SAN JOSE, Calif.—XL8, an AI-driven real-time translation technology company, has announced that it is has successfully deployed a real-time solution to translate English captions to Spanish.

The company reported that the breakthrough, which was achieved in collaboration with the Public Media Venture Group (PMVG), marks the first commercial deployment of AI-based real-time translation in U.S. public broadcasting.

XL8 will demonstrate this offering in collaboration with DigiCAP at the NAB Show 2025 in Las Vegas in April.

XL8 said that the technology was seamlessly integrated into the broadcast system of a television station in Cookeville, Tennessee, where it delivered live translated captions to viewers for the first time. This milestone represents a significant step in making content more accessible to multilingual audiences, utilizing the ATSC 3.0-based NextGen TV standard, the company said.

XL8’s AI-powered translation engine detects English closed captions in live broadcasts, instantly translates them into Spanish, and reintegrates them into the broadcast stream (multiplexing).

The system is compatible with existing production and transmission systems, including NextGen TV, allowing viewers with ATSC 3.0-compatible TVs to switch captions to Spanish via TV settings, with no additional equipment required.

The project was carried out in collaboration with DigiCAP, the Korea Radio Promotion Association (RAPA), and PBS station WCTE, with XL8 serving as the core provider of real-time subtitle translation technology. XL8 served as the core provider of the real-time subtitle translation technology, demonstrating its ability to integrate into existing workflows and deliver high-performance solutions in real broadcast environments.

As the number of Spanish-speaking households in the U.S. continues to grow, live broadcast captioning remains largely English-centric. XL8’s real-time translation now makes Spanish captions available for the first time in a U.S. public broadcast, enhancing accessibility and inclusivity for Spanish-speaking audiences, the participants in the project said.

“We serve a large number of Spanish-speaking households in our coverage area,” Avery Hutchins, president and CEO of PBS station WCTE, stated. “Thanks to this real-time captioning technology, they can now access our content more easily and comfortably. We’re thrilled with the result.”

XL8 also stressed that the integration of XL8’s real-time translation technology into live broadcasts sets a global precedent for AI-powered language accessibility. It showcases how AI language technologies can be seamlessly embedded into broadcast systems to engage multilingual communities and enhance public service.

“This project was not just a technology test, it’s a meaningful milestone that proves XL8’s real-time translation can be integrated into live broadcast production and delivery,” Tim Jung, CEO of XL8, stated. “We’re excited to continue improving our solutions to provide greater language accessibility for all viewers.”

XL8 will be attending The NAB Show 2025 (National Association of Broadcasters) where they will provide demonstrations of this technology at TechConnect on April 4, 2025 LVCC West Hall in Room 108/109 from 9am-5pm PT. XL8 will be located with its partner, DigiCAP.

To make an appointment at the show for a demo contact contact@eventcat.com.

COOKEVILLE, Tenn., and BOULDER, Colo.—PBS station WCTE and the Public Media Venture Group (PMVG) this month met in Cookeville to test and implement a new initiative that uses ATSC 3.0 technology to bring American Sign Language (ASL) services to emergency alert systems.

Building on the groups’ introduction of real-time, Spanish-language closed caption translation this past December, the latest effort aims to ensure critical information reaches deaf and hearing-impaired community members. Both projects are powered by PMVG’s NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0) station in Cookeville, leveraging the capabilities of NextGen TV broadcasting to deliver life-saving emergency information across the entire Cookeville and Putnam County, Tenn., region, PMVG said.

WCTE (branded on-air as WCTE Central TN PBS), PMVG, DigiCAP and EQ4ALL are collaborating on the ASL initiative, which is supported by a memorandum of understanding between PMVG and EQ4ALL to advance accessibility and emergency alert technology, it said.

The meeting at the Putnam County Emergency Management Agency in Cookeville was hosted by WCTE president and CEO Avery Hutchins and Putnam County EMA Director Brandon Smith. Attending the meeting were project leaders, station engineers, emergency management experts, specialists in accessibility solutions and local government officials, including the Putnam County Mayor and the Cookeville Mayor. Meeting attendees expressed strong support for the initiative and agreed to work together to complete further testing and deployment, it said.

