A “Broadcasters’ Panel” has been a fixture at the HPA Tech Retreat program for years. This year was no exception, with panelists discussing the future with NextGen TV and the the impact that the cloud and IP will have.
Panelists at the HPA Tech Retreat agreed with PBS’s Eric Wolf: “Channel sharing is a reasonable option for people to look at, but at the end of the day management has to look at this and say we can take a one-time infusion of cash from the auction and give up forever some portion of our spectrum, which is our bread and butter, and forgo a lot of future options.” But panelists weren’t in harmony on every issue. CBS’s Bob Seidel (l) and Sinclair’s Mark Aitken disagreed on the approach to the next-gen TV standard ATSC 3.0.
The broadcaster panel has become a staple at the HPA Tech Retreat, typically drawing engineers from the Big Four, plus PBS, the NAB, Sinclair and vendor Roundbox at last week’s event. Each provided a summary of what they were working on. None, as an audience member noted afterward, mentioned 3DTV.
