Broadcast Group Volunteers to Test ATSC Mobile Hardware
Broadcasters owning 800 TV stations volunteered to test prototypes developed as the ATSC seeks a standard for broadcasting to mobile and handheld devices, said an Oct. 8 letter from Ion Media CEO Brandon Burgess, head of the Open Mobile Video Coalition. To handle that effort, the coalition recently set up a technology advisory working group, under Cox Broadcasting Engineering Vice President Sterling Davis, the letter said. The coalition, which includes Tribune, Sinclair, NBC, LIN TV and other major broadcast groups, vowed again to handle the independent demonstration of viability called for in the ATSC work plan.
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Three teams of companies are expected to meet a February 2008 deadline to provide devices to test; ten sent proposals to the ATSC in June. Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz have shown their system publicly, as LG and Harris have theirs. Both teams demonstrated at NAB’s annual convention in April. Thomson and Micronas haven’t demonstrated their system (CD Oct 2 p6). Written proposals for the systems are due Monday.
The February deadline for hardware creates a much tighter schedule than ATSC has historically followed. But with the Open Mobile Video Coalition’s firm goal of announcing mobile DTV service by the February 2009 analog cutoff, speed was needed, said Lynn Claudy, NAB senior vice president of science and technology. “That’s turning some heads, because this is not what we're used to in terms of schedule,” Claudy said. “But it is somewhat different from the ‘Grand Alliance’ days when you had a government mandate to have a single standard.”
Broadcasters have no time to subject the mobile standard to a process as lengthy as the one that led to the ATSC DTV standard for fixed TV reception, said Mark Aitken, Sinclair’s director of advanced technology. That’s why hardware is due earlier on in the cycle, he said. “Otherwise the adage that the ATSC can’t do anything faster than five years holds true,” he said. “Five years is two product cycles, in some cases three product cycles. You don’t have the luxury of that time frame.” Aitken also chairs the technical standards committee overseeing the mobile handheld work at ATSC and serves on the coalition technical team.
To develop a test plan for the independent demonstration of viability, the coalition will work with MSTV, Communications Research Centre Canada and others over the next four to six weeks, Burgess wrote. As that plan takes form, the group hopes to raise the money needed to set in motion its piece of the plan, he wrote.