At the meeting, DigiCAP senior VP Joonyoung Park introduced the company’s cloud-based, NextGen TV “broadcast app” technology that integrates seamlessly with existing emergency alert infrastructure.

“Broadcasting's large coverage area and the hardening and backup power of broadcast sites make television an ideal platform for emergency alerts,” Parks said “ATSC 3.0 technology enhances this capability by adding intelligence and accessibility features to the alerts.”

EQ4ALL co-CEO Kevin Lee demonstrated human avatar technology that uses ASL to deliver emergency alerts over various platforms. The avatars not only sign critical messages but also guide viewers to trusted local resources for additional information.

“Signing is crucial because many hearing-impaired individuals cannot rely on text-based alerts,” Lee said. “The ATSC 3.0 standard allows us to add sign language capabilities, making alerts more accessible and impactful.”

More information is available on the WCTE, DigiCAP, EQ4ALL and PMVG websites.

BOULDER, Colo.—Public Media Venture Group (PMVG) has announced that it is now providing real-time translation of closed captioning from English to Spanish on PMVG’s NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0) test bed station in Cookeville, Tennessee.

The initiative, which illustrates the capabilities of NextGen TV broadcasters to offer new services and expand available audiences, is a collaboration among DigiCAP, XL8, PMVG, the Korean Radio Promotion Association (RAPA) and PBS station WCTE.

The translation solution detects English closed captions within a television program and translates them into a selected language using an AI-powered translation engine operated by XL8. The translated closed captions are then multiplexed back to the program stream and broadcast over PMVG’s NextGen TV station in Cookeville. While the LiveCAP service offers translation to many different languages, the current initiative in Cookeville focuses on Spanish.

“It has always been the mission of public broadcasters to serve all members of their communities,” Marc Hand, president and founder of PVMG, explained. “Captioning has extended the reach of public broadcasters to hearing-impaired viewers but has—until now—only been available in English.

This new service will extend the benefits of closed captions to households where English is not the primary language.”

The translation engine incorporated into LiveCAP is provided by XL8, a Silicon Valley tech firm that is a leader in the translation field. According to Tim Jung, CEO of XL8: “Whenever human language is involved, there will be variables from specific regions or topics. The XL8 translation engine uses a combination of AI and machine learning to enable translations that can take into account local language variations. This is ideal for broadcasters who operate in unique local environments.”

The LiveCAP system uses features built into NextGen TV sets and receivers. That means consumers don't need additional hardware if they have an ATSC 3.0 receiver; they simply use the set’s accessibility menu to switch captions to a different language.

Integration of the LiveCAP system into the NextGen TV content stream is provided by DigiCAP, an ATSC 3.0 gateway supplier. “Language translation for television closed captions is not new. But LiveCAP’s use of cutting-edge large language model technology for translating captioning of ATSC 3.0 broadcasts provides highly accurate translations at a fraction of the cost of human translation,” DigiCAP Senior Vice President Joonyoung Park said. “This has the potential to expand the use of translated closed captions to new television audiences.”

To see LiveCAP in action, viewers can tune into WCTE PBS channel 35 (W35DZ-D) and select Spanish-language captioning for the primary WCTE channel (CH 35.1).

Comprised of 32 leading public-media organizations, PMVG develops scalable technology use cases to help sustain public media’s vital services in the long term.

“Many public broadcasters operate in multilingual communities where closed-caption translations could make programming accessible to more viewers,” PMVG’s Hand said. “We are excited that PMVG’s ATSC 3.0 testbed in Cookeville is where technology is being developed to extend the reach of public broadcasters to audiences that speak a variety of languages.”

SEOUL, Korea—Sinclair Broadcast Group said today that it is partnering with Korean-based content security provider Digicap to install a new system to automate ATSC 3.0 security certificate management. Sinclair will install the system, called Centralized Certificate Lifecycle Management System (CCMS), in collaboration with digital certificate management company Eonti.

