COLLEGE STATION, Texas—At Texas A&M, we’ve always looked for ways to improve how we cover our athletic events. Between our in-house team at 12th Man Productions and the work we do with ESPN and the SEC Network, we’re producing more live events than ever—and the demands keep growing. So last year, when we decided to upgrade our camera systems, we knew it had to be a leap forward and not just a small step. That’s what led us to Grass Valley’s LDX 100 series.

We ended up going with 10 LDX 135s and four LDX 150s. These cameras are doing a lot of heavy lifting for us across multiple venues on campus. What really sold us was the fact that they’re native IP (2110), which let us rethink how we manage camera signals. The ability to run these cameras without needing a camera control unit (CCU) allowed us to connect them to our 2110 network leaf switches at each venue rather than running direct fiber all the way back to our central control room. That freed up a ton of fiber and gave us way more flexibility in how we route and manage signals.

New Workflows
The move to 1080p was long overdue and this upgrade was the last step in that process. Now, we’re setting our sights on what’s next. The image quality we have seen on these cameras has us seriously exploring 1080p HDR workflows. While we’re not there yet, it’s a direction we’re actively evaluating, and early internal tests have shown a lot of promise.

Adding the four LDX 150s to our camera complement has been a massive boost to high-frame-rate looks at all of our sports. Moving from two to four high-speed, six-phase cameras has given us the flexibility to no longer have to decide which sport or event will get the high-frame-rate cameras. Now we can spread them out to give us the incredible high-speed look the LDX150s offer at all of our biggest events, especially when we have multiple events going on at the same time.

What’s also been huge—especially for our students who are learning the craft—is the Creative Grading tool. The cameras give them a lot of latitude to adjust looks based on the sport or lighting and the tool gives them a really good understanding of color grading and how it all works. It’s made our content feel more polished and intentional.

Remote Camera Control
From an engineering perspective, I also appreciate how easy it is to monitor everything remotely. With venues spread across campus, being able to check in on a camera or tweak a setting from my desk—or even off-site—has saved me a lot of time and, honestly, a lot of stress.

We’ve been working with Grass Valley for a while now, and that history gave us a lot of confidence going into this. Their gear has always been reliable and this latest rollout has only reinforced that. Working with Diversified on the integration side made a huge difference, too. They know us, they know Grass Valley and they understood what we were trying to build. It wasn’t just about new cameras—it was about designing a system that could scale as our needs evolve.

Right now, we’re producing more high-quality content than ever, with more flexibility and fewer limitations. We’ve created a smarter, more-efficient workflow that’s not only better for our crew and students but also sets us up for whatever comes next—whether that’s HDR, UHD or whatever else the industry throws our way.

And we’re just getting started.

For more information, visit www.grassvalley.com.

In today’s data-based, IP broadcast world, the days of technicians in white coats bench-testing cameras and microphones using specialized test and measurement (T&M) devices such as oscilloscopes, signal generators and spectrum analyzers would appear to be very much in the past. This is increasingly the case due to a major adoption of software for both setting up and troubleshooting equipment and, perhaps more significantly, monitoring channel output for quality control (QC) and regulatory compliance.

The two areas remain very distinct but not entirely separate, with T&M playing a role in compliance through specific test equipment and techniques. “As broadcasters migrate to IP-based environments, HDR workflows, UHD/8K and cloud operations, packet loss, jitter and PTP [precision time protocol] timing become both a T&M and a QC concern,” says Kevin Salvidge, sales engineering and technical marketing manager at Leader Electronics of Europe.

“Software-based solutions are establishing themselves in cloud-native QC platforms and are widely used in file-based and OTT workflows,” he says. “The adoption of ST 2110 has seen the introduction of software-based waveform and vectorscope monitors, but there are still a number of features only hardware solutions can provide, including latency and PTP timing. Because of this, most broadcasters today are looking for a hybrid approach.”

Achieving the Same Goal Regardless
Even though software is offering new ways of doing established jobs, it is not changing how broadcasters approach T&M and QC, as Matthew Driscoll, vice president of product management at Telestream, observes: “The team looking at camera shading and SRT [Secure Reliable Transport]/Zixi delivery to a cloud workflow are very different than the folks doing the QC on what is streamed to a subscriber. The fact that things are migrating to software, the cloud or hybrid workflows doesn’t matter in the sense that you’re doing the same jobs, just in a different location.”

Driscoll’s colleague Ravi McArthur, product manager for Telestream’s Qualify automated QC-in-the-cloud system, says the aim is to allow users to work where they want to be, rather than dictating how to use the technology. This has resulted in Qualify now being made available for on-prem operation.

“In the cloud, you effectively get infinite horizontal scaling, which is a big bonus for people with vast and wide media supply chains,” he says. “But sometimes, depending on the kind of resolutions and bit rates people are dealing with, they want their software on-prem near high-speed storage so they can process files as quickly as possible.”

In the view of Ashish Basu, executive vice president of worldwide sales and business development at Interra Systems, the situation has “changed for good,” with software and cloud now “almost everywhere” in T&M and QC.

“Broadcasters are saying they’re increasing the level of automation in checking audio-video quality as much as they can,” he says. “But that is not necessarily aligned with the compliance side. Some of the most advanced broadcasting organizations may have no interest in looking at captioning QC because it’s not mandated in their specific geographic region. We see that variation, but otherwise broadcasters are still interested in delivering pristine content.”

Increasing Complexity
What is clear is that the way broadcasters are approaching T&M and QC is driven by new distribution and platform technologies, Triveni Digital President and CEO Mark Simpson says.

“A key trend is the increasing diversity and complexity of the service being delivered,” he says. “ATSC 3.0 is a more complex standard than what came before, not only in the technical underpinnings but also because more services are being deployed. It is something we feel should have a more integrated, comprehensive approach rather than a lot of different subsystems.”

On the compliance side, Mediaproxy has been completely software-based since it was founded in 2001. “There are virtually no hardware solutions used for QC and compliance anymore,” CEO Erik Otto says. “There’s probably still a lot of hardware involved in T&M, but I’m sure they will have to change as well.”

Even so, Otto adds, there may still be a requirement for dedicated physical devices when it comes to detecting faults such as jitter. “When you deal with packets of data, you need to detect jitter properly for correct synchronization of audio and video streams,” he explains. “To do that you need a clock, so technically, a piece of hardware to give the necessary accuracy.”

