Sinclair CEO David Smith, perhaps the broadcast industry’s strongest individual booster of seeing ATSC 3.0 commercialized sooner rather than later, wouldn't support an ATSC 3.0 tuner mandate to drive the transition to the next-generation DTV standard, he said on a CEO panel at the NAB Show New York about ATSC 3.0's potential return on investment.
An FCC NPRM on ATSC 3.0 is expected to contain few surprises, but it's not clear when it will be issued, broadcast industry officials said in interviews this week. The April petition submitted by NAB, CTA, America's Public TV Stations and the Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance didn't include a mandatory transition (see 1604130065). So the NPRM isn't expected to be overly complicated, the officials told us.
The FCC Media Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology are working on an ATSC 3.0 NPRM, Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a letter to Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, posted online Monday. Wheeler was responding to a letter from Green expressing the legislator's worry that an NPRM wouldn’t be issued before 2016 is out.
Center for Democracy & Technology hires Joe Jerome, ex-WilmerHale, as policy counsel, CDT’s Privacy & Data Project ... Changes at Sinclair, effective Jan. 1: David Smith shifts to executive chairman, responsible for "development, implementation and globalization" of ATSC 3.0 (see 1611020025), expansion of Sinclair's "news franchise" and broadcast industry public policy; he's replaced as president-CEO by Christopher Ripley, succeeded as chief financial officer and treasurer by Lucy Rutishauser ... CompTIA names Geoff Lane, ex-App Developers Alliance, senior policy manager-government affairs.
Through ATSC 3.0 receiver technology that Sinclair and One Media are developing, TV stations will be able to “capture significant and meaningful information relating to the consumer’s actual viewing and consumption behaviors,” saving broadcasters the cost of “expensive third party measurement services” that yield “questionable results,” Sinclair said in a Monday announcement. The addressable ATSC 3.0 receiver designs will use “the same bits that flow across the internet,” and that's what makes the initiative “so universally attractive,” Mark Aitken, Sinclair vice president-advanced technology, told us.
WJW-TV, Tribune Media's local Fox affiliate in Cleveland, planned Wednesday to run the first live ATSC 3.0 broadcast of a major professional sporting event, beaming Game 2 of the World Series between the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs from Cleveland's Progressive Field, said NAB and several technology partners in the experiment, including LG Electronics and GatesAir, in a Wednesday announcement. WJW has played host to ATSC 3.0 field trials in Cleveland since last year (see 1507130007). LG had two prototype receivers in Cleveland to receive the ATSC 3.0 World Series broadcast as a simulcast of the Fox network HD feed, spokesman John Taylor told us Wednesday. LG planned to have a 65-inch OLED TV at Progressive Field and a 55-inch set at WJW headquarters to showcase the ATSC 3.0 broadcast, he said. Both TVs have real ATSC 3.0 reception chips built into the sets, he said. LG in the field trials used the Futurecast modulation system to demo over-the-air reception last year to stationary TV receivers and terrestrial antennas mounted inside a conference room at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum on Cleveland's lakefront. The World Series broadcast is a "defining moment" for the future of television, said ATSC Chairman Richard Friedel in a statement. Friedel is executive vice president-general manager, Fox Networks Engineering and Operations.
The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology requested copies of One Media reports on single frequency network tests in Washington and Baltimore using ATSC 3.0, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 16-142 Monday from One Media Executive Vice President-Legal Affairs Jerald Fritz. The tests are intended to “establish signal strength in an environment where content is transmitted over the same channel in the same geographical area,” the filing said. Initial testing showed clean signals were received without interference, One Media said. The tests are the first phase of “multiple planned measurement tests,” said the joint venture of Coherent Logix and Sinclair.
HOLLYWOOD -- CBS continues “to participate in the ATSC effort” to frame ATSC 3.0, but the ATSC 3.0 process is “really not complete yet, so it’s hard to say until the system is complete how it will be deployed and the availability of the deployment.” So said Robert Seidel, CBS vice president-engineering and technology, at the Society of Motion Picture and TV Engineers conference Tuesday when we asked him to summarize CBS’ corporate commitment to ATSC 3.0.
Broadcaster adoption of ATSC 3.0 would raise “numerous complicated technical and practical issues for cable operators” (see 1605270054), NCTA said in a meeting Thursday with FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp, according to an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. An NPRM on ATSC 3.0 should seek comment on minimizing the costs of the transition for cable operators and their customers, NCTA said. “Cable operators should not be required to carry any ATSC 3.0 signal during this transition," and the FCC in any NPRM "should ensure that those broadcasters that opt to transmit an ATSC 3.0 signal continue to provide a good quality ATSC 1.0 signal to the cable headend,” NCTA said. The FCC, not individual broadcasters, should determine when the ATSC 3.0 transition period ends, NCTA said. NAB didn't comment right away Tuesday.
Now is the time for terrestrial TV broadcasters to start planning for the deployment of ATSC 3.0, said a new “transition and implementation guide” published Wednesday by Pearl TV, Sinclair and several broadcast equipment suppliers and consulting firms. Broadcasters have “moved with urgency and focus to finalize the ATSC 3.0 standard in an unprecedented time frame,” says the elaborate 81-page report, which also lists American Tower; Dielectric; GatesAir; Ericsson; Harmonic; Hitachi-Comark; Meintel, Sgrignoli & Wallace; and Triveni Digital as “contributors.”