ATSC 3.0 Won’t Fly Without 4K HDR Out of the Gate, Says AV Specialty Retailer
An outspoken metropolitan New York specialty AV retailer confronted Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle during Q&A of an NAB Show New York ATSC 3.0 workshop Thursday by opining that the standard won’t fly with consumers unless broadcasters use it to beam live sports and other content in Ultra HD. “What people want from the owned and operated network stations is 4K HDR, and when you deliver that, it will be instantly successful to the many millions and millions of people who have sets waiting,” said Robert Zohn, president of Value Electronics in Scarsdale, New York.
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Zohn told Schelle he was distressed to hear a SMPTE standards official predict at a show workshop Wednesday that broadcasters likely will use 3.0 to beam 1080p pictures with HDR because bandwidth constraints will prevent many of them from transmitting in 4K. Schelle, who frequently describes herself as a strong advocate of 4K HDR based on Pearl consumer research findings in the Phoenix model market (see 1810170047), responded that “it will depend on the content and the time of day” whether broadcasters transmit 3.0 pictures in 4K or 1080p. Stations can “multiplex up and down,” she said. Full HD with HDR “can actually be upconverted in these sets to 4K,” she said.
The Phoenix model market uses 3.0 to beam 1080p pictures with HDR to the 75-80 prototype receivers available there, said Schelle. HDR "makes that picture sparkle like nothing I’ve seen before,” she said. “We’re running two great pieces of content from NBC over the air.” HDR “knocks your socks off,” she said. That didn’t placate Zohn, who told Schelle: “We want native 4K HDR.” She responded, “I hear you,” and said he's “preaching to the choir.” Broadcasters long have talked about using 3.0 as the gateway for delivering 1080p pictures with HDR (see 1705160044). Sinclair has gone so far to say that better pictures aren't the “ultimate best use” of 3.0 (see 1802280016).
In 3.0, “now we have a new TV system that really gives you a reason to want to buy a premium television,” Zohn told us. That Amazon Prime Video and Netflix are “delivering a superior product” is “partly” why those services are “taking away the business from the broadcasters,” because the terrestrial picture “doesn’t look as good,” he said. Amazon and Netflix have “4K HDR, they have Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision. They really are on top of picture quality.”
Zohn is the originator of the annual TV shootout competition (see 1707130061). Value Electronics sells the premium tier of LG, Samsung and Sony TVs, the three brands most closely aligned with 3.0 support. Value’s premium TV business is "very strong," said Zohn.
The consumer TV market "is so big right now," said Zohn. "Every household has a nice 4K TV. Let's give them a gorgeous picture." Zohn thinks retailers like him "easily" can sell 3.0 as a premium feature, he said. "We need set-top boxes that are ATSC 3.0, so that they'll work to convert the TVs that are out there. There are millions of them, so we need set-top boxes, and I have been proactive in speaking with likely manufacturers on that, and I will continue to push them, because we need that product ready the day that it opens up in each market and starts to launch. They can't be sleeping. They've got to be ready right now."
Consumers will be the “arbiter” of 3.0's ultimate fate, said Schelle. “They want beautiful pictures, they want choice, they want it to be free, and they love the experiences of personalization that they’re getting today in the OTT environments.” ATSC 3.0 can layer “the antiquated platform we have today” with those new features, she said.
Pearl will establish a “consumer lab” in Phoenix next week, said Schelle. “We’ll be bringing those consumers into the lab to really focus on and test on the features and functions of ATSC 3.0 and how they resonate with different consumer groups.” Schelle thinks there’s already “high interest," she said. The 2,000-page 3.0 standard is “a Swiss army knife of features and functions and capabilities,” she said. “It’s a tremendously powerful platform that not only can enable us to enhance our TV service, but it can allow us to do more with our spectrum and offer more services.” Phoenix is a “28 percent over-the-air market, so it’s an interesting market to be testing in,” she said.
NAB Show New York Notebook
SpectrumCo, the consortium that includes Nexstar and Sinclair, is in the process of choosing its 3.0 test markets for 2019, said President John Hane. “It will happen more in 2020,” he said. “We’ll have a lot of depth and the whole country covered very, very well by 2021.” Hane thinks 3.0's success “will come when investors from outside of the traditional broadcast investors take an interest,” he said. He wants to sway investors on 3.0 “who are focused more on cloud and wireless,” he said. “If I can give them a credible story, and get them interested, then they’re willing to place a bet while riding the cash flow.”
ATSC 3.0 will need “advocates” to sell the service broadly through word-of-mouth consumer adoption, said Jason Patton, Verance senior vice president-sales and marketing. The industry needs “early adopter consumers who love everything we bring to the table,” he said. “Those features need to be killer apps” combined with “the power of Netflix-type functionality,” he said. “We need to build a platform that allows sort of an open capability. That’s what this standard does.”