ATSC

This week was a busy one for proponents of broadcast television’s future. On Tuesday, the ATSC issued a call for proposals for a new standard, ATSC 3.0, and the next day, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s tech guru, Mark Aitken, turned on an experimental broadcast at WNUV Baltimore of a transmission system that could be part of TV’s next-generation standard. ATSC President Mark Richer anticipates receiving a dozen or more proposals by September and plans to brief potential proponents at NAB.

ATSC President Mark Richer on approval of the Mobile Emergency Alert Service: “We have learned from past events that a natural or man-made disaster can have a devastating impact on communications networks, which quickly become overburdened.”

What if you could buy a 50-inch television, mount it anywhere in your house, and receive dozens of channels on it for free and without any futzing around? What if most or all broadcast signals, in their native form, were easily receivable on tablets and smartphones?

The soon-to-be standard will not only let broadcast viewers store and watch video on demand — in non-real time — but also call up graphics and data. And it will let marketers broadcast interactive and targeted advertising. Some of the new services will be on display at April’s NAB Show.

Glenn Reitmeier, NBCUniversal’s SVP of advanced technology, has been named chairman of the Advanced Television Systems Committee. He replaces John Godfrey, Samsung  VP of government and public affairs. Reitmeir, who […]

The standards group announces the formation implementation teams for two emerging standards — ATSC 2.0, which will bring non-real-time programming to broadcast TV, and emergency alerts to the mobile DTV. Dave Siegler of Cox Media heads the ATSC 2.0 team; Jay Adrick of Harris, the alerts team.

I don’t think you’ll find many savvy broadcasters who don’t believe that ATSC 3.0 is absolutely critical if the medium is to remain competitive in the digital world. But what needs to be done is to get the ATSC 3.0 initiative on the same page as the FCC’s incentive auction so that the related TV band repacking takes into account the attributes of the new standard and so the public and broadcasters don’t have to suffer the trauma of TV band disruption twice.

Lawmakers, policymakers, broadcasters and consumer electronics vendors  gathered in Washington on Thursday for an event marking the commercial launch of mobile DTV. The event, held in the Rayburn House Office Building, gave those in government a firsthand look at mobile phones, media table adapters, media players and portable sets capable of receiving mobile DTV while on the go.

The Future of Broadcast Television Initiative gathered representatives at the NAB Show this week to begin its formidable quest to develop a worldwide broadcast TV standard. “The challenges of a global specification may seem daunting, but the benefits of achieving such a goal are enormous,” said Switzerland’s Phil Laven. The new standard would replace a variety of incompatible digital standards now in use. The hope is the new specifications will let TV stations broadcast future services like ultra high-definition television and 3D as well as improve mobile recepton and integrate broadcasting fully with the Internet.

Harris Vice President of Broadcast Technology Jay Adrick has been re-elected ATSC vice chairman for a third one-year term by the ATSC board of directors. Adrick is also in the […]

The new ATSC 3.0 Technology Group — TG3 — is designed to develop broadcast specifications for a range of new services including Internet-enhanced broadcasting and non-real-time and 3D broadcast standards, as well as ongoing support for the ATSC mobile DTV standard.

South Korea’s Dr. Youngkwon Lim will lead the effort to develop home and mobile specifications for over-the-air transmission.

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has expanded television loudness management techniques to cover alternative audio systems as specified in the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act. ATSC members voted […]

Dolby CTO Craig Todd heads the ATSC’s 3D planning committee. While broadcasters aren’t anxious to deal with another game-changing technology revamp, ATSC may be moving ahead with creating a standard, at the request of other members, especially Korea. One scenario is the creation of a 3D standard for the current TV system and then developing another that would be part of the next-gen transmission system in the works.

The Advanced Television Systems Committee’s work was not done with the conversion of the U.S. television system from analog to digital. Most recently, it took the initiative to add mobile transmission and reception to the DTV standard, which already is facilitating exciting new business models for broadcasters. Now it’s working on ATSC 2.0, which will include non-real-time file based content delivery, allowing for caching of programs and other data. And beyond that is ATSC 3.0 — the over-the-air transmission system that we expect to emerge a decade from now.

The NAB president says he welcomes the Advanced Television Systems Committee’s work on creating the next generation of TV technical standards, but emphasizes that for the new over-the-air TV innovations to work, stations must not be forced to give back spectrum.

When it meets in Washington in two weeks, the Advanced Television Systems Committee board is expected to move forward with plans to develop a new standard for TV broadcasting in the next five to 10 years. It will enable TV stations to broadcast more programming, more reliably to more places and explore new business opportunities. For viewers, it may mean another traumatic transition similar to one leading up to the final June 2009 switch from analog to digital.

press release – henderson 07 The board of directors of the Advanced Television Systems Committee has named Dr. Richard Chernock to be the next chairman of the Technology and Standards […]