The Impact of AI
While a physical timepiece might appear to be irreplaceable, even this area could eventually follow the software trend due to that inevitable game-changer, artificial intelligence (AI). “With AI being everywhere, we are putting it throughout many of our products where the idea of a clock seems like a skeuomorphism,” Telestream’s McArthur says. “We’re very focused on practical AI and are responding to customer requests for features including clock and slate reading, contextual analysis and object detection.”

Interra has been working with AI and machine learning for three to four years, says Ashish Basu, and has incorporated both into many of its products. “We use them in areas like video signal quality or degradation measurements,” he says. “However, we do not say we are an AI company or that we produce AI products. But there is space where AI can make a significant difference for our customers.”

Triveni has had early versions of AI in its products from the beginning because they were rules-based, Simpson says: “AI is a kind of rules-driven technology and it’s getting more sophisticated. Over time, we’ll see an increasing use of AI techniques—for example, our monitoring system with quality scoring for the feeds based on a number of observations.”

Otto has a different take on how AI could possibly change T&M, or, ultimately, the need for it: “Problems with satellite links, 4/5G, internet connections with terrestrial transmitters and networks in general can’t be controlled or predicted,” he says. “Technically, everything else—software and hardware—is in everyone’s control. Because AI is probably better at producing better code and outcomes, it could, in the long term, shrink the need for T&M.”

METAIRIE, La.—Lynx Productions is a video production company that specializes in bringing events to life through professional broadcast equipment. These events range from capturing live performances for video wall projection to managing shoots for broadcast-quality streams. The latter includes everything from corporate meetings and events to building complete TV shows, and Lynx manages everything from supplying the technology and crew to technical direction across the entire signal flow.

Our commitment to broadcast-quality excellence begins at the acquisition point, where we employ a range of cameras to support different viewpoints and requirements. In addition to Steadicams, FlyCams and POV/robotic, the Lynx Productions team counts 10 Kokusai Denki SK-UHD-7000 4K/UHD cameras, used for both tripod-mounted and handheld acquisitions, among our camera fleet.

Capturing the Parade
We have a large team of talented camera operators, and we find that they do their most creative work when there are SK-UHD-7000 cameras in the mix. We know that the visual presentation will achieve unmatched clarity, warmth and stability, especially for long-range shots. Likewise, the SK-UHD-7000 always captures the primary shot from the front-of-house position.

The SK-UHD-7000 shines in low-light conditions and will shoot in the dark with no evidence of noise or grain in the acquired image. That artifact-free performance is consistent both indoors and outdoors, from the recent Essence Festival of Culture in the New Orleans Superdome to outdoor performances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Jazzfest).

One of our most popular broadcast events is Mardi Gras, where we capture and live-stream 29 parades over eight days on behalf of The Advocate, Louisiana’s largest daily newspaper. This is a simpler shoot, with a stage camera and a second, distant camera on a raised platform to capture long-range shots of marching bands, floats and more as they advance along the route.

We know to expect rapidly changing weather conditions throughout those eight days, shifting from sunlight to clouds with rain, drizzle or mist on short notice. Through those changing conditions of natural light, the performance remains consistent—there is never any flicker or banding thanks to the camera’s high sensitivity and global shutter technology.

Consistent Color
We appreciate the consistent color that these cameras capture. Specifically, the colors that appear on screen are always a real-world representation of what we capture. For example, some cameras will deliver a red or blue shift, but with the SK-UHD-7000, there is no oversaturation of colors and we can always count on a very level playing field across the spectrum.

As mentioned, the Lynx Productions team has a wide array of cameras that we use for varied content acquisition strategies. Kokusai Denki’s CCUs make it easy to color-match our robotics, POVs, PTZs and other cameras with our SK-UHD-7000 images. We can copy any color space and paint those cameras to create superior versions of their image captures.

The durability of these cameras cannot be overstated. Jazzfest is among our lengthiest productions, and our SK-UHD-7000s remain mounted in position outdoors over the event’s entire two-week duration. These are simply very well-engineered camera systems built from high-quality parts, and in the rare event we need service, our representatives are always responsive and available. That remains consistent with the branding change from Hitachi Kokusai to Kokusai Denki, and the quality of our relationship is sure to continue.

Patrick Cloud, director of sales for Lynx Productions, contributed to this article. More information about Lynx is available by emailing patrick@lynxproductions.net or by visiting lynxproductions.net.

For more information, contact Kenneth Cyr at Kokusai Denki at kcyr@kokusaidenki.us, or visit the company’s website at
https://kokusaidenki.us.

RENO, Nev.—As technical director for Minor League Baseball’s Reno Aces, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Triple-A affiliate, I’m charged with overseeing, managing and maintaining our broadcast technology for nearly 75 home games. I support the direction and production of the baseball broadcast for the Bally Sports Live feed, local sports channel Nevada Sports Net (NSN) and the MiLB.TV feed, as well as the feed syndicated to the video board.

To achieve the look the Reno Aces wanted, we needed a durable, versatile and reliable camera that provided great images, offered lens flexibility, could be used by operators with all levels of experience and had a lower cost of operation.

HXC-FZ90 Deployment
We selected four of Sony’s HXC-FZ90 camera-system chains with the compatible camera control units (CCUs), which are used at center field, high home, low first and low third. I am familiar with Sony—we were replacing older Sony models—and the FZ90 offered us a good bang for our buck. With Sony’s cameras, if you treat the equipment right, it will last a long time.

The HXC-FZ90s are well-suited for the demands of live sports—they have a small footprint and are unobtrusive. They’re lightweight, easy to move and handle, and ergonomic enough for shoulder-mount use. Our camera operators range from novice to entry-level to experienced, and there was a short learning curve for everyone to get the most out of the camera. They are smooth, easy to use and have a nice layout. I even handled the integration of these units, and they were very plug-and-play, so setup was nice and simple out of the box.

Additionally, the camera’s ²⁄₃-inch type 4K CMOS image sensor has a dynamic range that enables us to effortlessly capture pretty sunsets over the Sierra Nevada mountain range, as well as springtime thunderstorms and majestic clouds that are full of rich, vibrant colors, with minimal painting.

Our games see their fair share of sun and shade, but the FZ90s allow us to adjust the iris and find a sweet spot that seamlessly handles shadows and bright light, especially when both are in frame simultaneously. The auto iris was a big selling point for us, especially when we don’t have a dedicated camera shader.