Content security has been among the most contentious issues during the rollout of ATSC 3.0, with many viewers complaining about broadcasters encrypting 3.0 signals. Aware of these concerns, broadcasters are moving forward to resolve these issues to help spur interest in NextGen TV. The implementation of CCMS could help fill in the gaps by providing a more streamlined broadcast security environment. 

Because ATSC 3.0 services may integrate Internet functionality with broadcast programming, broadcasters use such digital certificates to help reduce the potential security risk from unknown or unauthorized broadcast signals. Managing these digital certificates can be a complex and time-consuming task, especially for large station groups. A station must register a digital certificate the day ATSC 3.0 transmission begins and renew it every year or two thereafter. Further, because ATSC 3.0 stations launch at different times, certificate renewal dates are spread throughout the year, making it more difficult to ensure certificates are valid.

CCMS uses pre-populated information to automate and simplify the management and operational tasks of ATSC 3.0 digital certificates, significantly streamlining the process. CCMS works in collaboration with Eonti to automate the lifecycle management of security certificates. In the lead up to a certificate renewal, CCMS alerts notify involved parties. CCMS can pre-populate necessary forms, manage form submission, monitor responses, and notify all parties when compliance steps are met—or users can choose to have CCMS simply provide notification when certificates need to be renewed. By streamlining certificate management, CCMS frees station personnel to concentrate on more pressing tasks.

“Sinclair is proud to participate in this pioneering initiative to effortlessly manage our NextGen Broadcast transmission security protocols,” said Paul Spinelli, AVP Engineering for Sinclair. “We take our broadcast signal security very seriously. With new business models developing for NextGen Broadcast, we needed to secure our signal to ensure our viewers can trust the integrity of our broadcast. 

“As the broadcaster with the largest number of NextGen Broadcast sites, we knew manually performing this work was inefficient and not sustainable,” Spinelli added. “CCMS enables us to do this more efficiently and with reduced effort across our operations, ultimately accelerating the transition to NextGen Broadcasting.”

“We love to help broadcast stations solve their problems as they move to more software-based and cloud-based solutions,” said Joonyoung Park, SVP for DigiCAP. “We made it easier for broadcasters by building CCMS on top of our software development and operation platform to provide rapid software development and validation with secure operations. We are committed to supporting our broadcast station customers and partners moving forward with next generation broadcast platforms.”

"We are at a transformative juncture in broadcasting, where the integration of ATSC 3.0's advanced security and content protection capabilities with our digital certificate lifecycle management expertise is set to redefine industry standards,” said Oscar Marcia, CEO of Eonti. “Our collaboration with DigiCAP and Sinclair Broadcast Group in deploying the CCMS not only underscores our commitment to leveraging technology to enhance broadcast security while also streamlining operational efficiencies for broadcasters. 

"This initiative leverages the expertise and technology of DigiCAP and Eonti to help broadcasters manage digital certificates, ensure content integrity and trust for consumers,” Marcia continued. “Eonti is proud to contribute our deep-rooted knowledge in PKI and cybersecurity to enable seamless, secure, and scalable broadcasting solutions to the industry.”

BOULDER, Colo.—The Public Media Venture  Group (PMVG), Korea Radio Promotion Association (RAPA), and WCTE (Cookeville, Tenn.) have announced the successful  launch of an ATSC 3.0 demonstration site at W35DZ-D, a low-power television station owned by PMVG. 

The new testbed, located on WCTE’s Monterey, Tenn., transmitter site, will showcase the potential of ATSC 3.0 technology for public media.  

PMVG, RAPA, and WCTE anticipate that the station will begin providing a full ATSC 3.0 service to the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee and Kentucky this fall. 

“We are excited about the new capabilities ATSC 3.0 can bring. As a public station in rural Tennessee, we see  3.0’s potential to better serve our community by enabling us to add more services and distribution channels,”  said WCTE Station Manager Craig Lefevre. “The testbed will not only benefit the Upper Cumberland region, but  also inspire the broader industry to explore the possibilities of 3.0.”  

