Jerry Whitaker

I am pleased to report that we are making excellent progress toward completion of ATSC 3.0—the next generation digital television system.

The amount of progress made over the last couple of months on the ATSC 3.0 suite of standards is quite impressive.

The work to develop a comprehensive standard for mobile and handheld services—known as "ATSC Mobile DTV"—has reached a milestone with publication of the A/153 Candidate Standard document set.

The ATSC has published two new Candidate Standards documenting enhancements to the AC-3 digital audio compression standard and specifying its use in digital television.

In a major step toward automated generation of PSIP data, the ATSC published its newest standard A/76, "Programming and Metadata Communication Protocol."

With this issue we begin a bimonthly column that highlights current activities within the Advanced Television Systems Committee, Inc. (ATSC).

This summer was a busy time for ATSC standards development, with the adoption and publication of several important documents intended to further the DTV transition.

Approval of a standard in ATSC requires at least two levels of balloting: first, the Technology and Standards Group (TSG) and second, the ATSC membership itself.

Designated ATSC-M/H, the standard will be backward-compatible, allowing existing DTV services to operate in the same RF channel, without adverse impact on existing receiving equipment.

The ATSC has begun work on defining the basic parameters for digital electronic newsgathering (D-ENG) communications systems.