IEEE Keynote

Posted on October 1, 2014 in ATSC News

Past is Prologue to Broadcasting’s Exciting Future:

In a keynote address at the 2014 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics in Berlin, long-time ATSC board member and IEEE Life Fellow Wayne Luplow offered reflections on industry innovation, competition and collaboration over the past 50 years. LG Electronics’ Luplow, who started at Zenith in 1964, regaled the audience with colorful stories about broadcasting and consumer electronics, looking at past successes and failures as the foundation for the future. The following excerpts is from his Sept. 9 keynote, “The Legend of TV’s Long and Winding Road – a Memoir”:

The road ahead is even more exciting for manufacturers, broadcasters, studios and content creators alike. The next-generation ATSC 3.0 standard will bring new flexibility and new opportunities for over-the-air TV stations. Mobility will continue to grow in importance.  Internet-connected “Smart” TV, already a standard feature in most big-screen TV sets, will merge the immediacy of live TV with the deep catalog of streamed content and the information-rich Internet.

As a long-time observer of television, it’s obvious to me that the road ahead is for TV products that are bigger and better – including Ultra HD 4K and even giant 8K screens with stunning picture quality.  But TV is also getting better and smaller – with more mobile options to bring live broadcast content to viewers watching on tablets, smartphones, watches, and any number of future devices.

Television of tomorrow will be, all at once, bigger – and smaller.  A home theater, and a theater-on-the-go.  Personalized with programming tailored to you, and able to receive live images from anywhere on the planet – whether delivered by an antenna, cable, satellite, cellular or Internet connection.  Content itself will be more personalized and targeted, but also offer more choices to let millions experience the same thing at once.

In short, the research and development teams of the future will be looking at how to make our world even smaller – from information sources, rich with the world’s knowledge, to live telecasts delivered to ever bigger, and ever smaller, screens.

In the end, the familiar axiom applies, because success in this business is more than just great technology. It takes innovation matched with a better experience for the consumer, and the right mix of product, price, and promotion – to keep consumers coming back again and again.

Luplow represents the IEEE on the ATSC Board of Directors. For the full text of Luplow’s keynote address, click here.

Posted in ATSC News