ATSC 3.0 Specialist Group Picks Sony, Verance Watermarks for Next-Gen Broadcast System
ATSC’s "S33" specialist group on management and protocols “has made a preliminary decision to select the audio watermark technology proposed by Verance and the video watermark technology proposed by Sony for incorporation in ATSC 3.0,” ATSC President Mark Richer emailed us. Selection of all technologies for the next-gen ATSC 3.0 broadcast system “is subject to approval” of S33's “parent” Technology Group 3 (TG3) within ATSC and ultimately ATSC’s “voting membership in accordance with ATSC due process,” Richer said.
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Preliminary selection of the audio and video watermarks comes as TG3's various specialist groups and their ad hoc subgroups begin piecing together components of the ATSC 3.0 system in preparation for meeting ATSC’s self-imposed target of completing a candidate standard by year-end 2015 and a final standard by early 2016. Thursday, Richer said in ATSC’s monthly online newsletter, the Standard, that ATSC expects the “initial elements” of the “physical layer” for ATSC 3.0 transmission as “likely moving” to balloting “in the coming days” (see 1504020034).
Significant as the preliminary choice of audio and video watermarks is for the progress of ATSC 3.0, selection of its physical layer is even more so because the physical layer is the guts of the next-gen system’s transmission protocol. ATSC 3.0's framers are expected to give a comprehensive progress report on the next-gen system at the NAB Show’s Broadcast Engineering Conference, which opens Sunday in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s South Hall.
Verance and Sony were two of six watermark proponents that submitted detailed technical proposals to ATSC’s S33-3 ad hoc group on interactive services nearly a year ago, based on a call for proposals (CFP) in January 2014 (see 1405090074). The audio and video watermarks that ultimately are chosen for ATSC 3.0 are needed to activate “automatic content recognition” (ACR) functionality that would enable certain interactive features of ATSC 3.0, S33-3 representatives said.
In the CFP, proponents were invited to submit audio or video watermark systems, or both, for activating the ACR, which will provide channel, content, timing, URL information and other “triggers” that will enable applications under ATSC 3.0, such as support for “second-screen services.” The information gleaned from the ACR will allow an ATSC 3.0-compliant TV “to access the desired additional functionality via an Internet connection,” the CFP said. “ATSC 3.0 will leverage the advantages of broadcasting’s inherently efficient one-to-many architecture” and the benefits of smart TVs by incorporating ACR functionality into the next-gen system, enabling broadcasters “to provide a variety of new services to consumers,” the CFP said.
Sony didn’t comment on S33's preliminary selection of its video watermark proposal for ATSC 3.0. But Verance, in a statement attributed to Chief Technology Officer Joe Winograd, hailed ATSC’s membership for its “remarkable vision in their initiative to standardize ACR technologies.” Through ATSC 3.0, “it has become clear that an approach based on open specifications can overcome the barriers which have blocked the realization of ACR's promise,” Winograd said. “By solving the challenges of platform fragmentation, reliability, scalability and privacy, we have the opportunity to establish an ecosystem that benefits consumers, broadcasters and receiver manufacturers."
VP1, as Verance’s audio watermark is called, gives TV broadcasters the world’s first open architecture system for “first-screen” ACR, Verance said. The technology enables delivery “of the full suite of broadband-enabled next-generation television features -- including personalized viewing, onscreen interactivity, dynamic advertising and viewing measurement -- to the many viewers who receive broadcast services via cable, satellite and OTT,” it said.
For viewers tuned into an over-the-air broadcast, these broadband-enabled features “will be activated in their receiver via signaling included in the broadcast signal,” Verance said. For viewers who receive their broadcast content via cable, satellite and over-the-top services, the existing delivery systems and CE interfaces “provide no mechanism for carriage of this signaling information,” it said. “ATSC identified that standardization of ACR watermarking technology for this purpose would provide a reliable, compatible and transparent mechanism for delivery of this information by any broadcaster to any manufacturer’s receiver.”