The testbed was built with the help of DigiCAP, a leading ATSC 3.0 solutions provider based in Seoul, South  Korea. It will serve as a platform for developing and demonstrating various ATSC 3.0 applications and use cases, such as enhanced emergency alerting, interactive education, and datacasting. 

In early August, a delegation of Korean engineers and technology suppliers visited WCTE to set up and test the new station. The delegation included representatives from RAPA, ETRI, DS Broadcast, and DigiCAP. 

Welcomed by  WCTE leadership and technical staff, who were actively involved in the testing process, the delegation met with  local decision makers and business leaders, as well as two members of the Tennessee Legislature, the companies and groups said. 

The delegation  also visited Putnam County’s Emergency Management Center and toured WCTE’s mountaintop transmitter site.  

While on-site in Monterey, the RAPA delegation installed and tested an ATSC 3.0 system configuration  comprising a media encoder, air-chain and modulator, and conducted a successful low power test of the system configuration. 

“As a platform for NextGen testing and development, this  demonstration site will show how public media can continue to lead in delivering cutting-edge content and  services,” explained Marc Hand, founder and CEO of PMVG. “We look forward to working with WCTE and RAPA to experiment with the ATSC 3.0 features that can  benefit all public stations and their communities.” 

“DigiCAP is proud to be part of this significant initiative that will showcase the capabilities of NextGen TV, from  enhanced emergency alerting to targeted education services,” added Joonyoung Park, senior vice president of DigiCAP. “The launch  of the testbed exemplifies the power of international collaboration and demonstrates how technology leaders  and innovative broadcasters can come together to drive the future of broadcasting.”  

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Harmonic and DigiCAP are working on a new ATSC 3.0 delivery solution that combines the Harmonic XOS advance media processor’s statistical multiplexing technology with DigiCAP’s DigiCaster ATSC 3.0 headend, the companies said today.

The combination improves video quality and bandwidth efficiency, thereby streamlining the delivery of 3.0 services and enhancing the NextGen TV experience, they said.

"As ATSC 3.0 deployments accelerate across the U.S., we're on a mission to enable more efficient NextGen TV delivery and superior viewing experiences," said Jing Zhou, director of broadcast solutions at Harmonic. "Our collaboration with DigiCAP demonstrates how Harmonic is leading the charge for ATSC 3.0 innovation and showcases our continued commitment to the broadcast community."

The new solution provides real-time feedback from DigiCAP’s DigiCaster to the Harmonic XOS processor. The interactive connection gives broadcasters the ability to fine-tine bit rate allocations dynamically based on available bandwidth within 3.0 physical layer pipes. The solution supports real-time and non-real-time data transmissions, they said.

"The Harmonic-DigiCAP collaboration provides broadcasters with a solution to utilize the ATSC 3.0 spectrum much more efficiently," said Sang Jin Yoon, senior vice president of business development at DigiCAP. "DigiCAP products are deployed in ATSC 3.0-enabled stations throughout the United States, and this new solution will fuel even more NEXTGEN TV deployments."

More information is available on the Harmonic and DigiCAP websites. 

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND—DigiCAP a developer of ATSC 3.0 home gateway devices, says it is collaborating with software company iWedia S.A. (part of the Zappware Entertainment Group International) to create what the two are calling the first ATSC 3.0 hybrid HDMI dongle of its kind. The AirCaster is designed to enable an integrated user experience between NextGen TV and OTT to help accelerate the adoption of ATSC 3.0 in the U.S.

According to the two companies, the collaboration brings together the expertise of DigiCAP for hardware and iWedia for software to deliver an ATSC 3.0-enabled device that is more economic and less intrusive than a set-top box. Plugging directly into the back of the TV, consumers who purchase AirCaster will be able to access OTT streaming applications without the necessity of purchasing a separate set-top box.

