The FCC published its final broadcast flag rule in the Federal Register Wed. The rule takes effect Jan. 2, with the exception of some reporting requirements, whose effective dates won’t be published until approved by the Office of Management & Budget. Also Wed., the FCC published proposed rules governing its mechanisms and standards for approving broadcast flag hardware and recording equipment. Comments on the rulemaking are due Jan. 14. The Commission is seeking comments on whether cable systems should be allowed to encrypt their digital basic tier to comply with the flag requirement. It also is asking for comment on the interplay between an ATSC flag system and the development of open- source software applications for DTV.
Sony supports making the Active Format Descriptor (AFD) feature of the ATSC’s A/53B standard mandatory for DTV broadcasting in the U.S., the company told the FCC Mon. in an ex parte filing. AFD, which is optional under ATSC specifications, enables a DTV receiver to adapt its screen contours automatically to suit the dimensions of an incoming digital video signal. Sony said that without AFD, viewers often were confronted with situations in which DTV broadcast content was “displayed inappropriately” with “pillar bars” on the left and right of the screen and “letterbox” bands across the top and bottom. It said the resulting smaller “postage stamp” image in the middle of the screen had caused viewer confusion and was “a detriment to the DTV service.” Sony said consumers often knew that “something’s wrong” with their DTV picture, but they didn’t know how to fix it. Mandating AFD also would be beneficial to DTV set makers because it would allow manufacturers to “mitigate the effects of uneven screen aging,” Sony said. It said Commission action to make AFD mandatory for broadcasters would “ensure that the framework is put into place to alleviate this problem and remove a potential obstacle to the digital TV transition.” Sony said the FCC should determine an appropriate phase-in period to “minimize the burden” on broadcasters, which typically could incorporate AFD functionality into existing digital broadcast equipment through software upgrades and modifications. CEA and other CE makers also support making AFD functionality mandatory, but the NAB and MSTV don’t think a mandate is necessary. Broadcast groups in past filings at the FCC have praised AFD as “a valuable enhancement to the DTV standard,” but said “market forces” would be adequate to assure that broadcasters used AFD in “appropriate circumstances.”
Based on the know-how gleaned from operating WRAL-DT Raleigh, the transmission of accurate PSIP (Program System Information & Protocol) data is “vital to the consumer’s digital experience,” Capitol Bcstg. told the FCC in an ex parte filing. Filing on cable carriage rules, it urged the Commission to adopt rules “ensuring that our cable viewers get real-time programming and programming information that can be provided to them seamlessly through PSIP.”
Advanced TV Systems Committee (ATSC) members are expected to vote this spring on adopting a new enhanced VSB extension (E-VSB), said a Zenith spokesman, whose company developed the original 8-VSB technology. The ATSC’s 178 members originally had been expected to vote via paper ballot this year, but the process was delayed to study how E-VSB would work with MPEG-4 video compression. E-VSB was designed to be more robust than the original 8-VSB, boosting signal strength so it was received more easily by indoor antennas. The ATSC had been expected to set an E-VSB standard in spring 2002, but the process slowed as Zenith and NxtWave Communications moved to combine competing VSB technologies. If ATSC membership votes to adopt E-VSB in the spring, the first products containing it aren’t likely to hit the market until 2006, the Zenith spokesman said. E-VSB alters, but doesn’t replace, VSB by slowing the data rate to 14-15 Mbps so the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) decreases to the 9.5-11 dB range from 15 dB.
It’s generally agreed that the FCC’s adoption of a flurry of regulations, most recently on the broadcast flag and cable-DTV plug-&-play compatibility, will provided a much-needed boost for DTV. But issues abound on the transmission side, most notably with the compatibility of HDTV broadcast equipment and the ability of fiber lines to handle the backhaul of HDTV content to the broadcast networks during live events, industry officials told the recent Satellite Application Technology conference in N.Y.C.
With News Corp.’s acquisition of Hughes Electronics and DirecTV expected to close by the end of the year, work is under way to create a common hardware platform that could be implemented across multiple satellite services by late 2004, DirecTV CEO Eddy Hartenstein told us in an interview Thurs. at the SkyForum in N.Y.C.
Cablevision’s Rainbow DBS operation is “just days” away from hitting 1,000 installations of its new Voom satellite service and is working to resolve software glitches in its set-top receiver, Exec. Sales & Mktg. Vp William Casamo told us in an interview Thurs. at the SkyForum conference in N.Y.C.
In an ex parte filing at FCC Oct. 8, IBM pitched the Commission staff on a home-grown encryption technology it said could secure terrestrial DTV content under the proposed broadcast flag. IBM touted the Extensible Content Protection (xCP) it said had evolved from Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM) and, like CPRM, was relevant to the broadcast flag. The company told the Commission xCP could revoke the “keys” of circumventing devices and “selectively” eliminate them from the home network while not affecting devices that comply with the broadcast flag. The encryption is renewable, virtually unhackable and supports digital rights management, IBM said. Meanwhile, pushing the FCC to hasten a ruling on the broadcast flag, Thomson reiterated earlier claims that time was fleeting for TV makers to incorporate changes in time for product delivery next summer. That’s the deadline for complying with the FCC’s integrated tuner/decoder mandate and more recently approved “Digital Cable Ready” plug-and-play compatibility. If the FCC settles on a broadcast flag in the next 3-4 weeks, sets due next summer could have digital outputs with the necessary software to respond to a broadcast flag in an ATSC bitstream, Thomson said. It also requested a grandfather clause for existing DTV sets that didn’t comply with the prospective broadcast flag.
The Advanced TV Systems Committee (ATSC) said it successfully harmonized its DTV Application Software Environment (DASE) specifications with CableLabs’ Open Cable Application Platform (OCAP) specifications to create the Advanced Common Application Platform (ACAP). It said ACAP would provide consumers with advanced interactive services, and content creators, broadcasters, cable operators and CE manufacturers with technical details necessary for the development of interoperable services and products.
In reply comments on receiver performance standards, the CEA said the FCC should maintain its current position, which relies primarily on market incentives and voluntary industry programs. “The marketplace provides the strongest incentive for continued technical improvements to receivers,” CEA Vp- Technology Policy Michael Petricone said. “Government mandates seldom create business incentives or result in product innovations. When it comes to DTV receiver standards, manufacturers already are competing in a highly competitive market that requires products to exceed consumer expectations.” Petricone said that if the FCC really wanted to ensure maximum consumer reception of broadcast HDTV, it should require that all licensed broadcasters transmit a DTV signal at full power as soon as possible. CEA said a majority of the stations on-air with digital signals were on low power. It also contended that changes in the radio frequency environment were much too fast-paced to be subjected to the delays inherent in the regulatory rulemaking process for products such as receivers. “Our goal -- and it should be that of the Commission as well -- is to ensure an environment that fosters research and development in receiver technologies and is conducive to improvements being implemented promptly in consumer receivers on an ongoing basis without regulatory delay,” CEA wrote. It said it was working with other DTV industry leaders through a Specialist Group of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) to develop recommended practices for DTV receivers, to provide the flexibility required for the receiver market that a government mandate could not allow (CD Aug 19 p6).