Full Control
On a minor league budget, we also valued the HXC-FZ90’s B4 lens-mount system, which supports the ²⁄₃-inch glass we already had in-house and allows us to swap out lenses. One of my favorite FZ90 functions is being able to maintain full ND (neutral density) control from the CCU and the ability to control different scene files. Additionally, the scene settings allow us to paint and repaint the cameras easily, without the need for a good scope. We go through the touch-panel menu settings to get into engineer mode to achieve everything quickly and simply.

Another notable feature is the XLR audio inputs which allow us to adjust the gain and run natural sound, from the crack of the bat to the coaches interacting, which adds more reality and engagement.

The cameras also offer 4K upgradability, which allows the cameras to grow as our needs do. Once MiLB or our RSN move over to 4K, we won’t be required to buy new cameras—we can just purchase an upgrade license to shoot in 4K, and the image is going to look even sharper. Finally, the compatibility with other Sony cameras is beneficial; they all match and offer integration, requiring only small tweaks, which makes our jobs easier.

For more information, visit https://pro.sony/ue_US/.

LOS ANGELES—As Korn’s cinematographer for the past 20 years, I’ve worked closely with the band to capture everything from music videos and studio sessions to global tours. When it came time to document their 30th anniversary show, I wanted to do something we’d never done before, something that matched the scale and energy of the band’s legacy while pushing the boundaries of how a concert can be filmed.

The idea? Invite the fans to shoot it.

Korn has always embraced technology and they’re constantly looking for ways to connect with fans on a deeper level. So, when I pitched the idea of using the Blackmagic Camera mobile app to let fans become part of the film crew, the band was totally on board.

Mobile Production
Blackmagic Camera adds Blackmagic Design’s digital film camera controls and image processing to iPhone, iPad, Android phone and tablets, so anyone can create the same cinematic look as a Hollywood feature film from their smart device. It has color space directly integrated to preserve the dynamic range and when footage goes to post, it is consistent with footage shot on any other Blackmagic Design camera. This was crucial for consistency between fan footage and mine, as I was shooting on a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro.

We blasted the opportunity out on social media, inviting the first 200 fans who signed up to act as filmmakers for the night. Each downloaded the app, which is free for anyone, with a custom preset we provided to ensure a uniform recording format and upload settings. Time-code syncing was as simple as using each phone’s time of day.

DaVinci Resolve’s cloud-syncing capabilities made the phone-to-Blackmagic Cloud workflow seamless and hands-off for the fans. As fans were shooting, clips were uploading to the cloud right away. In another use case, the editor could have been working on the footage moments after it was filmed.

The footage we got was unlike anything I’ve ever shot. We had fans filming their journeys to the concert, the energy in the crowd and the raw chaos of the mosh pit. Some of the most striking moments were from right inside that pit—immersive, sweaty and emotional. It’s a perspective I could never have achieved with a traditional rig, nor would I want to disrupt those moments by pointing a professional camera in someone’s face. But thanks to Blackmagic Camera, we had hundreds of lenses capturing a deeply authentic experience from every possible angle and in cinematic quality.

Cloud Stores
We used Blackmagic Cloud Stores as local drives to sync and back up all footage. To stay organized, I relied on Blackmagic Organizations within Resolve to set up collaboration groups. We had one group for fan footage, another for our internal production team and another for editorial. This structure gave us creative flexibility while keeping everything secure and accessible.

One of the things I appreciate most about Blackmagic Camera is that it lowers the barrier to entry. Picking up a professional camera for the first time can be overwhelming; all the buttons, menus and controls can feel completely foreign if you haven’t worked in production before. But your phone? That’s something you’re already on constantly.

This app flips that learning curve on its head. You open it on the familiarity of your phone, while also experiencing the exact same user interface that’s found on Blackmagic Design’s entire line of cameras. You’re learning to frame, expose and shoot using the same visual language that professional DPs use in the field. It’s an incredible gateway into the craft.

For more information, contact Blackmagic Design at 408-954-0500 or visit blackmagicdesign.com.

Point: 5G Broadcast Connects Stations to the Mobile Future

The press is filled with stories predicting the demise of linear broadcast television. And certainly, it is true that we face many obstacles, including streaming services taking our viewers and advertisers, cable cord-cutting eroding our retransmission revenues and our own networks climbing on the streaming bandwagon.

But what if there was a new broadcast standard that held the promise of connecting broadcasters not only to television receivers, but also to 5G wireless smartphones and tablets, opening a whole new market to our transmission? The good news is that there is such a standard and it is called 5G Broadcast. And because 5G Broadcast (unlike ATSC 3.0) was adopted as part of the 3G PP 5G standard, it holds the key to our future. All we have to do is join large portions of the world in adopting it.

I have the greatest respect for my longtime friend Mark Aitken, who has advocated with great skill to try to make ATSC 3.0 the American standard for next-gen TV. And I have great admiration for Sinclair and its principal, David Smith. David is probably the only station group owner who has seated himself at a bench and actually built a UHF transmitter.

Let me state upfront that no one is paying me to write this article and that I do not own a single share of stock in Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, mobile chip makers or phone manufacturing companies. My investments are in boring municipal bonds with no relation whatsoever to the television or telecom industries.

Worldwide Standard
The broadcasting industry is transitioning from ATSC 1.0 to a next-generation standard. The two principal choices available to us are ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast. An international standards body called 3GPP sets the standards for all cellular devices in the world and all of the major cellular device manufacturers (Apple, Samsung, etc.) build their devices to comply with 3GPP. 3GPP-compliant devices only receive signals that are part of the 3GPP family of 5G global standards, meaning that broadcasters who transition to the 5G Broadcast standard will be able to transmit directly to the hundreds of millions of next generation 5G smartphones and tablets.

By contrast, ATSC 3.0 is not a part of the 3GPP family of cellular standards and therefore cannot and will not be able to be received by smartphones and tablets compliant with the 3GPP standards. For this reason, Sinclair and others tried diligently to get ATSC 3.0 approved by 3GPP as part of its standards. Ultimately, 3GPP refused to incorporate ATSC 3.0 into its standard.

LTE-based 5G Broadcast is better-suited for integration with 3GPP modems because it reuses nearly all existing LTE/5G components and hardware, whereas ATSC 3.0 requires different implementations across critical building blocks.

