FCC approval of the April 13 petition seeking commission authorization of ATSC 3.0's physical layer (see 1604130065) would neither delay the post-incentive auction TV channel repacking nor add cost to the process, said petitioners America’s Public Television Stations, Advanced Warning and Recovery Network Alliance, CTA and NAB in May 12 meetings with staff from the offices of Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, said a Monday ex parte filing at the commission. “Most transmission equipment being manufactured today is capable of being easily upgraded to permit Next Generation TV transmission,” the petitioners told commission staff in a 13-page PowerPoint presentation, the filing said. The market-based approach of the transmission plan will keep it from being a burden to MVPDs or small broadcasters, since they won’t be forced to upgrade to receive or broadcast the new signal, the filing said. “If Next Generation TV offers a compelling viewing experience that consumers demand, MVPDs may choose to negotiate with broadcasters to carry content featuring higher resolutions, higher frame rates” and high dynamic range, the filing said. “No ambitious project can be expected to proceed without challenges,” the filing said. Though the petition asks the FCC to set the stage for the future of television, "it also seeks to protect viewers who rely on legacy equipment that may be unable to receive Next Generation TV programming," the filing said. "Broadcasters propose to lead the transition by partnering with other stations to simulcast their signals in both formats. This will ensure that viewers continue to receive free, over-the-air signals in the current standard, while also allowing broadcasters to begin delivering Next Generation TV signals." The petition underlines an approach that means "there will be no clock dictating the transition" to ATSC 3.0, unlike in the transition to digital from analog, the filing said. "If Next Generation TV provides a superior viewing experience and exciting consumer benefits, consumers will demand Next Generation-capable television receivers to take advantage of these new opportunities. Thus the market, not mandates, will drive the pace of the transition."
“Hybrid delivery” of content and services is “one of the most important things” about ATSC 3.0, LG consultant Madeleine Noland told the ATSC Broadcast Television Conference Tuesday. Since ATSC 3.0 is an Internet protocol-based system, “marrying things together from broadcast and broadband gets a little bit easier,” said Noland, who chairs ATSC’s S34 specialist group that’s responsible for ATSC 3.0's audio, video and interactivity specifications. “From the beginning, ATSC 3.0 was conceived of as a hybrid system, where you can deliver some of your components over broadcast, and some of your components over broadband,” Noland said. “You might even be delivering components over broadcast and broadband that are intended to be consumed in the same service.” For example, a broadcaster may want to carry mainstream content over broadcast, while delivering “interstitials” via broadband as part of an over-the-top service, she said. Hybrid delivery via ATSC 3.0 also can be used as a “temporary handoff” for beaming content to mobile devices, she said. “You’re in your car or you’re walking or whatever, and the signal from the broadcast fades a little bit, and so the device switches to broadband to complete the service, and then switches back to broadcast when it’s all set.”
CTA and its broadcast industry partners on the petition at the FCC for authorization of the physical layer of ATSC 3.0 (see 1604200051) plan no comments on the commission’s public notice by the May 26 deadline (see 1604260064), Julie Kearney, CTA vice president-regulatory affairs, told us at the ATSC Broadcast Television Conference Wednesday. CTA and its petition partners -- the Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance, America's Public Television Stations and NAB -- may well file reply comments when those are due June 27, Kearney said. “We’re really excited about the petition,” she said. “We’re excited about the innovation” that broadcasters are bringing forth through ATSC 3.0, Kearney said. The petitioners agree “to stay together as much as possible” in comments at the FCC on the petition and the ATSC 3.0 rulemaking to follow, “but we don’t plan to file comments in the comment round,” she said. “So we will file joint replies, if necessary. We are working together as a cohesive group, as a cohesive unit. We feel really good about it.”
There will be big “differences” in the transition to ATSC 3.0 compared with the transition from analog to digital ATSC 1.0, Richard Lewis, vice president-technology and research at LG Electronics USA, told the ATSC Broadcast Television Conference Wednesday.
The FCC should refrain from imposing "tech mandates" on the proposed transition to ATSC 3.0 and facilitate "permissionless innovation" for broadcasters, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said Wednesday at the ATSC Broadcast Television Conference. Along with O'Rielly's keynote, the event had panels on the new standard's chances at the FCC and on the post-incentive auction repacking effort.
ATSC’s S34-1 ad hoc group on ATSC 3.0 video plans to choose a high-dynamic range technology by July 31 for adoption when the next-generation system’s video codec is elevated to the status of proposed standard, Alan Stein, Technicolor vice president-R&D who chairs S34-1, told ATSC’s Broadcast Television Conference Tuesday.
Startup Airwavs.tv plans the late-2016 debut of a protective case for iPhones and premium Samsung smartphones with a built-in DTV antenna and receiver, said CEO Bonnie Beeman in an interview. Trademarked the QuarterBack, the product has advanced to the working-prototype stage, and the company hopes to bow it in time for the holiday selling season, she said. Airwavs.tv plans to introduce the QuarterBack at this week's ATSC Annual Broadcast Conference in Washington, where Beeman is a scheduled panelist.
The FCC promised at last month’s NAB Show to put ATSC 3.0 “on a short leash,” Sinclair CEO David Smith said on a Wednesday earnings call. Once comments and replies have been submitted to the FCC by late June on the multi-industry petition for authorization of ATSC 3.0's physical layer (see 1604200051), Sinclair -- a longtime advocate of getting ATSC 3.0 implemented sooner rather than later -- thinks an ATSC 3.0 rulemaking notice “will go out as part of the normal protocol here,” Smith said in Q&A. “We think it’s reasonable that sometime early first quarter, possibly, of next year, the FCC will grant authority for the industry to move at its discretion” on the voluntary aspects of ATSC 3.0, Smith said. “So we view it just as an incredibly positive sign that the industry is ready to go, and people should start thinking about the business opportunities that are going to roll off the back of 3.0 over the next five to 10 years.” Smith regards the introduction of ATSC 3.0 as “just an enormous, life-altering event” for the broadcast industry, he said. “The NPRM should be out fairly soon,” Smith said. “Remember, this is just a procedural kind of process they go through, where they ask for comments and then they issue the NPRM, and everyone files their views of the world, and then they consider and they make a decision,” he said. “So we view this as kind of fairly routine.” FCC representatives didn’t comment.
The “common framework” for ATSC 3.0 audio “provides immersive and personalizable sound for television,” and is “not compatible with the audio system used” in the current ATSC 1.0 service. So said the first of three documents describing the “common elements” of ATSC 3.0 audio “intended to be used in conjunction” with the Dolby AC-4 codec summarized in the second document, and MPEG-H described in the third.
Though the ATSC 3.0 transition plan has gotten a favorable reception from some broadcasters and FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler (see 1604200051), questions abound about how broadcasters transitioning to the new standard will interact with pay-TV providers and smaller broadcasters, broadcast and cable attorneys told us last week.