The FCC should link the sunset of ATSC 3.0 multicasting arrangements to a station’s sunset of its ATSC 1.0 signal rather than imposing a five-year time limit, said NAB in calls with Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer and 10 other Media Bureau staffers March 25, said an ex parte filing Thursday, posted in ECFS Friday. “Any effort to freeze broadcasters” by restricting their content to what they aired under 1.0 “can only harm consumers,” NAB said. The FCC also should allow a station’s license to cover multicast streams that are broadcast only in 3.0 rather than simulcast under both standards, the filing said.
The launch of the Run3TV web platform enables broadcasters to offer two-way interactive services and streaming content to over-the-air viewers for first time, PearlTV said Tuesday. Pearl, which developed the platform with various technical partners, will launch Run3TV through a subsidiary, the ATSC 3.0 Framework Alliance. Run3TV gives broadcasters the ability to “leverage” 3.0's new A/344 interactive content standard to create television applications that enhance OTA viewing “with interactive and on-demand content delivered over broadband,” said Pearl Managing Director Anne Schelle. Run3TV’s web-based platform architecture “enables stations to develop, innovate, and differentiate at the application services layer, allowing a consistent viewer experience” across all 3.0-compliant receiver devices, said Pearl. “The broadcaster controls the product vision, audience engagement, and customer experience,” said Pearl, and broadcasters can choose their technical partners and draw from the contributions of the Run3TV “developer community,” it said.
Evoca, working with several “technology partners,” successfully transmitted TV content using ATSC 3.0's “cross-polarization” functionality, a first for the U.S., it said Tuesday. Evoca touted the accomplishment as “a new way of transmitting TV signals that could dramatically change the number of channels available from over-the-air broadcasters,” including higher bandwidth for 4K transmission options. “This week on Channel 35 in Boise we successfully demonstrated the creation and transmission of a MIMO signal,” said Evoca CEO Todd Achilles, referring to multiple-input and multiple-output. “MIMO has the potential to dramatically increase the available payload for TV broadcasts, possibly even doubling the amount of data that a broadcaster can send to improve choice and robustness.” Evoca’s MIMO cross-polarized TV broadcast involved simultaneous transmission of two discrete streams within one 6 MHz channel, said the company. Its partners included Rohde & Schwarz, Enensys Technologies, Kathrein Broadcast, Avateq and Televes. Though MIMO broadcasts have been demonstrated in other countries, it has mostly been as a “proof-of-concept effort,” said Achilles. Evoca intends to “make full use of the potential for MIMO transmission and reception,” he said.
Pearl TV and MediaTek are partnering on a "FastTrack to NextGenTV" program designed to seed manufacturer adoption of ATSC 3.0 smart TVs and other receiver devices, said the companies Tuesday. The program gives consumer tech makers “an easier, faster, and more cost-effective process” to introduce 3.0-compatible products via MediaTek’s “reference platform,” which will be pre-certified for compliance with CTA’s NextGenTV logo and other authenticity and security requirements. Pearl thinks the program can “usher in high-volume, low-cost televisions that consumers desire and are buying today, particularly among millennials,” said Managing Director Anne Schelle.
The 40-year-old National Translator Association has rebranded as the National Television Association, said the group Monday. “The change, while difficult, was due,” said Jack Mills, NTA president. “Our service goals are largely the same but binding these just to the mountain-top repeaters, or 'translators,' began to feel constraining.” NTA's name change “helps the organization to expand its advocacy, welcoming [low-power] LPTV and even possibly new technologies such as ATSC 3.0 broadcast services,” it said, calling translator an “archaic” word. NTA’s goal of “assuring universal access to free over-the-air television remains the same,” it said. The NTA’s annual meeting is May 19-22 in Phoenix.
The 2022 NAB Show is projected to have about 55% of the attendance of the last in-person show in 2019, but broadcasters told us it feels like a step toward the industry getting back to where it was pre-COVID-19. The show runs April 23-27 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Commerce Department appoints 27 members to the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (see 2204140052), including Google Vice Chair James Manyika, Amazon Web Services Vice President-Database, Analytics and Machine Learning Swami Sivasubramanian, Microsoft Vice President Ashley Llorens, IBM Chief Privacy Officer Christina Montgomery and BSA|The Software Alliance CEO Victoria Espinel.
ATSC is taking its annual member meeting and NextGen Broadcast Conference “on the road” for a June 7-9 run at the Westin Book Cadillac in Detroit, said President Madeleine Noland Wednesday. The event customarily is held late May in Washington’s Reagan Building. This year’s conference will feature a private-access “strolling dinner” reception June 8 at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, she said. The in-person conference will also have a virtual component, as did last year's when it was rescheduled in late August, said organizers. Michigan has three markets on the air with ATSC 3.0 services, they said -- Detroit, East Lansing and Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo.
The FCC should let ATSC 3.0 “substantially similar” requirements sunset July 17, 2023, as is currently scheduled, said Pearl TV representatives, including Managing Director Anne Schelle, in a call Thursday with an aide to FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington, according to an ex parte filing in docket 16-142. Markets that are further along in 3.0 deployments than others, such as Phoenix and Detroit, “should not be artificially constrained from offering new, beneficial programming,” said Pearl. “Broadcasters have every public interest and economic incentive to continue to provide their programming in ATSC 1.0 to their audiences who still have ATSC 1.0 sets,” said Pearl. “The ‘substantially similar’ requirement is not driving that decision today, and the sunset of the requirement will not change those incentives.” Getting rid of the requirement would let broadcasters run a demonstration channel of 3.0 programming to be a “barker” to attract new viewers, Pearl said. “Pearl understands that the Commission will consider the issue of the sunset more fully later this year, and urges it to keep these points in mind at that time,” the filing said.
Hybrid ATSC 3.0 streaming video service Evoca-TV and emergency alerting company Digital Alert Systems have developed a method for transmitting broadcast emergency alerts to viewers watching programming via the internet, said an Evoca news release Monday. “Because the Evocasolution is both an over-the-air and an over-the-top system, we’re able to deliver alerts directly to the viewer,” said Evoca’s Michael Chase, vice president-systems. Evoca’s receiver “can insert emergency alert information right on top of programming being watched by a viewer, regardless of what that channel happens to be,” the release said. The method is “a unique solution” that works because Evoca “controls both the transmission and reception of signals that reach the viewer,” for users of its service, the release said. The two companies are going to continue studying the matter, the release said.