So far, public and private broadcast operators in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Estonia, Spain and the Czech Republic came forward and announced their intentions to deploy the 5G Broadcast standard. And there is continuing interest in 5G Broadcast in Malaysia, China and Brazil, with active trials and evaluation of the technology. With several large countries committing to 5G Broadcast, I expect TV-set manufacturers to incorporate 5G Broadcast receivers to meet marketplace demand—no government mandates necessary.

Because of trial broadcasts around the world—including a Federal Communications Commission-approved trial by low-power station WWOO in the Boston market—we don’t need to speculate about whether 5G Broadcast can be received by 5G smartphones.

Simply Stated, It Works!
So American full-power TV broadcasters face the following choice: Do you want to transition to a next-gen standard that broadens your market to include reception by 5G cellular devices, or do you want to transition to a standard that cannot be received by those devices?

The question answers itself.

Advocates for ATSC 3.0 try mightily to think of applications that could make up for their standard’s lack of access to 3GPP cellular devices. They argue that car manufacturers will go to the expense of adding ATSC 3.0 receivers to their cars to receive software downloads. But since all cars (even my low-tech minivan) already have 5G transceivers that serve that function, that seems very unlikely. Or they argue that an ATSC 3.0-based new GPS system will be the key to our future. That seems a real stretch, and certainly no substitute for gaining access to 3GPP cellular devices.

So why is Sinclair pushing so hard for ATSC 3.0? The simple answer is that they have a conflict—not bad or evil—just a conflict. Sinclair owns a vast portion of the intellectual property that makes up the ATSC 3.0 standard. That means that they stand to reap a fortune in royalties if American full-power broadcasters adopt ATSC 3.0. All other TV broadcasters can make their choice without being burdened by that conflict!

In my opinion the only thing that can save broadcasting from extinction is to transition to 5G Broadcast and transmit directly to both TV receivers and 3GPP cellular devices and thereby join the mobile future.

All we have to do is do it!

Reflections vs. Illumination: Choosing the Right Path for Broadcast

Bold claims are easy to make, especially from seasoned showmen. But if you’re going to listen to them, it’s best to keep one hand on your wallet. Advocates of 5G Broadcast like to make impressive claims about what 5G Broadcast is and what it can do. So, to avoid confusion, before discussing the relative merits of NextGen TV (or ATSC 3.0) and 5G Broadcast, it’s important to clarify one thing that 5G Broadcast is not.

First and foremost, it is not a near-term path for broadcasters to get their signals into mobile devices. The 5G Broadcast Barkers make much of the fact that 5G Broadcast is already a 3GPP standard. But what they don’t tell you is that this isn’t self-executing. Currently, no consumer device can receive 5G Broadcast signals. Not one.

To actually get a 5G Broadcast signal into a phone in a consumer’s hands, manufacturers would need to agree to install broadcast band antennas and new radio frequency filtering and front ends in mobile devices, which is exactly what they would need to do to get ATSC 3.0 signals into a phone in a consumer’s hands. One difference? India’s mobile manufacturers are already supporting ATSC 3.0 phones. Right now. As you read this.

B2X Is Coming
In any event, the standardization of the next ATSC 3.0 release, currently referred to as “Broadcast to Everything (B2X),” will accelerate the availability of 3.0 receivers in mobile devices. B2X is a backwards-compatible evolution of ATSC 3.0 that harmonizes with 3GPP standards—including Release 17 and anticipated extensions—providing a true path toward converged broadcast-broadband delivery without abandoning the robust ATSC 3.0 foundation.

So if 5G Broadcast doesn’t offer a faster path to getting broadcast to mobile, what does it offer?

Well, for one thing, 5G Broadcast offers measurably inferior performance. This is partly because it’s not even really 5G. It’s 4G/LTE. In fact, I don’t know why I’m even calling it “5G” Broadcast at this point.

You don’t need to take my word for 4G Broadcast’s technical inferiority. Last summer, Brazil engaged in a lengthy, thoughtful process involving extensive laboratory and field testing to select the ATSC 3.0 physical layer as the over-the-air transmission system for the country’s upgrade to next-generation terrestrial broadcast services.

In response to its original call for proposals, Brazil’s Fórum do Sistema Brasileiro de TV Digital Terrestre (SBTVD) received 31 responses from 21 different organizations worldwide, resulting in 30 candidate technologies. This included four over-the-air physical layer candidate technologies: Advanced ISDB-T, ATSC 3.0, 5G Broadcast, and DTMB-A, all of which were subjected to both laboratory and field testing.

The full results of the first rounds of lab tests are available at https://forumsbtvd.org.br/ under the TV 3.0 Project tab. SBTVD determined that it was necessary to conduct further lab and field testing between the top two candidate standards, Advanced ISDB-T and ATSC 3.0, before making a final recommendation. The full results of the final round of lab tests are also available at the URL referenced above.

So Much More to Offer
Here’s the short version of the lab results: ATSC 3.0 outperformed every other candidate standard and was unanimously recommended by SBTVD. ATSC 3.0 demonstrated greater spectral efficiency, with higher throughput for both fixed indoor reception and high-speed mobile reception. (Somehow the so-called 5G Broadcast advocates never mention that their mobile standard doesn’t work well with devices that are actually mobile.)

But for our purposes today, it’s particularly worth noting that 4G Broadcast didn’t even make the cut for the final evaluation in field testing. That’s right—5G Broadcast advocates are trying to convince broadcasters to adopt an also-ran technology as the future of the industry.

It’s misleading to suggest broadcast television could become instantly scalable just by virtue of being “part of 3GPP.” The broadcast mode of 5G—FeMBMS or 5G Broadcast—is not implemented in those hundreds of millions of phones. It’s a separate mode, with its own antenna, filtering, LNA, silicon and other required components and software stack—none of which is found in current consumer devices.

ATSC 3.0 has so much more to offer and is so much further ahead in the game at this point. Broadcasters are already using ATSC 3.0 to deliver superior pictures and sound to viewers. Broadcasters have spent years working on ATSC 3.0, developing features like broadcast applications that allow broadcasters deploying NextGen TV to offer new interactive features and benefits, such as enhanced content, program restart, hyperlocal weather and programmatic advertising.

These applications also create an easy pathway to extending content created for digital platforms into the broadcast experience. And broadcasters are already developing new business models that will allow the industry to diversify revenue streams and thrive in the decades ahead.