AirCaster will bring OTT benefits to broadcasters as well, the companies said, giving them the opportunity to better target advertising to a wider audience and allowing them to move to apps to deliver their service. The ATSC hybrid HDMI dongle development will help the market continue to deliver new innovative business models for broadcasters, said Pete Han, CEO of DigiCAP.

The CEO of iWedia said that the AirCaster will help play a key role in pushing adoption of ATSC 3.0 in the United States.

“Our successful collaboration with DigiCAP has capitalized on the synergies between our companies to create a device that brings more choice and higher quality [video] to U.S. TV consumers,” said Hans-Jürgen Desor.

DETROIT—For an in-vehicle ATSC 3.0 entertainment experience to remain uninterrupted as a car or truck travels from the coverage area of one station to another, there needs to be successful hand off between the two stations much as a cell phone network provides for calls to remain uninterrupted as people move from one cell to the next.

A test conducted in November 2021 demonstrated the viability of this handoff during a test involving a version of DigiCap’s DigiCaster 3.0 gateway installed at two participating television stations, WKAR TV, the Michigan State University public media station in East Lansing, and WMYD, The E.W. Scripps Company TV station in Detroit, the company revealed today.

In the test car, LG Electronics installed a system to receive and display ATSC 3.0 signals on a rear-seat entertainment TV. As the car traveled from the signal coverage of one TV station to the next, the handoff technology succeeded in keeping a steady TV signal on the receiver device, it said.

“The success of the demonstration is meaningful as it shows that both entertainment and data services in moving cars can be commercialized," said Yeongho Je, director of C&M Standard LAB at LG Electronics.

Heartland Video Systems installed and configured servers and installed the DigiCasters at both stations.

“Achieving seamless data hand off between the signals of adjacent ATSC 3.0 TV stations is foundational for any datacasting application in the automotive and mobile fields,” said Anne Schelle, managing director at Pearl TV. “While data handoff technology is not new, confirming a successful test of this technology for use with ATSC 3.0 spectrum is an important step forward.”

SEOUL, South Korea—DigiCAP’s ATSC 3.0 Air Chain has gone through its latest evolution that will now allow it to be used as a cloud application.

DigiCAP launched ATSC 3.0 Air Chain in 2017 as an 8RU unit. DigiCAP then was able to make a 2RU model and later a single RU COTS blade. In February, DigiCAPS posted the first ATSC 3.0 Air Chain on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

This cloud-based service is meant to enable installations to go more quickly, said DigiCAP. In addition, users can pay for an Air Chain with a monthly service fee instead of an upfront equipment charge.

“Our software infrastructure approach is catching on,” said Sang Jin Yoon, senior vice president of Business Development at DigiCAP. “Of the 28 US markets that have launched ATSC 3.0, DigiCAP has one or more users in over half of them. Add to that the 14 broadcast stations we have in South Korea and it makes a solid footprint for moving forward.” 

For more information, visit the DigiCAP website. 

SEOUL—DigiCAP has announced the signing of a master licensing agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group to supply its stations with DigiCAP’s DigiCaster air chain technology as they deploy ATSC 3.0 service.

“This kind of agreement is common in business relationships where critical software products are being delivered,” said Sang Jin Yoon, DigiCAP senior vice president of Business Development. ”It creates a structured relationship between two parties that moves it a step beyond being a series of individual software purchases.” 

Sinclair needed a way in which to work seamlessly with DigiCAP given the number of the broadcaster’s 3.0 station launches, said Sinclair Senior Vice President of Advanced Technology Mark Aitken.

“Their long-standing expertise in software systems will become more valuable as the inevitable move toward virtualized ATSC 3.0 systems progresses,” he said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

RESTON, Va.—DigiCAP and three public broadcasters have joined the NextGen Video Information Systems Alliance (NVISA), a coalition of developers, manufacturers and broadcasters seeking to accelerate industry adoption of next-generation broadcast and OTT television systems, the alliance announced.

