The Advanced Television Systems Committee’s 3D planning team will meet for the first time next month as part of a process to determine the viability of developing a technical standard for terrestrial 3D broadcasts, ATSC President Mark Richer told us in an interview Thursday. The 3D planning team is one of three the organization has put together, along with those covering next-generation television broadcasting systems and Internet-connected TV technologies.
Requests to make and sell portable devices capable of getting mobile DTV broadcasts but without analog tuners were backed in all filings on a petition by Dell and LG, and another by Hauppauge Computer Works, in FCC docket 10-111. Commercial and public broadcasters, several CE trade groups and companies like Intel supported the requests for exemption from FCC Part 15 rules that all TV devices include analog and legacy ATSC DTV tuners. That bodes well for quick commission action on the requests, several supporters told us Monday.
Advanced TV Systems Committee work on over-the-air 3D TV, next-generation broadcasting and Internet-enhanced TV will commence under three separate planning teams at the committee, ATSC said. Craig Todd, chief technology officer at Dolby Labs, will lead the 3D TV team. PBS Chief Engineer Jim Kutzner will lead the Next Generation Broadcast TV team. Rajan Mehta, director of digital TV Standards, policy and strategy for NBC Universal will lead the Internet Enhanced TV team. “ATSC and its members will be well-positioned to address longer-term strategic goals while continuing our strong focus on immediate industry requirements,” said ATSC Board Chair Wayne Luplow. The teams will explore the technical feasibility and market requirements of each technology, ATSC said.
CE makers are seeking a blanket waiver to exempt mobile DTV devices from FCC Part 15 requirements that all TV devices include analog and legacy ATSC DTV tuners. Dell and LG filed a joint petition, seeking a waiver for battery-operated mobile devices. Separately, Hauppauge Computer Works sought a broader waiver to cover any “television receivers capable of mobile use by consumers” that has a mobile DTV receiver. Comments on both requests, which the commission will consider together, are due June 4 under an accelerated process. Replies are due June 11.
A dozen of the largest TV station groups said they will form a joint venture to offer a national mobile content service using the ATSC Mobile DTV standard. Belo, Cox, E.W. Scripps, Fox, Gannett, Hearst, Ion, Media General, Meredith, NBC, Post-Newsweek and Raycom are in the group. All except Ion, Fox and NBC said they had formed the Pearl Mobile DTV company to act on their behalf in the venture. All the stations in the joint venture will contribute spectrum, content, marketing resources and cash, the participants said. “The venture is designed to complement the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) National Broadband Initiative by giving consumers mobile access to video content while reducing congestion of the nation’s wireless broadband infrastructure,” they said. The venture is the first step toward forming cross-industry and company partnerships that will get additional mobile programming to viewers, said Jack Abernethy, Fox TV Stations’ CEO. The participants said they will announce a management team to add programming, spectrum and distribution partners.
A consumer showcase of mobile DTV in Washington will begin May 3, the Open Mobile Video Coalition said Monday. Stations in the market have been broadcasting for weeks, and relatives and friends of employees of group members have been testing devices, but OMVC will begin recruiting consumers next week, said Executive Director Anne Schelle. The showcase will feature a mix of broadcast and cable programming, said Brandon Burgess, Ion Media’s CEO and the coalition’s chairman. “We're going to get some sober feedback about what works and what doesn’t work."
LAS VEGAS -- Most people who viewed 3D telecasts or highlight reels of Masters golf came away so impressed that they think the jump to 3D from HD will “be a bigger transition than it was from SD to HD,” said Dan Holden, chief scientist at the Comcast Media Center in Centennial, Colo. At the NAB Show’s Broadcast Engineering Conference on Saturday, he said Comcast plans to deliver 3D content in an “over-under” format at half the resolution per eye of full HD, which won’t require adding bandwidth. He thinks most other cable companies will do the same, he said.
Envivio said it introduced a mobile DTV encoder and transcoder system. The 4Caster C42 for mobile broadcasting supports the ATSC mobile DTV standard and the DVB-H, DVB-SH, CMMB and HTTP streaming formats, the company said. “Two critical and tightly-related factors will establish the success of mobile TV broadcasting: The efficiency with which we can fit mobile TV within the available bandwidth and the quality of the experience we can deliver,” said Envivio CEO Julien Signes.
Three dozen-plus engineers attended the second ATSC Mobile DTV interoperability event at CEA to test new portable TV equipment, CEA said. That was a bigger crowd than attended the first such event in December, it said.
Distributed Transmission System technology has become highly politicized since the CTIA and CEA suggested that it could be used to reclaim some of the spectrum used in the TV band, industry executives and engineers said. The technology, also known as a single frequency network, lets stations use multiple synchronized transmitters to supplement the one on their main tower. It was approved by the FCC in the lead-up to the analog cutoff. Broadcast executives have panned the technology and the criticism is growing. Now a group of engineers is setting out to prove that the DTS won’t work. The CTIA-CEA proposal “did not fully understand the application, and that is what has gotten some of the broadcasters’ backs raised over this whole thing,” said Jay Adrick, vice president of broadcast technology for Harris, which sells some equipment for DTS.