Legislation to tamp down the volume of TV ads limits what multichannel video programming distributors must do, the American Cable Association said in an FCC filing posted Friday in docket 11-93 (http://xrl.us/bmgp68). It said the CALM Act, requiring the FCC to apply an ATSC noise standard to TV stations and MVPDs, only mandates pay-TV companies pass through “without alteration the dialnorm metadata in commercial advertisements inserted upstream by programmer.” Every cable system doesn’t need to “install and utilize equipment to monitor and correct the loudness of commercial advertisements inserted in several hundred programming channels upstream,” the association said. Because the act says the commission must impose new ATSC standards without giving that organization “explicit direction” for successor standards, nor giving the agency the chance “to review the actions of that body to ensure they are lawful,” the ACA said the FCC “faces serious legal concerns in implementing the statute.” ACA representatives met with front-office staff of the Enforcement and Media bureaus and with FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick. Other MVPDs have made similar arguments about the act’s limits on what they must do (CD Sept 22 p20).
A nascent proposal for TV stations to act as broadband content delivery mechanisms (CD Oct 14 p14) for Internet Protocol traffic drew skepticism on technical and policy grounds from some industries whose support may be necessary for the proposal to succeed. Wireless companies, who want the FCC to voluntarily auction some broadcaster spectrum to free up frequencies for mobile broadband, declined to back the parts of the plan unveiled Thursday (http://xrl.us/bmgm8e) by the Coalition for Free TV and Broadband. An engineer who has worked for carriers and TV stations and a lawyer for full-power TV broadcasters told us the plan may face economic and equipment hurdles. Proponents said the economic analysis they paid for to show their plan would raise more money for the U.S. than an auction will be complete in a week, and standards for carriers to send traffic broadcasters’ way don’t fully exist.
A report from the ATSC raised some concerns about the effects of long-term viewing of stereoscopic 3D TV images on adults and the effects of short-term and long-term viewing on young children. “Effects of long term viewing would be less of a concern if viewers find viewing stereoscopic material as comfortable as viewing 2D material,” the report said. “However, given that there are many factors and conditions that give rise to visual discomfort and that television viewing can become a daily routine, more studies and more scientific data on this issue would be beneficial,” the ATSC report said. More research should be done on how viewing stereoscopic images affects young children, “given that children have different ranges of IPDs [inter-pupillary distance] and the fact that their visual systems may still be under development,” the report said.
A next-generation TV broadcast system built on already-available technologies and some in development could “provide significant performance improvement in the physical layer, systems and essence coding components of DTV service,” said a final report from the ATSC on its ATSC 3.0 initiative. The group is looking at ways to incorporate a back-channel to broadcast TV service and combine broadband and broadcast features. “A flexible next-generation system is essential -- one that can continue to grow as technology and demand advance,” the report said. “One method for achieving such flexibility is the decoupling of the next-generation system’s layers from one another, as has proven effective in accommodating ongoing development for digital networking systems,” it said. “Evaluation of proposals going forward should favor steps that provide the fewest restrictions to future growth,” it said. The report identified several areas for further study, including whether ATSC 3.0 would replace or augment existing legacy ATSC services. It also suggested looking at the entire content-delivery ecosystem, including pay-TV providers, wireless broadband distributors and ISPs. “ATSC 3.0 scope should include not just broadcasters’ own OTA application,” it said. It will be critical to develop a transition plan, along the lines of the original DTV transition plan, to move from an ATSC 2.0 to ATSC 3.0 framework, the report said. “It is important to consider that available ’transition spectrum’ (as in the analog-to-digital transition) will diminish over time as the need for spectrum increases,” it said. But the report was hesitant to forecast a timeframe for the transition. “Perhaps even more challenging than forecasting what technologies will arise in the future is specifying when they will arrive at sufficient maturity to be deployed for viable consumer service,” it said. “Technical, business and regulatory developments may all influence the specific timeframes for the ATSC 3.0 era.”
Sezmi is shutting down its consumer hybrid over-the-air/personal TV service, after struggling to gain retail distribution. Sezmi sold the service and one terabyte DMR-1000 DVR with indoor antenna ($299) through Best Buy in select markets and through Amazon, but didn’t gain the agreements it sought with other top-tier retailers and regional telcos (CED July 1/10 p2). On Monday, Amazon listed having three used Sezmi DVRs available at $100, and Best Buy was promoting the hardware at $149. Best Buy officials weren’t available for comment.
Channel Master TV said it introduced a hybrid over-the-top, over-the-air HD set-top box. The device, with a suggested retail price of $400, lets users store and manage their personal digital media content, access online video through Vudu and watch live HDTV with an integrated ATSC receiver. The device also has a built-in DVR with 320 GB of storage. “No device today offers integrated Web content, free broadcast TV and DVR without a monthly subscription,” said Joe Bingochea, vice president of marketing for Channel Master. The device will begin shipping Nov. 1, it said.
The ATSC formed a “TG3” technology group to develop ATSC 3.0, a series of voluntary technical standards and recommended practices for next-generation terrestrial DTV broadcasting “that would serve viewers and TV stations for decades to come,” the group said Tuesday. TG3 will be chaired by James Kutzner, PBS senior director of advanced technology, who has chaired the ATSC 3.0 planning team since last year, it said. “ATSC 3.0 is a crucial long-term project that paves the way for futuristic terrestrial television broadcasting technologies,” said ATSC President Mark Richer. “The ATSC will be exploring technologies that perhaps haven’t even been invented yet.” Forming TG3 will free up ATSC’s “TG1” technology and standards group to speed its work on ATSC 2.0, which will include standards for Internet-enhanced broadcasting and non-real-time and 3D transmissions, ATSC said.
MobiTV took a cautionary tone in filing an IPO seeking to raise $75 million, saying cellular carriers’ moves to end unlimited data plans could “decrease the attractiveness” of its mobile video service, in an SEC filing. “Because our services are data-intensive” ending unlimited data plans could “increase costs to our end-users and decrease the attractiveness of” MobiTV, the company said in SEC documents.
The Advanced TV Systems Committee is developing a standard for 3D broadcast TV transmissions to fixed and mobile devices, it said. ATSC said Youngkwon Lim of the Electronics and Telecom Research Institute in Daejon, South Korea, will lead the work.
TV stations, having dodged one spectrum bullet, now face longer-term prospects for Congress to pass legislation for the FCC to voluntarily auction some channels. Industry executives said they avoided having Congress authorize the incentive auction (CD Aug 2 p1), in debt-ceiling legislation that President Barack Obama signed Tuesday, through several means. Lobbying on Capitol Hill by state associations, NAB and its corporate members, House Republicans’ concerns about auctioning TV spectrum but not the D block, and GOP legislators’ focus on deficit reduction and not adding government revenue each played a part.