PRESIDENT’S MEMO: Football Analogies Aside, Big Win in Sight

Posted on October 5, 2016 in ATSC News

As we enter the fourth quarter of the year, I feel like we’re entering the fourth quarter of an exciting college rivalry football game.  The ATSC is in the red-zone, about ready to score its final winning touchdown. After three hard-fought quarters, marked by lots of blocking and tackling and some huge plays, victory is imminent. Team ATSC is on track to bring the world’s first Internet Protocol-based television broadcast standard across the goal line. 

Enough of the football analogies – you get the idea, as you’ll see in issue of THE STANDARD, which highlights our ongoing progress on the suite of standards collectively known as ATSC 3.0.

On the heels of finalizing the A/322 Physical Layer and A/321 System Discovery and Signaling standards, three more standards – the Link Layer Protocol (A/330), Audio Watermark (A/334) and Video Watermark (A/335) – have just been approved by ATSC members.  TG3 Technology Group members also are voting this month on three new Proposed Standards and two new Candidate Standards.

The growing chorus of support for Next Gen TV is highlighted in the “Voices” column in this month’s issue, including comments by Gary Shapiro during CTA’s Innovate! conference and by FCC Commissioner Pai testifying before Congress. And you’ll see some quotable quotes and video clips of Members of Congress and industry leaders speaking at the NAB’s recent broadcast innovation summit.

Their comments accentuate the importance of the ATSC’s work, made possible by the brilliant technical minds of hundreds of ATSC volunteers defining the future of television with ATSC 3.0.

Those on the outside of the process (and perhaps even a lot of insiders) probably aren’t aware of other unsung heroes whose contributions also are critical to making ATSC 3.0 a reality.  I can’t name them all by name, but they devote countless hours to taking detailed meeting notes, editing documents, resolving comments and so on.  One unsung hero I will single out is the ATSC’s own Standards VP Jerry Whitaker, who manages the literally thousands of pages of ATSC 3.0 documentation.

Back to the gridiron – with the fourth quarter upon us, broadcasters, manufacturers and especially consumers are expected to win big with Next Gen TV.  Winning in the end will take more than a couple of field goals, but I don’t think it will take any Hail Mary passes either. 

Go ATSC!

Mark Richer, ATSC President

Posted in ATSC News