the Network Layer are centric protocol, broadband cooperation and uplink MAC layer. The Data and Management Layer study groups are ESG/EPG, delivery and signaling, and security. The Application layer study groups are codec and application engine.

The FoBTV Technical Committee will collect research reports by next February and evaluate technologies based on a harmonized perspective in the March to August timeframe, so it can submit an evaluation report to the Management Committee. Some working approaches of FoBTV were discussed as well during the meeting. The specific layer protocol stacks of all four layers, candidate co-chairs for the study groups, the deliverable requirement and study groups’ working approach were introduced in the following technical committee meeting.

An IBC Conference session, chaired by FoBTV Management Committee Chair Phil Laven, held Sept. 17 was well attended by the worldwide IBC participants, including ATSC members:

FOBTV Technical Committee Chair Wenjun Zhang gave a update of FOBTV technical committee in the past 5 months.

• Youngkwon Lim, chair of ATSC TG3/S33, gave an update introduction of ATSC 3.0.
• Kenichi Murayama, Principal Research Engineer of NHK STRL gave a report of over the air transmission of Super High-Vision.

• Yunfeng Guan CTO of NERC-DTV gave a report of the research and development of Chinese Next Generation Broadcast system.

• Frank Herrmann of DVB technical module terrestrial sub group gave a presentation on “Did terrestrial broadcasting reach its efficiency limits already?”

• Heung Mook Kim from ETRI gave an introduction on the Korean trail of 4K terrestrial system and cloud transmission system.

An update by the secretariat on FOBV membership: FOBTV now has total 68 members representing standards development organizations, broadcasters, manufacturers and research institutes from 20 countries in North America, South America, Europe, Asia. The Management Committee members suggested recruiting new members from Africa and Australia to FoBTV to achieve the integrity of the global initiative.

Ultra High-Definition Dialogues at IBC Put ATSC 3.0 Work Into Perspective

In parallel with the worldwide standards progress by FoBTV, much of the chatter at IBC 2013 centered on Ultra High-Definition (4K and even 8K) Television. Ultra HD’s resolution of 8 million pixels will be key to engaging consumers, and the dialogue among broadcasts from around the world is considering a range of other important considerations like frame rates and H.265 high efficiency video coding (HEVC), among others. Other organizations like SMTPE will play a major role going forward, but there’s no doubt that the ATSC’s leadership in defining future standards, particularly ATSC 3.0’s high data modes, will help usher in the next advances in television.

Posted in ATSC News