‘Not in Scope’ to Include 8K in ATSC 3.0 Spec, LG Consultant Says
LAS VEGAS -- The Advanced TV Systems Committee’s “S34” specialist group, assigned to fashion the “applications and presentations” of the next-generation ATSC 3.0 DTV system, thinks it’s “not in scope” to include 8K resolution in the proposed “candidate standard” that’s expected next April, the group’s chairwoman said in an “ATSC 3.0 Update” panel Sunday at the NAB Show’s Broadcast Engineering Conference. “We are looking at a very flexible service model, with the idea being that you as broadcasters can choose different aspects of services that you want to deliver, but also allowing wide flexibility on the consumer side,” said S34 Chairwoman Madeleine Noland, an LG consultant. S34 also is to pick ATSC 3.0’s audio and video codecs, and is responsible for its closed-captioning, personalization and interactivity, she said: “If you see it on the screen, that’s what we do.”
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UHD support along the lines of 4K remains a key ATSC 3.0 given, but S34 thinks 8K resolution “actually is likely out of scope” for the next-gen 3.0 standard, Noland said. Though ATSC officials have spoken broadly for years about UHD support in ATSC 3.0, Noland’s disclosure was the first by anyone connected with ATSC 3.0 standardization efforts to specifically rule out including 8K in the ATSC 3.0 standard earmarked for completion by the end of 2015. “We are envisioning a flexible system, so potentially future evolutions” of ATSC 3.0 will provide 8K support, but not now, Noland said: “To specifically design a system with the anticipation of 8K rolling out at the start is not in scope.” Rich Chernock, chief science officer at Triveni Digital, chairman of the ATSC’s Technology Group 3, which is overseeing work on ATSC 3.0 and its various specialist groups, gave Noland a slight rebuke. On Noland’s statement that 8K wasn’t in S34’s scope, “I would have phrased it slightly differently,” Chernock assured the questioner.
Noland then chimed in to clarify that “what you saw on the screen there were some of the decisions that have been made in order to help us get to a 2015 candidate standard,” including her declaration that 8K is not in S34’s scope. That “does not preclude extensibility and evolvability over time,” she said. “To get to a candidate standard by 2015, we need to make some decisions about what we're going to write down today, which doesn’t preclude us adding to it tomorrow. So what we would envision is that the candidate standard will come out with a very rich, robust and flexible package of options for broadcasters and consumers and that activity can continue beyond that point to add on additional aspects of the standard in order to incorporate more things as time evolves.”
Though ATSC 3.0 won’t be backward-compatible with the existing DTV standard, it will include legacy 1080p formats, Noland said. And “we're looking definitely at high dynamic range, and high frame rates are anticipated,” she said. Also, “lots of additional resolutions are being considered,” including 2560 x 1440, she said. S34 also is “targeting specifically mobile devices for HD,” she said. “We've got some very, very nice screens on mobile devices today and there should be no reason we can’t do that.”
S34 is drafting a call for proposals on the various audio requirements of ATSC 3.0, and that should go out in a month or two, Noland said. “Details of testing and evaluation are being discussed. We want to make sure all of that is very, very clear in the call for proposals, so proponents understand how they will be looked at.” Sound quality is one of two “major buckets” for ATSC 3.0 audio under consideration at S34, she said. “But the other is the operational workflow -- how easy it is for the broadcaster to actually implement this in the plant and to use it.”
Incentive Auction
Asked from the audience how ATSC 3.0’s implementation might mesh with the FCC incentive spectrum auction, Robert Seidel, CBS-TV vice president-engineering and advanced technology, said “it’s very unclear what the outcome of this auction will be.” But “at the end of the auction, whether it’s successful or unsuccessful, there has to be a technical solution in the wings, ready to go,” and that’s ATSC 3.0, Seidel said. Uncertainties also abound about how to transition to ATSC 3.0 from the existing DTV system, he said. “Do you start a parallel transition, or do you do a flash cut overnight?” Various transition “scenarios” are under discussion, and “it’s unclear which one will be selected, depending on how much spectrum is available” after the auction, Seidel said.
ATSC officials on stage were noncommittal when audience questioner Mark Aitken, vice president-advanced technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group, asked if ATSC 3.0’s framers would be willing to “embrace a software-defined radio approach” to assure ATSC 3.0 reception could be found on future smartphones and mobile devices without having to sway phone makers to embed ATSC 3.0 chips in their devices. Integrating ATSC 3.0 functionality into smartphones is “a top priority,” said Luke Fay, senior staff software systems engineer at Sony Electronics, who chairs ATSC’s S31 specialist group working to finalize ATSC 3.0’s physical layer. “It is part of the mobile solution that we're looking for. How to get there needs to be flexible.”
From a “system perspective,” Fay told Aitken, “we need to branch out to at least the telcos, or at least align with them in some way that they understand that we want to work with them to give your content to that device. Or we can have a hardware solution if it so happens that can be put into a phone that they can turn on.” That response clearly displeased Aitken, who has been an outspoken advocate for bringing ATSC 3.0 to market more quickly than ATSC has proposed, so broadcasters can compete more effectively with other industries in bringing content delivery to next-gen mobile devices. DTV delivery to mobile devices has been a disappointment the last five years, because wireless carriers and phone makers have been reluctant to build DTV chips into their devices, Aitkin said. He said he fears the same will happen with ATSC 3.0 mobile delivery without a software-defined radio (SDR) commitment from the framers of the next-gen system. Fay concurred that “we need to have a solution” in ATSC 3.0 that at least enables the “option” of an SDR approach for mobile devices.
Releasing ATSC 3.0 as a candidate standard next April will be a prelude to publishing it as a final standard by year-end 2015, Chernock said. As a candidate standard, ATSC 3.0 will be “complex” as it’s submitted to the ATSC membership for balloting, he said. “We think we got it right, but it’s complicated enough that we put it out and let people build it, try it, find any problems, and then have the ability to change it before we go on to a complete published standard.” December 2015 is “the target we're aiming for” on completing the final standard to be submitted to the FCC, “and we have a very good chance of making it,” he said.