The future of broadcast isn’t about shiny distractions—it’s about illumination. ATSC 3.0 isn’t just a standard, it’s a system designed to serve the public, empower broadcasters and evolve with technology. It’s on the air. It’s in consumer devices. It works. And if you attended the recent ATSC Next Gen Broadcast Conference … it’s all about mobile! While others chase hypotheticals, ATSC 3.0 delivers real value today—and lights the path to tomorrow.

No matter how good your current gear is, there’s always new equipment that’s better, lighter and easier to use in the field. Today’s gear for news production is lighter and more compact yet more powerful than ever, thanks to an improved form factor and faster processing.

Better Livestreaming via 5G
The quest to improve video transmissions from the field is never-ending and Teradek, a Videndum plc brand, has taken a step forward with its new Prism Mobile 5G cellular bonding unit, the lightest 5G-enabled camera-back video encoder on the market, according to Derek Nickell, Teradek’s technical product manager.

“The system is designed to provide the best possible cellular connectivity for live video streaming without compromising on size and weight, allowing field operators to stay agile for longer while live streaming over public and private networks,” he says.

Nickell says Prism Mobile enables camera operators to stream HD and 4K video over cellular networks and Starlink with latency rates as low as 250 milliseconds. It also allows them to securely share encrypted, color-
accurate live video feeds and recordings with stakeholders globally and expedite postproduction with several natively integrated camera-to-cloud platforms such as Frame.io and Sony C3 Portal.

This last capability lets editors access camera proxies as soon as they’re captured, and allows marketing teams to post highlights and playbacks in near-real time.

Lightweight, Versatile Camera Head and Tripod
As anyone who’s ever shot video knows, a lightweight yet solid camera head and tripod is your best friend on the field. The Sachtler Ace XL Mk II fluid head and flowtech tripod combination is worth inviting into the friend zone. Designed to handle payloads weighing up to 17.6 pounds, the 3.75-pound Ace XL Mk II head adds minimal weight to a tripod, yet can handle most of today’s video cameras. (The Ace XL Flowtech 1016MS tripod weighs 11.7 pounds.)

According to Sachtler Senior Product Manager Barbara Jaumann, the Ace XL Mk II head/flowtech tripod combination was designed in collaboration with TV crews to meet their demands for robust, lightweight, and quick-to-deploy equipment.

“One of its standout features is the placement of brake levers at the top of the tripod,” she says. “This design allows for exceptionally fast setup—just flip the levers and lift the tripod in a single motion. This top-mounted lever system also makes height adjustments quick and easy, even when working solo, such as adapting to different interview subjects on the fly.”

Another key focus in the Ace XK Mk II’s development was ergonomic portability, Jaumann adds. “The tripod is not only quick to deploy but also simple to fold down, with integrated magnets that keep it securely closed during transport,” she says.

Weatherproof Lighting for Tough Environments
Lighting can be a real challenge in field video shoots, which is why Litepanels has introduced the Astra IP line of weatherproof portable LED light panels. The lineup includes the Astra IP Half, 1x1 and 2x1 units, all with an IP65 rating that ensures protection against rain, dust, snow and humidity.

These bicolor LED panels offer a color temperature range of 2,700 to 6,500 kelvin and feature high color accuracy, with CRI/TLCI ratings around 95. They deliver a focused 30-degree beam angle, provide flicker-free dimming and support both Bluetooth and optional DMX control, with an onboard LCD for easy adjustments.

“The standout feature of the Astra IP is its IP65-rated weather resistance, making it ideal for use in challenging outdoor environments where crews often face unpredictable weather such as rain, dust, or snow,” Michael Herbert, head of product management at Litepanels, says. “In terms of performance, the lights are exceptionally bright. The 1x1 model delivers around 3,000 lux, while the 2x1 reaches up to 5,500 lux at 3 meters, ensuring strong illumination in any setting.”

Designed with portability in mind, each Astra IP unit is lightweight—ranging from 6.8-15 pounds, making them easy to carry and set up on the go. Each unit comes with an integrated power supply, and users can choose from optional battery plates including Gold Mount, V-Mount, and BP-U for greater flexibility. Available in Duo and Trio configurations, Astra IP Travel Kits pack multiple Litepanels, battery brackets and support stands into durable Pelican cases for convenient transport and rapid on-set setup.

Compact Tripod for Mirrorless Cameras
These days, many camera operators are using SLR-styled mirrorless digital cameras to shoot stills and video content in the field. Manfrotto is addressing their need for a single compact support solution with the new ONE Hybrid Tripod.

Weighing from 6.9 pounds, “the ONE Hybrid tripod includes XTEND, a patented mechanism that allows all leg sections to be deployed simultaneously in a single action for fast setup and quick adjustment on the fly with no downtime,” says Sofia Braccio, Manfrotto’s senior product manager, video. “It features a modular sliding center column with a removable lower section for ground-level shots and an integrated leveling mechanism for quick framing. The column also features a Q90 mechanism that allows shifts from vertical to horizontal instantly enhancing the variety of shots possible.”

The ONE Hybrid Tripod also comes with XCHANGE, Manfrotto’s new quick-release system that allows users to swap heads, sliders and accessories in seconds. “When paired with the new XCHANGE-ready 500X Fluid Video Head, the ONE Tripod becomes a professional system ready for modern content requirements,” Braccio said. “It includes a Fluid Drag System (FDS) on both pan and tilt, a selectable Counterbalance System optimized at 5.3 pounds and a hinged camera plate, making it easy to switch between horizontal and vertical orientations when supporting social content is required.”

Remote Camera Operations
Shotoku Broadcast Systems has recently combined its TG-27 pan and tilt head with the company’s TR-HP Hot Panel control panel into a powerful package.

“Together, they offer a lightweight and flexible system that’s ideal for mobile production environments such as news, sports or events,” James Eddershaw, the company’s managing director, says. “The TG-27’s compact design and high payload capacity make it suitable for a variety of camera types—including ENG models and small teleprompters—while the TR-HP enables intuitive, direct control without the need for a full-size panel.

This combination delivers Shotoku’s trademark precision and reliability in
a footprint that suits fast-moving news teams, pop-up studio setups and remote
production workflows.”

Notwithstanding ongoing tariff-related economic uncertainty, tv broadcasters were finding a lot about what was happening at the midway point in 2025 to justify surprisingly optimistic commentary about their near- and long-term prospects.

