Forthcoming standards from two industry groups will more closely integrate the Internet, mobile devices and other consumer electronics with broadcast TV, executives from the Advanced Television Systems Committee and Motion Picture Experts Group predicted at the ATSC’s annual meeting. Work at the ATSC is under way on its 2.0 standard, which is backward-compatible with the existing TV standard, ATSC President Mark Richer said Tuesday. ATSC 2.0 has better video compression, and new features allow for audience measurement, digital rights management and “advanced” electronic program guides, he said. MPEG Chairman Leonardo Chiariglione summarized his group’s ongoing work (CD April 30 p12) on a variety of standards for any industry to use, including broadcasters.
Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake predicted a “healthy” broadcast industry after the voluntary incentive auction the FCC plans to hold of TV frequencies and repacking of their channels. “We expect a healthy broadcast industry to emerge from the auction and the subsequent repack -- I expect healthier than it is today,” he said Wednesday in a speech that summarized his and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s remarks on spectrum to the NAB Show last week (CD April 18 p4). “The incentive auction is not for everyone,” Lake told a Media Institute luncheon, since many stations will want to keep serving viewers and see an exciting future for the industry.
Thirteen international broadcasting groups started the future of broadcast TV initiative at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, member European Broadcasting Union (EBU) said Thursday. “Participants want to facilitate the evolution of broadcasting technology to ensure its long term viability and relevance.” As in the U.S., where broadcasters have said terrestrial TV complements wireless service but won’t be replaced by it, the initiative is stressing the import of both technologies. “Neither technology alone will be able to meet future demand for wireless media,” EBU Director Lieven Vermaele said. Goals include developing standards for next-generation terrestrial broadcast systems that are “maximizing the efficient use of spectrum” and standardization of technologies such as DVB, ATSC and ARIB, EBU said (http://xrl.us/bm4hj4).
The conclusion of the mobile emergency alert system broadcast pilot project “sets the stage for the standardization by the Advanced Television Systems Committee and evaluation” by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said PBS, the Mobile 500 Alliance, LG and other supporters of the project. The project was run by PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and LG (CD June 6 p11). In addition to public broadcasters, M-EAS is receiving widespread interest from commercial broadcasters, garnering support from the NAB Labs, the Mobile Content Venture and the Open Mobile Video Coalition, the supporters said. They said the project demonstrates the system’s capabilities for delivering multimedia alerts to mobile DTV-equipped cellphones, laptops, and other devices “to avoid the potential roadblocks of chronic congestion of cellular systems during emergencies.” LG demonstrated its prototype mobile phone this week at the NAB show, the company said.
LAS VEGAS -- The next-gen ATSC 3.0 over-the-air broadcast standard under development at the Advanced TV Systems Committee for terrestrial ultra-high-definition TV (UHDTV) delivery won’t be backward-compatible with existing ATSC or the coming ATSC 2.0 standards, said Jim Kutzner, senior director of advanced technology at PBS. The standard will represent a “major fundamental technology shift” from the current system, he said Sunday at the NAB Show’s Broadcast Engineering Conference. Still, ATSC 3.0 is needed to “keep broadcast television relevant” amid growing competition from other content-delivery players, Kutzner said.
Interests of cable operators and the Big Four broadcast TV networks aligned in what some called a rarity late last week. The owners of the ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC networks backed encryption of cable’s basic programming tier (CD March 2 p4) that includes signals of their affiliates by all-digital cable systems. It’s the first time cable programmers have directly weighed in on an FCC rulemaking proposing to let operators scramble basic channels to cut down on signal theft of unencrypted signals and let companies turn on and off service without technician visits to subscribers. The most vociferous consumer electronics manufacturer against encryption continued to oppose it: Boxee said broadcasters added no new reasons for the commission to act.
Operators should have an encryption “transition plan,” said a maker of consumer electronics connecting to cable systems through unencrypted clear QAM. Hauppauge Computer Works said the plan will “minimize consumer costs, minimize power consumption” and let CE companies “continue to sell ATSC and clear QAM TV products.” But the company still believes encrypting the basic-programming tier would cause “harm to the environment,” said an FCC filing from CEO Ken Plotkin posted Monday in docket 11-169 (http://xrl.us/bmw9bz). The Media Bureau is working on an order to OK scrambling channels, with some consumers to get free set-top boxes and other CE gear (CD March 2 p2) and Hauppauge among the CE companies pushing for operators to use radio-frequency traps so clear QAM works in all-digital systems. The first transition step is for the companies to “alert their customers” of the elimination of clear QAM, and then subscribers should get a digital-to-digital (DTD) converter box, Hauppauge said. “Cable operators should provide, upon request, to any customer who subscribes to any level of cable TV service, up to two ‘free of charge’ DTD boxes” and the devices shouldn’t downconvert programming, the company said. “Support the S3 power down mode, to cut power consumption to close to 0 when the DTD box is not being used. Though not as energy efficient as clear QAM cable TV (which requires no power), S3 mode brings the power consumed by the DTD box to as low a level as possible."
