President’s Memo: ATSC’s Cure for Summertime Blues

Posted on July 18, 2016 in ATSC News

The popular refrain says, “There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues.” At least as far as broadcasting’s concerned, I think we have the cure – ATSC 3.0 – and our summertime work that continues apace to finalize the standards for Next-Gen TV. 

As highlighted in the July-August issue of THE STANDARD, the TG3 Technology Group is issuing Proposed Standard ballots on three ATSC 3.0 Candidate Standards while wrapping up voting on the A/322 Physical Layer Proposed Standard. A number of other documents are expected to move towards ballot for Proposed Standard in August and September.

Other major progress this summer is seen in the ATSC’s landmark exploration of high dynamic range (HDR) broadcast technologies expected to further enhance the A/341 Video Candidate Standard. Scores of expert viewers participated in our two-day hands-on HDR workshop hosted by CBS in New York, where six proponents demonstrated and compared their HDR technologies in a professional environment that supported the collaborative spirit of the ATSC process. Special thanks to CBS’s Greg Coppa, Fox’s Ira Goldstone, Technicolor’s Alan Stein, LG’s Madeleine Noland and SMPTE’s Howard Lukk for their leadership in organizing the event. 

In August, the ATSC members are gearing up for a significant presence at IBC, underscoring the global nature of our work. At IBC 2016 (Sept. 8-13 in Amsterdam), ATSC members will have a prominent role in the new IBC Future Zone, delivering technical papers and explaining ATSC 3.0 to broadcasters and other stakeholders from around the world.  Among the topics of interest to attendees is our progress in the documentation of the world’s first IP-based broadcast standard and early U.S. deployments such as Capitol Broadcasting’s WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C., and Sinclair Broadcast Group’s WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C.

The finish line for the Next-Gen TV standard is clearly in sight, as we pursue our goal of finalizing the entire ATSC 3.0 suite of standards in early 2017. Beyond the standard itself, there are many things that need to come together to make Next-Gen TV a reality.  For two examples, check out these expert insights on the spectrum repack and advanced emergency alerting from the 2016 ATSC Broadcast Television Conference.  Another example is the pending FCC rulemaking that hopefully will facilitate voluntary implementation of Next-Gen TV based on core elements of ATSC 3.0.

For its part, the ATSC Board of Directors is looking at overall landscape to identify how the ATSC can further assist the industry in advancing Next-Gen TV.  Various initiatives – from conformance testing to implementation planning to continuing education about ATSC 3.0’s capabilities – will help enable a range of business models for broadcasting to thrive for decades to come.

Mark Richer, ATSC President

Posted in ATSC News