With the addition of DigiCAP to the alliance’s roster of regular members, the group now includes the full spectrum of ATSC 3.0 middleware solution providers working to make NextGen TV a reality, it said. 

The public broadcasters joining as associate members include New Mexico PBS, Kentucky Educational Television and UNC-TV Public Media North Carolina. They join other broadcast members, including Capitol Broadcasting Company, News-Press & Gazette Company, OneMedia and Sinclair Broadcast Group.

“NVISA is extremely pleased to welcome these organizations as the alliance expands toward a truly global scope, supporting advanced next-generation TV services," said Edward Czarnecki, NVISA chairman and executive director. "The addition of these three public broadcasters also shows the key role that public TV will play in NextGen TV. ATSC 3.0 is starting to coalesce rapidly, with a growing number of station deployments. NVISA members are dedicated to realizing the enormous potential that ATSC 3.0 offers to transform broadcast television worldwide."

Joining NVISA is a sign of DigiCAP’s commitment to helping to build the NextGen TV ecosystem and market, said San Jin Yoon, DigiCAP senior vice president development. “NVISA's mission of driving innovation while minimizing fragmentation of solutions for information services is essential for the success of ATSC 3.0 deployment globally," he said. 

The alliance also announced the formation of three new specialized working groups: the Bitcasting and Broadcast Internet working group; the Video Integrated Display Symbology (VIDS) working group; and the Advanced Emergency Information working group. 

One of the first objectives of NVISA is successful deployment of enhanced emergency information solutions across the ATSC 3.0 ecosystem, the alliance said.

More information is available on the alliance’s website.

PLYMOUTH, Wisc.—Heartland Video Systems learned a lesson 20 years ago during the transition from analog TV to ATSC 1.0-based DTV that is proving to be valuable as broadcasters once more transition, this time to NextGen TV service.

“When we were integrating ATSC 1.0, there was always a rush to get stations on the air quickly,” recalls Dennis Klas, company CEO. “This was a challenge because everyone was working with new technologies with little integration history. As ATSC 3.0 came into view, Heartland made a commitment to build an integration lab where we could test connectivity between different ATSC 3.0 products.” 

The integration lab enabled Heartland Video to gain experience working with products from prominent suppliers all under the same roof, making it possible to run different product combinations and predict results. Just as with 1.0, broadcasters deciding to deploy ATSC 3.0 are placing equipment orders with aggressive turn-on schedules, says Klas. However, this time around the knowledge and experience gained in the lab is helping the integrator meet these demands.

While working with Pearl TV, Heartland learned about the success of member stations with ATSC 3.0 technology from DigiCAP, says Heartland Senior Systems Engineer Mike Schmidt. “Because we like to test all available prominent suppliers, we evaluated their technology,” says Schmidt.

Klas found DigiCAP offered technology that could prove useful to some of Heartland’s broadcast clients. “We also found DigiCAP to be very responsive to our requests, and [DigiCAP] has a forward-looking technology view, especially in app development,” he says. “We have implemented their air chain technology with several station groups with very positive results."

According to DigiCAP Senior Vice President of Business Development Sang Jin Yoon, DigiCAP and Heartland share the belief that lab testing to integrate 3.0 products is a fruitful strategy. “When we saw their integration lab, we immediately recognized a like-minded commitment to proactively work with new technology.”

DigiCAP built its integration lab in 2017 to ensure South Korean broadcasters could begin offering over-the-air NextGen TV service to transmit live coverage of the 2018 South Korean Winter Olympics in 4K.

More information is available on the Heartland Video Systems and DigiCAP websites.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—Closure of the nation’s schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic has focused attention on the gap in access to broadband internet service between those with means and those without, those in cities and suburbs and those in rural America.

With classrooms closed, school districts have turned to online meeting tools like Zoom and virtual learning environments like Blackboard Learn to deliver lessons to millions of homebound students. However, these sorts of tools can only be effective if students can access the internet.

