President’s Memo: New Year – New Standard!

Posted on January 10, 2018 in ATSC News

The ATSC enters 2018 marking a major milestone in the development of the Next Gen TV platform with the release of the suite of ATSC 3.0 standards, enabling deployment of services and products. The world’s first Internet Protocol-based broadcasting system is now a reality!

ATSC 3 means leapfrogging innovations, from robust transmission to immersive audio, from 4K UHD to interactive services and more. This is a tremendous accomplishment that ATSC members and industry colleagues can be most proud of as we enter the next exciting phase for Next Gen TV.

While we pause to celebrate the release of the ATSC 3.0 suite on January 9, we look ahead to 2018 with a great sense of optimism and enthusiasm.

The ATSC is uniquely positioned to support initial launches of 3.0 services and products beginning this year. In addition to our ongoing standards work, the ATSC has a very important role in educating stakeholders about how the technology works and assisting in implementation planning.

Going forward, I see the ATSC as an important information center for broadcasters and manufacturers preparing to launch services and products. That means exciting opportunities for ATSC members to get engaged in field testing, field trials and plug-fests this year. Also opportunities to contribute to important new areas like conformance and compliance, privacy and security, and so on.

For our current members, I know you take special pride as I do in developing the world’s most impactful, flexible and extensible new broadcast standards. Your contributions will continue to be critically important we enter the all-important deployment phase, ushering in a new era of television. For those who have been watching our standards development work from the sidelines, now is the opportune time for service providers, chipmakers, MVPDs and others to get involved with the ATSC, too.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, the release of ATSC 3 isn’t the beginning of the end; it’s the end of the beginning. Here’s to an exciting 2018 ahead!

Mark Richer, ATSC President

Posted in ATSC News