With set-top box deployment declining, Dolby’s penetration of Atmos and Vision should increase as MVPDs redesign offerings to fight churn and improve user experience, Colliers' Steven Frankel wrote investors Friday. Atmos and Vision shifted from either/or adoption decisions by hardware OEMs to a package of technologies delivering a premium experience, Frankel noted, citing Dolby Chief Financial Officer Lewis Chew. The technology company “continues to raise the bar” for audio and video technology with Dolby Vision IQ (see 2001080037) in some 2020 TVs, he said. Upcoming Xbox Series X and S game consoles support Atmos and Vision across all game play, vs. the previous Microsoft console, which only supported Dolby technologies in the Netflix app. Apple’s iOS 14 brings Atmos to AirPod Pro earphones “and could spur Atmos adoption by other wireless headphone makers,” said Frankel. Dolby.io is a “potential game changer,” said the analyst, moving Dolby's technology from hardware to software, allowing access through applications programming interfaces and shifting the revenue model “from per-device to per-use.” Chew referenced early traction with SoundCloud, telehealth and distance learning, said Frankel.

Comments are due Oct. 2, replies Oct. 9 on a request the FCC sign off on GCI Liberty being folded into Liberty Broadband under Communications Act Section 214 (see 2008310050), said a Wireline, Wireless, Media and International bureaus' public notice Friday.

A new Gracenote product connects fans to televised live sporting events and related content across over-the-top sources, said the company Wednesday. Streaming Sports Catalogs is said to ensure sports content is easily searchable and discoverable. “While increasing consumer choice, the rapid rise of sports driven OTT services is making it ever more challenging for sports fans to find and watch their favorite teams,” said Simon Adams, chief product officer.

ViacomCBS' CBS All Access streaming service will rebrand as Paramount+ early next year as the company expands its content offerings and debuts the service in Australia, Latin America and the Nordic nations, it said Tuesday. It said it will enlarge content offerings with more than 30,000 TV episodes and movies and continue developing original content.

Mediacom will do the first field trial of the cable industry's 10G high-speed broadband Thursday at a house in Ames, Iowa, it said Monday. It said the work is being done with CableLabs and NCTA, and the home will have an 8K TV and a 3D holographic display. The first 10G field tests were expected this year (see 2001220003).

MCTV's requested stay of the Sept. 14 C-band lump sum election deadline would cause a slight two-week delay but benefit satellite operators by giving them complete information they need if the FCC allows all antennas at previously registered and eligible sites to be included on the incumbent list, said an MCTV docket 20-205 posting Friday in response oppositions (see 2009090038). It said C-band earth station operations not currently on the list need the right to correct their filings and register because it's the only legitimate way for the agency to ensure those earth stations can provide much the same service to customers after the repacking. That's in support of an NAB/NCTA push for allowing updates and additions (see 2007310064).

VidAngel's settlement with content companies doesn't negate the need to filter content on streaming platforms, the Parents Television Council said Tuesday. The settlement lets VidAngel emerge from Chapter 11, the company said. It said it won't decrypt, copy, stream or distribute Disney or Warner content without their permission and will pay the two companies $9.9 million over 14 years. That's compared with 2019's $62.4 million jury verdict (see 1906180003). Under the settlement (docket 17-29073, in Pacer) in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Salt Lake City, VidAngel agreed not to lobby to change the Family Movie Act to allow anyone doing filtering to stream or distribute a film without permission. The Parents TV Council said it will keep advocating for legislation extending content filtering to streaming platforms. PTC said the settlement seems to be a content company payment to VidAngel to not share its filtering tech nor lobby.

Clarify that cable operators don’t need to provide 30 days' advance notice of service changes when retransmission consent or carriage negotiations are ongoing during the last 30 days of a contract, said NCTA, Comcast, Charter and Cox in calls last week with aides to FCC Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Brendan Carr, per a filing posted Friday in docket 17-105. Cable operators should instead be able to notify subscribers in writing, as soon as possible, the cablers said. The MVPDs also said requirements to provide 30 days' advance notice of rate or service changes to local franchise authorities is “an obsolete artifact of the era when cable rate regulation was widespread.” A similar “artifact” is the requirement that cable operators notify subscribers 30 days before changes to the information in annual notices, the filing said: Cable operators have "every incentive" to communicate effectively with subscribers, and "the Commission should grant cable operators the flexibility to determine how best to do so.”

The FCC closed the door on a proceeding about whether to require MVPDs to provide unbundled flows of programming information to those who want to make new navigation devices, in a docket 16-42 order Friday. The order also axed the CableCARD consumer support rules and requirement that big cable operators report such deployments. Democratic commissioners concurred but didn't issue statements. The commission said there are "serious and unresolved" issues on copyright and multichannel video programming security in its navigation device rules proposal, and the CableCARD consumer support rules "no longer serve a useful purpose." The regulator began requiring cable to report CableCARD deployments in 2005 to answer consumer tech industry complaints that cable operators were backing CableCARDs only halfheartedly (see 0510050137).

A 30-day comment period, not a 14-day one, is needed to get input on ramifications of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's ruling on conditions on Charter Communications (see 2008140040) and what it means for other conditions from the Time Warner Cable/Bright House Networks deal. That's per Incompas in a docket 16-197 post Wednesday, as it also said there needs to be comment on Charter waiting until the reply round on the proceeding asking for a sunset of conditions to provide an economic analysis. The Free State Foundation said just because the D.C. Circuit didn't touch the FCC's usage-based pricing condition on Charter doesn't mean the court backed those data caps, just that it and other plaintiffs didn't have legal standing to challenge the data caps.