Of course, with the tariff threat escalating in mid-July, there was no way to count on the first half of the year as an indicator of what’s in store for the larger economy. But at least industry results to date were cause for relief compared to what might have been.

Exceeding Expectations
While TV station and network owners attested to an overall softness in the local ad market stemming from the tariff situation, outlooks for the rest of the year were buoyed by results exceeding expectations, including the fact that year-over-year ad revenue declines were relatively mild in the 5-10+ percent range, which improved on the usual fluctuations following a national election year.

Addressing analysts in May, major TV station groups predicted continuing gains from technology-driven cost efficiencies, expanded local news coverage through digital outlets, the return of many major sports teams to local OTA distribution, and a strong pace in distribution contract renewals. In comments typifying the industry state of mind, E. W. Scripps president and CEO Adam Symson touted an outlook based on Q1 results that “beat expectations across the board due to strength in networks revenue, especially for connected TV, and due to strong expense control across the enterprise.”

On Sinclair’s May Q1 conference call, president and CEO Chris Ripley noted that “Sinclair delivered solid financial results in a challenging environment,” reflected by the fact that “adjusted EBITDA exceeded the high end of our range guidance.” Confirming Ripley’s description of Sinclair’s core advertising trends as “among the best in the industry,” Sinclair executive vice president and CFO Lucy Rutishauser said Q2 would see local ad revenue tracking “lower by approximately 2 percent at the midpoint of our guidance range.”

Projecting the pace beyond Q2 is hard, she added. “We believe the current macroeconomic and tariff-related uncertainty is causing our advertisers in several key categories to have significantly reduced visibility and is therefore driving a wide range of potential outcomes in the second half of the year,” Rutishauser said. “In fact, several of those advertisers have pulled their own financial guidance.”

On the brighter side, she noted, “distribution revenues are expected to be 1% higher year over year as we begin to cycle through some of the larger distribution renewals from a year ago.“

And “sports on broadcast have seen record highs,” added Rob Weisbord, Sinclair chief operating officer and president of Local Media. “So even with the economic times’ uncertainty, what we know for certain is that there is a demand for top-tier sports.”

Looking at the tariff situation, Nexstar Chairman and CEO Perry Sook contends, at least in Nexstar’s case, there’s little cause for concern. As to whether tariffs might result in ad sales “falling off the cliff,” Sook says, “The answer is no.” While uncertainties might be causing some hesitation in ad buys among auto makers and other sellers of goods that could face higher tariffs, “only about 40 percent of our non-political ad revenue is tied to goods-based businesses that could be impacted by tariffs,” he says.

Tegna, in a release describing Q1 performance exceeding expectations, said the results, with just a 5% ad revenue drop from the politically charged 2024 ad pace, showed the company’s “resilience despite facing macroeconomic headwinds.” Amid anticipated ongoing softness in the overall local ad market, the growth rate on the digital side was making a big difference, leaving the company “in a strong position to drive profitable digital growth through 2025 and beyond,” Tegna Chief Financial Officer Julie Heskett says.

Conservative Analysts
How all this plays with investors remains to be seen. But Justin Nielson, principal analyst and head of S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan, suggests a few silver linings in the many clouds overhanging the broadcast TV industry haven’t changed his group’s conservative outlook on the sector’s long-term prospects.

Accounting for election-related ups and downs in ad sales cycles, S&P Kagan projects a 0.5% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for TV station ad revenue through 2035, with a 1.3% CAGR for core local spot ads and 2.0% CAGR for streamed video and website ads slightly outweighing a 4.1% decline in the national spot CAGR.

These projections account for the many upsides cited by station group executives, Nielson says, including likely consolidation, strong sports schedules, digital content expansion, NextGen TV, and other factors. But in each case, he says, there are trends that appear to set limits on the potential.

For example, as station groups emphasize the work they’ve done to provide their audiences more local news coverage through digital outlets, Nielson says S&P Kagan has seen “a bit of a plateau in terms of what stations are putting on line.” When it comes to winning viewers who stream content to connected TV sets through station streaming services or participation in FAST channels, stations are up against a “lot of competition,” he adds.

Such hard-nosed reality checks on industry optimism make clear there’s another way to look at things, but, given the volatility intrinsic to every trend line, it’s never been harder to judge where things are going. Beyond TV broadcasters’ take on what’s happening, there’s ample evidence for “the momentum shifting in favor of broadcasters,” as Nexstar President and COO Mike Baird puts it.

One clue in that vein can be found in MoffettNathanson’s newly released Q1 Cord Cutting Monitor, which tracks trends in the pay TV industry with a direct bearing on the broadcast TV segment. Notably, “we’ve now had three consecutive quarters of improvement in the decline rate of traditional Pay TV, co-authors Craig Moffett, Robert Fishman and Michael Nathanson report. “That’s the first time we’ve been able to say that since the decline began.”

At the same time, while virtual MVPDs, including sector leader YouTube TV, Hulu Live TV, Fubo TV, Sling TV and DirecTV Now, are still growing, “collectively they just reported what was by far the worst quarter in the short history of the category,” according to MoffettNathanson. A key but still nascent factor in the trend shifts that could have a growing impact over time is the bundling strategy employed by Charter in the wake of the 2023 agreement with The Walt Disney company, which has made all content from Charter’s programming affiliates available to the MVPD’s subscribers via streaming as well as in linear TV mode.

With Charter set to acquire cable MVPD Cox Communications, the strategy is likely to impact a bigger share of TV viewers, whether or not Comcast and other MVPDs pursue the model, the analysts say. “What all this really points out is the ridiculousness of the current model; some content on linear, some on streaming, with separate subscriptions for both and no way to know in advance which content will be where. It took Charter, a distributor, to save the content providers from themselves,” they add.

One upshot of these new developments is they may invalidate the longstanding assumption that Disney’s decision to make ESPN available as a streaming service “will sound the death knell for linear TV.” Subscribers who want to include ESPN in whatever assembly of streaming services suits their tastes will find it’s “much cheaper to subtribe to a linear package that already includes ESPN. And it will be a whole lot simpler, to boot,” the analysts assert. “A quarter that saw traditionally delivered pay TV —led by Charter—do better, while vMVPD-delivered pay TV did worse, could maybe, just maybe, be the beginning of a trend.”

