LAS VEGAS -- LG, GatesAir and Zenith are using the NAB Show this week to showcase how their year-old Futurecast physical layer proposal for ATSC 3.0 has been expanded to encompass a “complete, end-to-end sort of a system,” said Wayne Luplow, vice president at LG’s Zenith research and development Lab in Lincolnshire, Illinois, Monday in a media briefing at the GatesAir booth. “We’ve gone beyond where we’ve been before,” Luplow said.
LAS VEGAS -- Apple is the biggest challenge in broadcasters’ efforts to win more activations of FM chips in smartphones, said Skip Pizzi, NAB senior director-new media technologies, Sunday at the NAB Show.
LAS VEGAS -- Questions abounded Monday about the DTS decision to abruptly withdraw its DTS:X object-based surround technology from the competition to pick the audio codec for the next-gen ATSC 3.0 broadcast system, despite assurances in a DTS statement that it wishes the ATSC 3.0 process well and will remain involved in its audio standards-setting activities.
LAS VEGAS -- Broadcasters need to move to the next-generation ATSC 3.0 in order to succeed after the incentive auction, NAB President Gordon Smith said in his keynote at NAB Show Monday. Since a successful incentive auction will leave 80 percent of current full-power stations and only 60 percent of the current broadcast spectrum, TV broadcasters have to learn to “do more with less,” Smith said. A move to ATSC 3.0 would allow them to do so, he told us after the speech. “There’s no question broadcasting will survive after the auction," but moving to ATSC 3.0 "will allow it to thrive,” Smith told us.
Technicolor teamed with Sinclair to successfully demonstrate the world's first live broadcast transmission of Ultra HD with high dynamic range using technologies that have been proposed for ATSC 3.0, the companies said Thursday in a joint statement. The series of broadcasts, integrated into Sinclair's experimental OFDM transmission system and transmitted under real-world conditions outside a lab, delivered "high-quality" HDR content broadcast at HD and 4K/UHD resolutions in a single-layer with backward-compatible standard dynamic range, they said. Both HDR and legacy devices, including fixed-position TVs and mobile devices, “were all able to receive and display the broadcast signal,” they said. "We're building a path toward new broadcast TV services that are appropriate for UHD and HDR," said Vince Pizzica, Technicolor senior executive vice president-corporate development and technology. "We're excited to reach the first milestone in our testing of real-world, challenging environments. This latest series of over-the-air tests confirms that Technicolor's HDR video solutions support broadcast at HD and 4K resolutions, as well as for standard dynamic range and mobile devices, presenting a whole new world of opportunities for broadcasters." Technicolor is a founding member of the UHD Alliance, which advocates open HDR standards, as is Dolby Labs, which has its proprietary Dolby Vision HDR system. Sinclair has advocated speedy deployment of a next-gen broadcast system, even if it’s a proprietary Sinclair system it thinks can reach market faster than ATSC 3.0 (see 1405080082).
LG, GatesAir and Zenith Labs, developers of the Futurecast system, plan a media briefing Monday at the NAB Show to trumpet the news, announced this week, that Futurecast no longer is just a physical-layer proposal for ATSC 3.0 but has been expanded "to incorporate all of the major elements of an ATSC 3.0 next-generation broadcast system." Futurecast is now "a complete system" for ATSC 3.0 that incorporates proposals for the next-gen system's applications/presentations layer and management/protocol layer, its backers said. New Futurecast attributes to be demonstrated at the GatesAir booth in the Las Vegas Convention Center's Central Hall include its "integrated emergency alerting" capability that triggers activation of the next-gen Advanced Warning and Response Network, they said. Also to be demonstrated is Futurecast's capability to "seamlessly deliver addressable content" on two LG Smart TV systems that "render the advertisement slot differently while displaying identical programmatic content," they said. "The goal is to show how broadcasters can leverage ATSC 3.0 technologies to extend their current service by efficiently distributing addressable content such as targeted ads or personalized/localized program elements to viewers utilizing an ATSC 3.0 system."
In the runup to the NAB Show next week, numerous broadcasters and broadcast attorneys told us there has been little change in the industry’s relationship with the FCC and Chairman Tom Wheeler since the 2014 show, when many expected him to get booed during his speech (see 1404090023). That didn't happen. But the FCC’s actions on joint sales agreements had injected uncertainty into a broadcast transaction process that had been in place for 20 years, said Gray Television Senior Vice President Kevin Latek.
ATSC’s "S33" specialist group on management and protocols “has made a preliminary decision to select the audio watermark technology proposed by Verance and the video watermark technology proposed by Sony for incorporation in ATSC 3.0,” ATSC President Mark Richer emailed us. Selection of all technologies for the next-gen ATSC 3.0 broadcast system “is subject to approval” of S33's “parent” Technology Group 3 (TG3) within ATSC and ultimately ATSC’s “voting membership in accordance with ATSC due process,” Richer said.
ATSC estimates more than 50 of its “member organizations” will showcase “key elements” of the next-gen ATSC 3.0 broadcast system within the ATSC Technology Pavilion of the Las Vegas Convention Center’s North Hall on the main floor of the NAB Show, ATSC said in a Thursday announcement. If ATSC remains on schedule, this NAB Show, which opens April 13 for a four-day run, will be the last before ATSC 3.0 becomes a “candidate standard” by the end of 2015.
Netflix adds Anne Sweeney, Disney-ABC TV, and Brad Smith, Microsoft, to board ... Comcast promotions include: to executive vice president Charlie Herrin, customer experience, and Matthew Strauss, also to general manager-video services; to senior vice president Clem Cheng, human resources, sales and marketing, Daniel Herscovici, also to general manager-Xfinity Home, Jan Hofmeyr, for X1 platform, Bridget Kimball, software development & engineering, Rick Rioboli, Comcast metadata products and search services, Sherita Ceasar, national video deployment engineering, Michael Brady, state regulatory affairs, Klayton Fennell and Rick Smotkin, government affairs, and Kathryn Koles and David Marcus, both also deputy general counsel; and to vice president Juan Otero, federal government affairs, Matthew Fradin and Derek Squire, also to senior deputy general counsels, and Mark Dellinger, strategic intellectual property ... CEA President Gary Shapiro, NAB President Gordon Smith and NCTA President Michael Powell to participate in "Future of TV Super Panel," moderated by Wiley Rein Chairman Dick Wiley, at ATSC Broadcast Television Conference May 14, Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington ... Communications Sales & Leasing hires Mark Wallace, ex-Fortress Investment Group, as senior vice president-chief financial officer and treasurer.