A new S35 specialist group was formed at the ATSC to model and evaluate the “ecosystem” in which ATSC 3.0 systems will be deployed, ATSC said Wednesday. S35 will probe “the various layers of content and data that will flow into and through ATSC 3.0 encoders and will be delivered to consumers through broadcast and other media,” said Merrill Weiss, the longtime DTV consultant and engineer who will chair the group. It plans a series of “Top-Down 3.0” meetings to create “block diagrams for the respective layers and examining their interactions with one another,” Weiss said. Sony Electronics in San Diego will host the first meetings Sept. 29-Oct. 1, he said. S35’s “output” will be of “keen interest” to the other ATSC specialist groups that are developing ATSC 3.0’s “actual technology,” he said. “Those groups need to understand the environment in which ATSC 3.0 will be applied.” S35 “will consider the flow of content from acquisition through post production, distribution, emission, and redistribution,” ATSC said. It will examine all types of content and functionality “impacting on a fully operational ATSC 3.0 broadcast system,” it said.
At least two of the big three broadcasters in South Korea, one of the few major markets outside North America to use the ATSC DTV broadcasting standard, “expressed their willingness to consider deploying ATSC 3.0 commercially” if the next-generation system is ready in time for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. That’s according to ATSC board member John Godfrey, Samsung Electronics America vice president-communications policy and regulatory affairs, who was part of an ATSC delegation that recently toured the facilities of the Seoul Broadcasting System and the Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. Representatives of SBS and MBC “told us that they are pushing ahead with Ultra HD terrestrial broadcast experiments using DVB-T2, but that’s only because it’s what’s available today,” ATSC’s monthly newsletter quoted Godfrey as saying in reference to Europe’s terrestrial DTV transmission system. SBS and MBC representatives “didn’t say they would definitely deploy ATSC 3.0, only that they would consider it,” Godfrey emphasized to us in an email. SBS and MBC representatives didn’t immediately comment. The ATSC delegation, Godfrey said, did not tour the facilities of the Korean Broadcasting System, which in presentations last fall described DVB-T2 as the best transmission system available today for 4K (CD Oct 2 p10). KBS has said it plans live 4K coverage of the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, which open Sept. 19 for a 16-day run. In four years, KBS, like SBS and MBC, plan live 4K coverage of the Pyeongchang winter games, KBS has said. KBS and its terrestrial broadcast partners are targeting year-end 2015 for the official launch of commercial 4K broadcasts because “we have a sense of urgency about this,” it has said. Year-end 2015 also happens to be the time frame the ATSC has quoted for completing ATSC 3.0 as a “candidate standard” that then goes out for balloting among the ATSC membership. But ATSC has been vague in predicting the commercial or regulatory course that ATSC 3.0 will take after that. It has said it hopes ATSC 3.0 ultimately will be the basis of a single unified global DTV standard.
NAB hires Sam Matheny, ex-Capitol Broadcasting, as executive vice president-chief technology officer, after previous holder of that job, Kevin Gage, was hired by One Media, the Coherent Logix and Sinclair project to bring next-generation broadcast platform to market faster than ATSC 3.0 (CD June 24 p17) … FCC hires Bartees Cox, ex-Public Knowledge, as public affairs specialist, effective July 28 … AT&T Vice President-Federal Relations Peter Jacoby hired by UnitedHealth Group to run government affairs … New America Foundation hires Peter Singer, consultant and author with cybersecurity and other experience, as strategist and senior fellow, joining NAF’s Future of War project, effective in September … Front Porch Digital promotes Phil Jackson to chief strategy officer … Richard Hochhauser to retire from Rentrak board at company’s annual meeting Aug. 13; Patricia Gottesman, ex-Cablevision, nominated to replace him.
The NAB will go to court to prevent the coverage areas of its members from being reduced by the FCC’s TVStudy software “if and when that is necessary,” association President Gordon Smith told us Wednesday in an interview to be aired over the weekend on C-SPAN’s The Communicators. Along with the incentive auction, Smith discussed broadcasters’ win in the Aereo case (see separate report above), politics at the FCC and the commission’s ownership policies.
Returning to Kelley Drye is Mark Anderson, ex-office of Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., as senior adviser, Government Relations and Public Policy practice group, where he will work on issues including cybersecurity; also hired for that practice group is Scott McGee, ex-office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., as adviser … One Media, the Coherent Logix and Sinclair project to bring a next-generation broadcast platform to market faster than ATSC 3.0, hires Kevin Gage, ex-NAB, as executive vice president-chief technology officer.
The FCC issued an order Wednesday implementing procedural updates to the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act’s method for calculating the loudness of commercials (http://bit.ly/1mbhxgv). The changes, as expected (CD May 30 p16), are based on updates to the Advanced Television Systems Committee’s recommended practices, which updated the algorithm used to calculate loudness to account for broadcasts that had long periods of relative quiet to compensate for brief increases in volume, the order said. “It is our hope that these changes will result in a modest decrease in the perceived loudness of certain commercials,” the FCC said. Stations and pay TV providers will have to adhere to the new standards starting June 4, 2015, but are allowed to begin doing so early, the order said.
An order related to the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act rules listed as circulating among FCC members is a procedural update to the act’s loudness standards, an agency official told us. As explained in an FNPRM last year, the proposed update was prompted by changes to the Advanced Television Systems Committee algorithm used to calculate loudness (CD Nov 5 p18), according to the official. The legislation references the old ATSC standard, and the order would update the language with the new one, the official said. The FNPRM didn’t receive any opposing comments, according to the proceeding’s docket 11-93 (http://bit.ly/1trMIbw). NAB asked that stations be permitted flexibility and time extensions for updating their equipment to the new standard. The Media Bureau didn’t comment.
NHK, the world’s biggest 8K advocate with plans to begin Super Hi-Vision broadcasts in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, is noncommittal whether it will propose 8K for ATSC 3.0, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman for the Japanese broadcaster told us by email. On whether NHK plans to propose 8K to ATSC’s “S34-1” ad hoc group, which is drafting specifications on ATSC 3.0’s video component, “we can’t say whether NHK is proposing or not at this stage, I'm afraid,” said the spokeswoman.
Sinclair’s willingness to look outside Advanced Television Systems Committee 3.0 for a new TV standard friendlier to mobile uses caused disagreement among panelists and attendees at an ATSC conference Thursday. Sinclair’s plan (CD May 8 p7) to create a new platform that supports broadcasting across all media and then seek a standard for it could lead to two coexisting standards, said Jay Adrick, consultant to GatesAir. That would be “a disaster” for the industry, Adrick said. Other panelists praised Sinclair for investing in new technology but said they hoped the company’s efforts would end up being incorporated into ATSC 3.0. Offering two standards to the FCC would be “a bad idea,” said Lin Media Chief Technology Officer Brett Jenkins.
The Advanced Television Systems Committee’s “S34-1 ad hoc group,” assigned to writing the specifications on ATSC 3.0’s video component, has 8K on its long-term “radar,” but no one has formally proposed including it in the final ATSC 3.0 standard, Alan Stein, Technicolor vice president-technology, who chairs S34-1, told the “ATSC 3.0 Boot Camp” conference Wednesday.