Data Dominates NextGen TV Conference
As ATSC marked its 40th anniversary at last week’s conference, conversations resoundingly turned to alternative uses for the NextGen TV spectrum including datacasting and PNT applications.
With continued pressure on satellite capacity and steady improvement in connectivity, vendors expect more networks to move at least some of their distribution to terrestrial IP over the next few years. Sinclair, MSG and Estrella have been among the early movers. Pictured: LTN’s Technical Operations Center in Columbia, Md.
Among the seven announcements, Del Parks is upped to president of technology from EVP/chief technology officer.
Smooth Sailing For The C-Band Shift
Broadcasters are wending through a C-band repack now operating on an accelerated timeline with completion slated for Dec. 2023. The process is humming along much more smoothly than the RF repack that preceded it. Above, Sinclair Broadcast Group HEVC uplink gear.
Big TV Groups March Toward IP, Cloud Platforms
Technology executives from Fox Corp., Hearst, Sinclair and Tegna have already virtualized many of their functions, replacing some aging infrastructures with IP routing and broadening their use of the cloud, they said at a TV2025 panel last week. Read the story and/or watch the full video above.
Grass Valley today announces that Sinclair Broadcast’s Del Parks has been appointed as chair of GVX, its customer council made up of globally recognized media technology leaders from some of […]
Exclusives
The pandemic has accelerated the TV industry’s transition to IP and the cloud. A panel at TVNewsCheck’s virtual TV2025: Monetizing the Future event in October will tackle how the new technologies can impact how broadcasters will generate revenue and cash flow in the coming years. Register here.
Broadcasters such as Sinclair and Vice are increasingly shifting playout functions to cloud platforms, seeking more flexibility and agility there and testing the waters with disaster recovery strategies, OTT channels and diginets. “In the cloud, you can build up a whole separate system in parallel, test it, then cut over to it,” says one consultant.
Chris Ripley, president-CEO of Sinclair Sinclair Broadcast Group announced the following corporate executive promotions. Lucy Rutishauser was promoted to EVP-chief financial officer from SVP-chief financial officer. Del Parks becomes EVP-chief […]
TVN Tech | At CES, NextGen TV’s Coming Out Party
Next week’s CES in Las Vegas will once again take over the Strip with a sprawling, frenetic glimpse into tomorrow’s consumer technology. This time, NextGen TV will make its show floor debut, and hopes are high consumers will notice.
Broadcasters Charting Their Paths To IP
A panel of IP-experienced tech veterans spell out the considerations and variables of moving from SDI to IP technology at both stations and networks. L-r: Joe Addalia, Hearst Television; Bob Hesskamp, WarnerMedia; Del Parks, Sinclair Broadcast Group; and Dario Scacciati. (Photo: Wendy Moger-Bross)
Tech Leaders To Talk Business Of IP, Cloud
Executives from WarnerMedia, Sinclair, Disney ABC TV and Hearst to unpack the business case for emerging broadcast technologies TVNewsCheck’s annual TV2020: Monetizing the Future conference in New York in October.
Broadcasters Tout IP Progress At TV2020
While the move from SDI to IP continues to pick up speed, more development — and better cooperation among key stakeholders — is still needed to improve advertising technology and deliver better measurement in order to complete with digital competitors like Google and Facebook.
Technology Chiefs Eye Future Efficiencies
IP delivery, cloud-based workflows are seen becoming pervasive as they will make it easier for broadcasters to capture, share and distribute news content. Above (l-r): Andrea Berry, moderator; Bruce MacCormack, CBC; Del Parks, Sinclair; and Jonathan Solomon, Aspera. (Photo: Jack Pagano, Ariana Television Network)
Upbeat reports by Belden, EVS, Avid and other tech vendors in the second quarter cheered investors and may mark a turnaround in a market that had been struggling to keep pace with powerful technology trends like the move toward IP and the shifting demands of their TV customers. In addition, many feel the market may also get a boost from deployment of 4K and other advanced picture formats and new customers in the market.
How will Turner Broadcasting, NBCUniversal’s CNBC and Sinclair Broadcast Group navigate television’s transition from baseband SDI to an IP environment? Senior engineering executives at all three companies participated in a roundtable interview 
about how they are making the move. Matthew Holcombe, VP, Turner Production Broadcast Engineering; Del Parks, SVP and CTO of the Sinclair Broadcast Group; and Steve Fastook, SVP of technical and commercial operations at CNBC, revealed how they’re currently deploying IP, why they are doing so and where they hope IP-based technologies will take their operations in the future. Highlights of that interview, produced for Grass Valley by NewsCheckStudio, are here. Full interview here.
Parks Is Avid For News Tech Standardization
Last year, Sinclair Broadcast Group decided to adopt Avid Technology’s MediaCentral Platform for news production and distribution at all of its 64 news-producing stations. Del Parks, Sinclair’s CTO, explains how standardizing on the technology will bring an end to the many workarounds and tricks needed to make disparate systems work together today; the influence of the changing content distribution landscape on TV news production and distribution; Sinclair’s desire to attract and keep talented TV journalists; and its goal of continually improving.
The Pearl group of nine major station groups and Sinclair have agreed to work with the consumer electronics giant over the next 18 months to develop and test new features and services that will support broadcasters’ evolving business models for the next-generation broadcast TV standard.
Lucy Rutishauser, David Bochenek, Del Parks and Don Thompson all add senior vice president to their business cards.
Second Screens Now A Necessity At Sinclair
The group owner’s engineering VP, Del Parks, says that while strategy and tactics are continually evolving for how to best incorporate desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones, they are an extension of the station’s brand, “and because eyeballs are definitely there, we have to be there.”
TV Techs Doubt IT-Based Playout Readiness
While the growing momentum behind so-called channel-in-a-box technology is intriguing and makes a lot of sense, some broadcast engineers say tech vendors have jumped the gun, racing to market with technology that is not mature enough for American TV station operations. “The single box units are now being utilized more for cable channels than anything else,” says Sinclair’s Del Parks. “At the end of the day, a TV station is probably a little more complex to the degree that it may need some specific pieces of equipment.”
Channel-In-A-Box Market Is Hot, Crowded
IT-based playout, or channel-in-a-box, is the hottest TV technology around these days. Propelled by broadcasters’ insatiable need to cut costs, Grass Valley, Miranda, Florical, Snell and Evertz are now offering the virtual master control technology and Harris and Harmonics may be next.
Del Parks, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s engineering VP, has a full plate of projects — and spending— this year at his 58 stations. His company is well along on upgrading operations to HD news and overhauling master controls. At the upcoming NAB Show, he and his team will be looking for content management solutions and he’s very curious about exploring digital fingerprinting technology and ways that broadcasters can deliver content directly to the new generation of Internet-connected TVs.
