It's 'Premature' for CBS to Forecast ATSC 3.0 'Deployment,' Says Tech Point Man

The industry also doesn’t know “the outcome of the spectrum auction,” and that’s another big reason it’s “premature really to forecast anything” on ATSC 3.0 deployments, said Seidel, SMPTE outgoing president. “The spectrum auction could have a drastic effect on the industry, depending upon which players exit and which players remain, as players and broadcasters in the industry,” Seidel told us. The auction's next stage starts Nov. 1 (see 1610250060).

A “business plan” on ATSC 3.0 is needed before CBS or any of its affiliates can talk seriously about ATSC 3.0 deployments, said Seidel. “Obviously, we can invent technologies, but if we don’t have a business, we don’t have a business. Our business is entertainment, and we need to have a business. So it’s really premature until we see and allow the ATSC to complete their processes and develop the standards.” CBS is “actively participating in the process; we’ll continue to do that,” he said. “But once we see the business plan, that’s another aspect that needs to be done, and that’s going to happen outside the ATSC.”

Seidel thinks “there’s a lot of interest in HDR” within the ATSC 3.0 process, he said of high dynamic range, when asked if he’s optimistic ATSC 3.0's framers will finalize an HDR recommendation by its current Nov. 30 deadline after many months of delays (see 1609290074). “We’re allowing the standardization process to work its way through,” he said. “Until it does, they obviously have to do testing, they have to do evaluation, they have to write the standard. The standardization process takes time. It took time with ATSC 1.0. In fact, it took years.”

The process to pick a winning HDR system for ATSC 3.0 is continuing, “and I think we just have to let it run its course,” said Seidel. CBS hosted the HDR tests for ATSC 3.0 in June at its labs in New York (see 1606160052), and “is continuing to test and evaluate” HDR, he said. “Obviously, the question becomes, how do we improve the viewing experience? I think that’s one of the big questions, how will we use the technology? Is it going to be valuable to the consumer and the viewer?” On determining what peak brightness to build into an HDR TV, “it’s a delicate balancing act between what the technology can do and what you really need to do for a commercial product,” he said.

Some have “suggested” the broadcasting industry should migrate to 4K Ultra HD as a means of improving the viewing experience, Seidel told the SMPTE opening keynote session Tuesday. “However, a lot of the tests that have been conducted by the EBU, HBO, CBS and others around the industry have discovered that when we shoot 4K material, down-convert it to 2K and let the set do the 4K conversion, it’s pretty respectable,” Seidel said. “So the question becomes how to monetize it.” Shooting content in native 4K “obviously is more expensive, in terms of editing, memory, storage and all that,” he said.

For those who have suggested that HDR will deliver “more bang for the buck” in broadcast content, one of the questions the industry “is now asking is, how bright is bright enough?” Seidel said. The sector runs the risk of making content “too bright,” he said. Most current 1080p sets have 200 nits of peak brightness, he said. “We’ve seen prototypes operating at 2,000, 4,000 and 10,000 nits of light,” he said. “The question becomes, are we starting a brightness war here?” One of Seidel’s concerns is that when “interstitial” content like commercials is “stitched together with program material, we have no way of saying what those brightness transitions are going to be, and that could be very jarring to the viewer,” he said.

SMPTE Notebook

The “amazing explosion” of interest in virtual and augmented reality is “evidence of today’s entertainment consumer’s desire for more immersive experiences,” filmmaker Doug Trumbull told the SMPTE keynote session. Trumbull last week watched his first movie shown in the Barco Escape panoramic cinema format, and it reminded him of the three-projector Cinerama format of the 1950s and 1960s, he said. Though the idea of an ultra-wide screen for panoramic movie-viewing “is not new,” it’s “now easily enabled by digital projection and synchronization techniques” that weren't available in Cinerama's heyday, said Trumbull, who did special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and directed the movies Silent Running and Brainstorm. “So it’s pretty interesting that there’s this revival of interest in the immersion of the spectacular widescreen movie experience, and I think it’s a good thing.” Hollywood “tried this” previously in 1962 with How the West Was Won as the first “dramatic” Cinerama movie, he said. “It was very successful and very profitable, but it drove everybody crazy,” he said. “A 300-pound camera, and the actors can’t even look at each other because of the curved screen. It just drove everybody nuts.” VR allows “fully 360-degree storytelling and viewing, which demands an entirely new storytelling language,” said Trumbull. But “it’s not known at this time if we’ll reach critical mass, if users could justify production costs,” he said.