Regulatory Relief
Near-term considerations aside, the cause repeatedly cited by broadcasters for renewed optimism about the future is their confidence they’ll be getting regulatory relief on ownership caps, ATSC 3.0 spectrum availability and other issues. Nothing looms bigger than expectations the FCC will soon be issuing a new notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on national and local station ownership caps.

“I’d think a NPRM is the most likely way to kick off a revision of rules, local and national, as they relate to ownership,” Perry Sook said during Nexstar’s Q1 call in May. “I’d think that would be one of the first moves chairman [Brendan] Carr would make.”

Optimism about what’s in store in Washington is fueled by the fact that, as noted by Sook—who’s also the current chairman of the NAB’s joint board of directors—“this is the first time in history that the entire board voted unanimously that the national cap elimination and in-market ownership restrictions be eliminated.” It’s certainly “impactful at the regulatory agencies and on Capitol Hill that the industry is speaking in one voice as it relates to this issue.”

Describing what the upsides would be for Gray Media if much-anticipated loosening of station ownership caps are adopted by the FCC, Gray Chairman and CEO Hilton Howell told analysts on the company’s Q1 call, “The consolidation allows us to compete with the really huge tech giants that are actually taking about 80% of the local ad market.” Consolidation, he added, “is an all-in-all positive for the entirety of the broadcast business.”

One of the loudest voices in this choir belongs to Sinclair’s Ripley. “Regulatory optimism remains buoyant with expectations for loosened M&A restrictions and next-gen spectrum relief among other potentially favorable changes that could lead to a strengthening of local journalism,” he says.

Still, beyond the generally upbeat expectations on the ownership front, there are potential flies in the ointment related to FCC responses to NAB-supported station group calls for rules shifting control over retransmission fee negotiations with vMVPDs from broadcast networks to stations—as is the case with how MVPD negotiations are managed. Adding urgency to the matter, the long-running battle between network and station owners on this issue recently entered the Paramount-Skydance merger discussion at the FCC.

As previously reported, CBS station affiliates represented by the CBS Television Network Affiliates Association asked the commission to impose conditions on the merger protecting affiliate interests regarding this and other issues. More broadly in the case of how that merger is weighed by regulators, Paramount’s agreement to a $16 million payment to settle President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over “60 Minutes” handling of the pre-election interview with Vice President Kamala Harris underscored industry sensitivities to the pitfalls of crossing the administration politically.

Of course, any big bottom-line impacts resulting from regulatory changes won’t be felt until new rules go into effect in 2026 and beyond. But, as Tegna CEO Mike Steib notes, there’s a lot about what’s already in play on the efficiency side of improving performance that will move to center stage when the next round of consolidation kicks in.

“A real driver of value in the consolidation opportunity is around local costs,” Steib says. Noting what consolidation would mean in contrast to “three, four, five, six TV stations performing the same tasks in a market,” he adds, “If you look at the potential sort of back office and support takeout costs across markets and across the country, it’s many billions of dollars of potential savings for the ecosystem.”

Tariff Impact
It's clear that broadcasters are putting real money behind these ambitions. Uniformly, suppliers we queried for this article sounded more upbeat than they did at NAB a few months ago when everyone was concerned about how looming tariffs and general economic conditions would affect buying decisions.

So far, they said, tariffs have been a non-issue in their sales performance, though they acknowledged that could change. But with industry investments in operational efficiency, digital development and advanced advertising solutions surging, they said they were confident 2025 will turn out to be a good year.

One bird’s eye view from the cloud perspective on industry transformation comes from Chris Blandy, director of strategic business development for M&E and games and sports at Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is seeing “continued momentum across the media and entertainment industry as companies migrate their existing archives and new workloads to the cloud, while also exploring new generative AI tools to support their productions and create more personalized experiences for audiences,” Blandy says.

For example, broadcasters are faced with a “need to manage petabytes of video content and prepare assets for different downstream distribution channels, which must be organized and tagged with appropriate metadata for cross-platform distribution.” As a result, he adds, “our customers are turning to agentic AI to deploy media operations agents for specific tasks, such as celebrity detection, synopses and quality and compliance control.”

Business for Bitmovin, long a leading beneficiary of the video streaming revolution, continues to surge as ever more service providers look to consolidate and streamline video processing.

“It’s all about efficiency,” Bitmovin Co-founder and CEO Stefan Lederer says. “We’re seeing customers really take a hard look at their technology stacks to unlock cost savings through smarter, more streamlined workflows. That’s true across our entire product portfolio, from better encoding efficiency and CDN savings, to switching to commercial platforms or analytics tools like ours that are built to drive efficiency and results.”

As a result, Lederer says, “we’re on track to double our growth goal for this year. By the end of the first half, we had already achieved the full growth target originally set for 2025.”

The trends are just as impactful for longtime traditional TV providers who have evolved their technologies to fit the new market dynamics. Noting that Appear is building on a 46% revenue increase in 2024, Matthew Williams-Neale, Appear vice president of marketing, echoed the common refrain.

“Broadcasters and media operators remain focused on deploying technologies that boost efficiency, support distributed production, and enhance audience engagement,” Williams-Neale says. “We see this reflected in strong customer interest around hybrid workflows, cloud migration, and open software ecosystems.”

As for the tariff threat, Norway-based Appear “has taken proactive steps to reinforce our supply chain and manufacturing strategy,” he says. “By maintaining a flexible, geographically diverse approach to sourcing and production, we’re able to mitigate regional risks and respond quickly to customer needs.”

Even U.S.-based suppliers with stakes in hardware sales find themselves taking precautions to avoid fallout from tariffs. Austin, Texas-based Media Excel, for example, is “paying close attention to the tariffs,” says CEO Narayanan Rajan, who asserts the outlook for the rest of 2025 is positive for his company, “despite the ongoing pressure on spending across different industry segments.”

As a supplier of encoding appliances as well as software-based encoding and other solutions, Media Excel understands tariffs could “impact the appliance side of our business, as our products are manufactured in South Korea.” Noting “the situation is very dynamic,” Rajan says in the event of outcomes unfavorable to Media Excel’s interests, “we will respond accordingly to ensure that we maintain our long-standing and successful relationships with our client base.”

The Advanced Advertising Push
Demand for advertising solutions that can maximize returns in the digital domain is another big driver behind broadcaster spending. “At the mid-point of 2025, we’re seeing broadcasters double down on the technologies that are driving revenue in OTT, of which dynamic ad insertion with one-to-one addressability is a key component,” says Paul Davies, head of marketing at dynamic ad platform supplier Yospace.

