LAS VEGAS -- FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel kept her cards close on future FCC broadcasting policy during a Q&A at the NAB Show 2022 Monday but pleased many broadcasters by repeatedly emphasizing her admiration for local broadcasting. “Your power is that you’re not like everyone else,” Rosenworcel told NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt and the broadcasters. “What makes you unique is that you’re local.” Her “appreciation for local was apparent,” said Salem CEO David Santrella in an interview after her remarks: “When two parties get together to negotiate something, if one has no appreciation for what the other brings to the table, the negotiation rarely goes well.”
LAS VEGAS -- Broadcasters have made great progress toward realizing the promise of ATSC 3.0, but for the transition to succeed long term they need the FCC to sunset the requirement that 3.0 broadcasts be "substantially similar" to ATSC 1.0 content, said several broadcast executives on multiple weekend panels at the NAB Show 2022.
Sinclair plans to offer HDR content in the Technicolor format for its Bally Sports regional sports networks beginning in Q3, it said Thursday. It plans demonstrations at the NAB Show, it said. SL-HDR1, part of the ATSC 3.0 suite of standards, uses a backward-compatible approach, letting content producers deliver a single video stream to new and legacy TVs that's viewable as HDR on newer devices and standard dynamic range on legacy sets, it said. Sinclair's "no compromise" approach renders "the highest quality viewing experience possible today, supplementing events captured in HDR," said President-Technology Del Parks. "On the distribution side, it is the smart way to deliver SDR and HDR content efficiently in a single, universal transmission format.”
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.