Final ATSC 3.0 Standard ‘on Track’ To Be ‘in Place’ by Early 2017, Richer Says
Though there’s still “a lot of work to do” to finish the next-gen ATSC 3.0 DTV broadcast standard, ATSC President Mark Richer is “confident” that “our standardization work is on track,” he said in the July issue of ATSC’s monthly newsletter, The Standard, published Tuesday.
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ATSC 3.0 is expected to become a “candidate standard” later this year and progress to “proposed standard” status in 2016, “setting the stage for our ultimate goal of having the final approved next-gen TV broadcast standard in place by early 2017,” Richer said. In the next six months, he expects to see “even more member engagement” on ATSC 3.0 as its “various elements” move toward candidate status, he said.
“Major broadcasting and technology companies already have made announcements about field tests and technology collaborations to help support the rapid standardization, adoption and deployment of ATSC 3.0,” Richer said. That was in apparent reference to last month’s announcement of a memorandum of understanding under which Pearl TV, Samsung and Sinclair have committed to work together through the end of 2016 to “perform technical, field, and consumer testing and other collaboration” to support the speedy commercial implementation of ATSC 3.0 (see 1506170046).
Moreover, GatesAir, LG and Zenith have been field-testing their Futurecast ATSC 3.0 system with Tribune Broadcasting in Cleveland for the past three months (see 1504130028) and have invited media and industry-watchers for an inside look at those tests later this week. “While the ATSC itself isn’t directly involved in these projects,” Richer said, “the entire industry benefits from such activities, and we encourage others to plan technology field tests and service field trials.”
There will be no slowing down this summer in ATSC 3.0 activities, Richer said: “I expect that the rest of the summer will see member representatives juggling family vacations and very busy ATSC meeting schedules.” It will be an especially busy July and August for framers seeking to choose ATSC 3.0's audio system, according to ATSC's previously published schedules (see 1412090019). ATSC 3.0 audio proponents Dolby Labs and the MPEG-H alliance of Fraunhofer, Qualcomm and Technicolor are expected to hold expert-listening demo events in Washington next week as a prelude to ATSC's S34 specialist group recommending a winning audio system by mid-August, ATSC schedules have said.