“In under a year,” Davies adds, “we have seen the amount of ads stitched increase substantially, from 6 billion in July 2024—which was a record at the time and was helped by a major sports tournament—to over 8 billion as normal everyday traffic by May 2025. This increase is due to several factors, but mainly that streaming audiences are growing and broadcasters are meeting that demand by investing in dynamic ad insertion across more of their content.”

He cites several advances in industry standards that are improving monetization in the digital realm, including the Common Media Client Data standard (CMCDv2), which will enable IAB-compliant measurement across a greater array of endpoints. “That will add a lot of value for advertisers and hopefully increase their investment in CTV,” he says.

Demand for advanced advertising solutions varies widely across the station owner, broadcast network and larger media company ecosystem based on each company’s unique business models, notes Dave Dembowski, senior vice president of global sales and marketing at Operative, a supplier of ad order and other media management solutions.

“Everyone knows that AI and cloud deliver the efficiency and agility they need, but they are also aware that it will be difficult to rip out legacy tech, so some are making bold moves to start clean while others are taking a more modular approach,” Dembowski says.

But he stresses the case is building for the more aggressive approach. “Media companies that are already ahead on implementing multichannel cloud solutions have the power and control to make really sophisticated decisions about their business because they have the confidence that comes from a unified view,” he says.

I’ve competed against him. I’ve worked for him. I’ve crossed paths with him at numerous industry events, and I’ve even interviewed him a time or two. Now it is time to say goodbye to him as he retires from ATSC as its Vice President of Standards Development after 25 years with the organization.

Of course, I’m referring to Jerry Whitaker, one of the true gentlemen of the industry. With an affable temperament and love for radio and television engineering, he has conquered many career mountains over the years.

Going to work full-time for KCRA radio in Sacramento, Calif., at the age of 19, Whitaker worked as a morning news editor and later as a producer. “But my real interest was in engineering,” he said, so Whitaker got his FCC First Class License and found a job as an engineer at an AM station in Eureka, Calif., market 183, in the late 1970s.

“I loved radio engineering. It was fun. I would have done it for free. Well, come to think of it, it was almost free,” he mused. Shortly after joining the station, he recalled driving home from dinner and the station intermittently going off and on air.

“We had a Gates BC5H transmitter,” he said. “I had seen meter readings on the IPA, intermediate power amplifier, for the 5H, which had been varying over time. But I didn’t have enough history with the machine to know if it was significant or not.

“So, I pull out the exciter and looked at it. Maybe it’s the output transistor. I thought 'that’s not a very good diagnosis.' But I looked around to see what I could find, and there’s this 25uF, 50V electrolytic capacitor with goo on the one side. And I thought, I know what that is, and replaced the capacitor, put it back together, pushed on and was a hero. And the rest is history as they say.”

By 1983, Whitaker joined Broadcast Engineering as the magazine’s radio editor. Eventually, he became editorial director of BE and was then promoted to associate publisher.

One of his favorite magazine memories occurred at the Fall SMPTE Conference in Los Angeles when, as the newly minted radio editor, he visited Solid State Logic’s booth with the magazine publisher.

“We sat down at his SSL board with [the late] Doug Dickey,” he recalled. “It was eight-feet long—just enormous. And I’m used to a radio board, which if it had 10 channels was a lot. He’s telling me about this, and here’s the send, and here’s the return. And I’m thinking, 'what the heck is this?' But I managed to bluff my way through and say: ‘Mm-hmm, I see.’”

But if you do something long enough, you learn along the way, especially if you write articles read by broadcast engineers. That’s doubly so if you’re writing and editing technical tomes, which Whitaker has done in spades.

Over his career, he has written or edited some 50 books and counts the 2,500-page “The Electronics Handbook,” published by CRC Press in 1996, as his most important work.

In the year 2000, he joined ATSC as Technical Director, a title which the organization changed a few years later to Vice President of Standards Development. In that role he has helped shepherd standards development, including the industry’s most significant effort since A/53 (ATSC 1.0) was published in 1995, namely the ATSC 3.0 suite of standards.

“When I joined the staff in 2000, I knew a lot about broadcasting, at least I thought I did, but I didn’t know about standards development. It’s a specialized thing,” he said. “I found that the people I worked with were very willing to explain the process, explain the details that I didn’t understand and were forgiving if I asked dumb questions.”

During his early days at ATSC, Whitaker found standards meetings to be a bit intimidating. “I’d walk into a room and look around the table, and there was [the late] Joe Flaherty [CBS] and there was Renville McMann [CBS], and there was Tom Hankinson [ABC]. It was like, ‘What am I doing here?’”

But with time, Whitaker grew comfortable at those meetings. “At a certain point, you’d be sitting in meetings and think, 'I’m going to ask this question, and then no, that’s probably a dumb question.' Then somebody else asks it, and the speaker says, ‘That’s a good question.’ People were willing to sit down and explain why we wanted to do things in certain ways.”

As he prepares to depart at the end of August, the industry awaits what the FCC will decide to do about sunsetting ATSC 1.0 to make way for 3.0. Whitaker was quick to point out that he does not get involved with the regulatory side of broadcast standards.

Still, sitting in the seat he has occupied for a quarter century, Whitaker seemed to be the perfect person to ask about how the industry and standards body made the decision to develop a non-backward compatible TV transmission standard—one of the biggest hurdles the industry faces in a 1.0 sunset.

ATSC put out a public call seeking input what the new broadcast standard should be, he said. “People presented their ideas on what was possible today [at the that time] and what was possible tomorrow. That detailed report led to ATSC 3.0.

“We realized clearly that if we’re going to develop a new television system, it needs to offer benefits that the current system simply cannot and so it needs to be a pull. Consumers need to want to have it. That’s what we set out to develop.”

What are his plans post ATSC? “Well, I have hobbies as you can see,” Whitaker said during our Zoom interview as he sat amidst the vintage radio gear he has restored.

“When I was in Eureka, I rebuilt the AM station and put the FM, KPDJ-FM, on the air, Class C, from a construction permit. Thanks to eBay and a lot of repair work, I’ve collected pretty much everything we had there down to the automation system and the carousel cart machines and all of that fun stuff.

“So, I’ll keep up with that and keep trying to come up with answers to the question I get from my family members, which is: ‘Why dad? Why would you do this?’”