Sinclair plans a “full-blown demonstration” of ATSC 3.0 at January CES and “even a larger demonstration” at the NAB Show in April, now that the core elements of ATSC 3.0's physical transmission layer have been elevated to candidate standard status (see 1509290029), CEO David Smith said on a Wednesday earnings call. That the ATSC reached that milestone “now clears the way” for the FCC “to consider and adopt new rules to allow television broadcasters to better compete with other forms of media, telecom and technology companies in providing consumers a more robust and efficient delivery pipeline,” Smith said Wednesday in a statement accompanying Sinclair’s release of its Q3 financial results.
Google and Microsoft countered the complaints of broadcasters and urged the FCC to set aside either one or two vacant TV band channels in every market nationwide for unlicensed use after the TV incentive auction. In June, the FCC proposed to reserve at least one blank TV channel in every market in the U.S. for white spaces devices and wireless mics after the incentive auction and repacking (see 1506160043).
Three incentive auction items that had been on the agenda for Thursday’s FCC meeting were approved and won’t be part of Thursday’s session, agency officials said in interviews. An item involving proposed rules for broadcaster channel sharing was released Wednesday after being approved by the full commission. Rules on interference after the auction between wireless carriers in the 600 MHz band and broadcasters, and an item defining when broadcasters and unlicensed users need to vacate their spectrum to make way for the new wireless owners, have also been approved, they said.
Broadcasters unanimously opposed the FCC proposal to preserve more channels for unlicensed and wireless mic use, in comments on a vacant channel rulemaking. Prioritizing unlicensed use over licensed TV broadcasters upends FCC policy, said Mako, Sinclair and numerous other broadcasters in docket 15-146. The commission can't make such a “radical shift” without first establishing a record to inform it, Sinclair said. There is “no logical way” for the FCC to “legally determine that unlicensed services, which have never" before "been accorded priority” over licensed services, “should now be found to have priority,” Mako said. Without a record, the proposed policy shift is “arbitrary and capricious,” Sinclair said. The vacant band rule would interfere with broadcasters taking full advantage of the new ATSC 3.0 standard, said Bonten Media and Pearl TV. “ATSC 3.0 is a near-term reality, and the Commission’s decision in this docket should preserve its significant benefits for the American public,” Pearl said. Implementing some of the channel sharing facilitated by the new standard will require stations to alter their contours, which could become “impractical or impossible” if TV stations have to worry about protecting unlicensed channels, Pearl said. The vacant channel rule would “improperly constrain television stations’ options for new or expanded television services” and reduce the chances to make broadcasting more diverse, said the Association of Public Television Stations, Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS jointly. If the FCC does enact the rule, it should come with exemptions for noncommercial educational full-power stations and translators, they filing said. The agency can't make the vacant channel proposal into a rule because it conflicts with congressional directives to preserve low-power TV spectrum, said the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition. The FCC must instead go back to Congress for guidance, the coalition said. The commission must provide “a legitimate opportunity” for displaced LPTV and translators to get new channels after the auction, Gray Television said. The FCC should also allow qualified LPTV stations after the auction to transition to Class A status, Gray said. The vacant channel policy is unlikely to be useful, Sinclair said. “The likelihood that the white spaces will have practical (as opposed to theoretical) value for unlicensed service is very small,” said Sinclair. “Unlicensed uses have been permitted in the white spaces of the broadcast bands for years, but the only evidence of usage suggests a few isolated experiments (and failed experiments at that).”
Having just elevated ATSC 3.0's physical layer to a candidate standard (see 1509290029), ATSC is “on target to move essentially the entire suite of ATSC 3.0 standards” to candidate-standard status by year-end, ATSC President Mark Richer said in a "President's Memo" in the October issue of The Standard, ATSC’s monthly newsletter, published Thursday. In emphasizing “the need for speed” on ATSC 3.0, “we’re not just going fast for the sake of going fast,” Richer said. Broadcasters, CE makers and others in the U.S., South Korea and other countries “are clamoring for the completion of ATSC 3.0,” he said. Elevating the ATSC 3.0 suite to candidate-standard status will give stakeholders “confidence for short- and mid-term business planning and investments, while providing a critical platform for evaluating the technology under real-world conditions,” in preparation for moving the suite to proposed-standard status in 2016, Richer said. The candidate standard phase “provides an opportunity for the industry to implement some or all of the documented aspects of the standard,” he said. “That will help to assure that standard works as advertised, that professional and consumer electronics products will be interoperable and that there’s a good understanding of implementation issues.” Sinclair’s affiliated ONE Media is launching experimental broadcasts in Baltimore and Washington that will include the first single frequency network implementations using base elements of the new transmission candidate standard, the newsletter said in a separate column. “The full-power, multi-site test platform” in both markets “will deploy a full range of next-generation services that include fixed, portable and mobile capabilities,” it said. “The test broadcasts are being designed to provide real-time assessments of quality of service” using the new IP-based physical layer, it said. The testing is being done under the memorandum of understanding signed mid-June by Samsung, Sinclair and Pearl TV (see 1506170046), it said.
LONDON -- Howard Saycell, CEO of Retra, the U.K. trade association of independent CE retailers and service organizations, closed out the SES Ultra HD Conference Tuesday by admitting he was “scared for retailers, customers and investors” about Ultra HD’s mixed messaging.
The candidate-standard period on the just-approved ATSC 3.0 physical transmission layer expires April 4, Samsung said Tuesday in a statement hailing the standard’s approval after a four-week ballot (see 1509290029). Until April 4, which is about two weeks before the opening of NAB Show in Las Vegas, the candidate standard will undergo “prototype testing,” after which it enters the phase to be considered as a “full” standard, Samsung said.
In perhaps the biggest ATSC 3.0 milestone to date, all the “core building-block elements” of the next-gen broadcast system’s physical transmission layer have been elevated to “candidate standard” status, following ATSC member balloting that began in early September, the ATSC said in a Tuesday announcement.
The announcement Monday that Korean terrestrial broadcaster SBS teamed with LG to conduct Korea’s first “test transmission” this month of ATSC 3.0 typifies the preparations Korean broadcasters have said would take place as a prelude to beaming the February 2018 Winter Olympics live in 4K from within Pyeongchang, South Korea (see 1310020035). LG also has collaborated closely in the past with SBS, including when the companies teamed at the 2010 NAB Show to hold the first public demonstrations of ATSC 2.0-compatible broadcasts and reception (see 1004150102).
BERLIN -- The UHD Alliance has reached out to framers of ATSC 3.0 as part of its stated mission to broaden the alliance’s compliance and logo programs in high dynamic range and other performance attributes to include broadcasters (see 1508310035), alliance President Hanno Basse told us at IFA.