CTA forecasts that the consumer tech industry will ship 800,000 NextGenTV sets this year, for 167% growth from 2020's 300,000 units, Vice President-Research Steve Koenig told a live ATSC webinar. It projects 12 million ATSC 3.0-compatible sets will be shipped in 2024, for 31% of all TV unit volume, he said.
The draft ATSC 3.0 distributed transmission system order “will adversely impact the availability of television white spaces (TVWS) spectrum in rural areas and undermine the expansion of rural broadband access,” said Microsoft in a call with aides to FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington Tuesday, per a filing posted Friday in docket 20-74. “The current DTS signal spillover standard should be maintained,” and any more than “a minimum amount” should be permitted via a case-by-case waiver process, the filing said. The DTS has sufficient votes to be approved (see 2101050063).
BitRouter is entering the ATSC 3.0 consumer market with its ZapperBox set-top box, President-Founder Gopal Miglani told a Pearl TV NextGenTV media briefing virtually Thursday. The company plans a “slow ramp-up” to be sure “everything’s working” and “consumers are happy,” said Miglani. BitRouter also will sell the ZapperBox through resellers and will approach OEMs “who want to white-label the product,” he said. It also will license the software to OEMs that want to design their own boxes, he said. LG expects more 3.0 rollout this year (see 2101070061).
ATSC scheduled live virtual workshops for Tuesday, coinciding with the all-digital CES 2021 but after the show's main activities are “done for the day,” emailed a spokesperson. ATSC President Madeleine Noland moderates the first panel, “ATSC 3.0 at the Consumer’s Fingertips,” at 7 p.m. EST. Panelists are Steve Koenig, CTA vice president-research; Mark Aitken, Sinclair senior vice president-advanced technology; Alfred Chan, MediaTek vice president-TV and smart home business unit; Nick Kelsey, SiliconDust chief technical officer; and John Taylor, LG Electronics senior vice president-public affairs and communications. An 8 p.m. EST webinar on remote learning is to be moderated by Jerry Whitaker, ATSC vice president-standards development. His panelists are Lonna Thompson, America's Public Television Stations general counsel; Todd Achilles, Evoca CEO; Fred Engel, UNC-TV Public Media North Carolina chief technology officer; and Aby Alexander, Thomson Broadcast president-Americas. Koenig plans to provide some details on NextGenTV sales forecasts, the spokesperson said.
The draft order on rules for ATSC 3.0 distributed transmission systems (DTS) has three commissioner votes and is expected to be approved on circulation later this month (see 2012110052), said FCC and broadcast industry officials. The three votes are from the Republicans, and broadcast industry officials think there’s a chance Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks could vote to approve or approve in part. Starks and Rosenworcel voted "concur" last month on another 3.0 item (see 2012100071). The final order is expected to be close to what NAB requested but include concessions to Microsoft’s concerns that the new rules would interfere with unlicensed use of the TV white spaces and rural broadband.
NAB hasn’t adequately explained the rule changes it seeks in a recent petition for rulemaking on clarifying ATSC 3.0 rules (see 2012280049), and the FCC should respond with a notice of inquiry rather than an NPRM, said the American Television Alliance in comments posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. “We are not sure that we fully grasp the parameters of NAB’s proposed rulemaking,” ATVA said. “We remain uncertain as to exactly what sort of arrangements and combinations NAB is asking the FCC to bless and cannot identify the public interest justification behind any such arrangements and combinations.” The NAB proposal could be read to allow broadcast stations to get around ownership and simulcast rules with different arrangements of ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 multicast streams, ATVA said. The proposal could create “a potential sea change in broadcast regulation,” which is why an NOI is the correct next step, ATVA said.
Numerous broadcast interests backed NAB's petition to clarify how multicast streams of TV stations simulcasting in the ATSC 3.0 transition will be treated under FCC licensing rule (see 2011100067). Public TV participation in next-generation broadcasting has been hampered and public stations might not get all the public interest benefits of ATSC 3.0 due to a problem with the 2017 ATSC 3.0 order, PBS and America’s Public Television Stations said Monday in docket 16-142. Public stations shouldn't have to choose between continuing to broadcast their existing multicast streams and taking part in next-gen key deployments, they said, backing NAB's petition for clarification on multicast streams and simulcasting. Those NAB-sought clarifications are needed so stations can "allocate scarce spectrum resources to meet consumer demand" during the years of transitioning to ATSC 3.0, Gray Television said. It said if not by clarification, the FCC should establish by rulemaking that a station transitioning to ATSC 3.0 can partner with one or more stations to host its multicast channels in ATSC 1.0 even where it won't simulcast all of those channels on its ATSC 3.0 signal. Those also filing comments in recent days backing NAB included Graham, Pearl and E.W. Scripps.
Nexstar Media began broadcasting in ATSC 3.0 on its Denver stations KDVR and KWGN-TV, it said Wednesday. When all 2021 deployments of 3.0 are done, about a third of TV households reached by a Nexstar station will receive a NextGenTV signal, said Brett Jenkins, Nexstar executive vice president-chief technology officer.
Maintain the waiver process rather than relax rules to let broadcasters use ATSC 3.0 distributed transmission systems (see 2012110052), said New America’s Open Technology Institute in a call with an aide to FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks Monday, per an FCC filing posted Thursday in docket 20-74. Proposed changes would “undermine the Commission’s recent Report and Order that expands rural broadband access leveraging television white space devices,” OTI said. If DTS deployments with more than minimum spillover beyond a station’s current contour are allowed, FCC should say such transmissions are unlicensed and don’t get interference protection, OTI said.
Pearl TV and its ATSC 3.0 partners in the Phoenix model market began initial testing over limited cable infrastructure through a cooperative effort with Comcast in Portland, Oregon. This “could give the industry a foundation for a ‘real world’ technical example of how to transmit ATSC 3.0 over hybrid fiber-coaxial infrastructure,” said Pearl Tuesday. Seven stations are on-air with NextGenTV in Portland, “so it makes sense to work with a major operator in the area like Comcast to determine what’s needed to distribute this new capability to cable customers,” said Pearl Managing Director Anne Schelle. The first stages will develop the technical capability to pass along 4K content and later enable HDR10, wide color gamut and advanced immersive audio, said Pearl.