The PBS emergency alert system pilot project using mobile DTV (CD June 6 p11) has been expanded to include a commercial TV station (KOMO-TV in Seattle), and organizers said they intend to bring the project to the ATSC for standards approval in May. The alerts developed by the four broadcasters involved in the pilot were shown at CES last month. This month, the partners begin a road show, with plans to bring the technology to WGBH-TV Boston, Alabama Public TV in Birmingham and Montgomery, Seattle and possibly Washington, D.C., said Jay Adrick, vice president of broadcast technology at Harris Corp., one of the partners in the pilot with LG, Roundbox and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Then, an improved demonstration will be brought to NAB in April, with additional use cases and functionality.
Lobbying for and against letting cable operators scramble basic programming continued last week, filings in FCC docket 11-169 show. Hauppauge Computer Works doesn’t want encryption because it would end clear quadrature amplitude modulation digital cable, while RCN said scrambling is necessary to protect the company from having its video stolen by people who don’t subscribe. “After the over-the-air transition to ATSC digital TV in 2009 and the reclamation of analog cable TV over the last year, eliminating clear QAM TV would be yet another change to the way consumers receive television in less than three years,” Hauppauge CEO Ken Plotkin reported telling a front-office Media Bureau staffer. The bureau is working out details of rules allowing scrambling, which cable operators say will cut down on the need to send out technicians, and their vehicles that use energy and emit carbon dioxide, to turn on and off service (CD Jan 25 p3). Whole-home systems that pay-TV companies are developing, when used with new generations of smart sets, “would reduce the power consumption of cable TV equipment in the home, which today is a big problem,” Plotkin wrote (http://xrl.us/bmpy4r). “These new whole home TV distribution systems being designed by Comcast and Verizon are much more energy efficient than multiple cable TV boxes currently being used. But until these new systems become widely deployed, using clear QAM to directly connect digital cable TV to clear QAM enabled TV sets without requiring a cable TV box is the best way to lower the power consumption of cable TV in the home.” Ending clear QAM means more set-top boxes will be deployed, boosting the energy usage of U.S. homes, the CEO said. “This is certainly contrary to our national interests to reduce power consumption.” RCN has no “feasible and cost-effective alternative to prevent service theft” other than scrambling the signals of TV stations and cable channels on the basic tier, the operator said. A lawyer for the company reported telling a bureau official and aides to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski that the bureau should “act quickly on RCN’s waiver (which covers two of RCN’s systems).” The order “removing the ban on basic tier encryption also [should] be adopted quickly,” the lawyer continued (http://xrl.us/bmpy5f).
No parties opposed requests by two separate groups of engineers for the FCC to look into allowing Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS) Remote Pickup Stations (RPUs) to operate narrowband digital channels. The Society of Broadcast Engineers in November asked the commission to waive portions of the Part 74 rules that prohibit RPUs from using some digital voice and data emissions. A month earlier, the Engineers for the Integrity of Broadcast Auxiliary Services Spectrum (EIBASS) petitioned the FCC to start a rulemaking revising some of those same rules. EIBASS, SBE and NAB all filed comments in response to a public notice on the petitions, and they all asked the commission to proceed. “In the 108 days since EIBASS filed its Petition for Rulemaking, nothing has changed regarding the need to revise the allowable center frequencies for RPU stations, allow RPU stations to use digital modulation and allow the ‘watermark’ method of station identification defined in the ATSC A/82 DRL standard,” EIBASS said. NAB might prefer SBE’s approach over EIBASS’s because “it appears simpler” and “would allow the commission to retain existing channel frequency centers… rather than creating a new table of channel frequency centers with varying bandwidths,” it said: “We urge the Commission to initiate a rulemaking proceeding to consider their requests, and to consider, in the interim,” SBE’s waiver request.