The FCC’s “2019 Broadband Deployment Report” puts the number of Americans lacking access to fixed terrestrial broadband connectivity at 21.3 million; however, a study by BroadbandNow Research in February indicates the number is closer to twice that.

Jim DeChant, vice president of Technology at News-Press & Gazette (NPG) Broadcasting, however, says there is an alternative to the internet that can fill this digital divide and deliver lessons tailored to individual students regardless of where they live or their economic circumstances.

“We believe the deployment of ATSC 3.0 and set top [home gateway] devices can substantially accelerate not only the educational and emergency alerting model, but also help facilitate the deployment of 3.0 for other purposes that would be also of great benefit,” says DeChant.

By taking advantage of specific tools available in the ATSC 3.0 standard, broadcasters can deliver lessons over the air to students that can be stored on a NextGen TV home gateway and accessed via Wi-Fi from a home computer, media tablet or cell phone using a web browser, he says.

“It is mind-blowingly exciting what kind of educational opportunities there will be with 3.0,” says Angee Simmons, National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) vice president of content. “It’s not just for the kids who can afford it. It breaks through all of these barriers we face everyday—whether it’s because you are living in poverty, or you are living in a rural area with no access. This breaks down those divisions.”

CES CONNECTION

The wheels began to turn for DeChant in January at the 2020 International CES in Las Vegas. There, he saw the DigiCAP HomeCaster, a gateway device with ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 receivers, 2GB of onboard storage and Wi-Fi capability. 

“We were intrigued by that technology, initially for emergency alerting,” says DeChant. “We’d been given a presentation by RAPA [the Korea Radio Promotion Association] last summer of the Korean gateways they’ve installed publicly to provide emergency alerting information over ATSC 3.0 to devices that may not have an ATSC 3.0 receiver.”

News-Press & Gazette looked at conducting its own tests in Santa Barbara on its Class A station KSBB-CD and applied for a grant from RAPA, which it received. RAPA provided the station group with a South Korean 3.0 airchain and the DigiCAP HomeCaster.

Coincidentally, at about the same time NPG was commissioning the 3.0 airchain and bringing the HomeCaster online, the COVID-19 outbreak was becoming a serious concern. 

“In the process of this, our general manager at the KEYT-TV, whose wife works as an educator, was discussing that the public school students in Santa Barbara—as well as many college students—were having to learn at home,” he recalls. 

“That was great except many of the public school students didn’t have access to high speed internet nor did many of the college students who were suddenly not able to attend class.”

PLUS: ATSC Pres Noland Talks About the Latest 3.0 Developments

Recognizing that its 3.0 airchain and gateway not only could be used for all of “the normal stuff a 3.0 channel should do in America,” NPG began to look at its use in education, he says.

“We are now developing lesson plan materials, and we are going to demonstrate livestream lesson plans and encourage people to use this technology,” says DeChant.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Ramping up NextGen TV deployment to fill this gap will be far easier and less expensive than universal deployment of wireless broadband service. “This is shovel-ready today,” says DeChant. “The transition plans are there; the licenses are active in 1.0; and the 3.0 deployment is a light lift compared to deploying other newer distribution technologies.”

Nor is the consumer side of this equation too much of a lift, especially given the emergency funding Congress has made available for education in the wake of the pandemic, says John Lawson, president of Convergence Services Inc. and executive director of the AWARN Alliance.

“Congress passed the CARES [Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security] Act that allocates $13.5 billion for education. Remote learning is one of the eligible uses of that money,” he says.

Signed into law March 27, the CARES Act makes funds available to states to assist K-12 education impacted by the pandemic. Funds are distributed to states. In turn, state education agencies are to distribute at least 90% of the funds to school districts and public charter schools.

Lawson, whose Convergence Services Inc. is co-producing webinars with NETA May 12 on remote learning and CARES Act funding, describes the funding process as “pretty decentralized,” which means public and commercial broadcasters need to coordinate closely with local school districts.

Encouraging school districts to pay for NextGen TV home gateways to facilitate remote learning in the homes of students isn’t all that farfetched, especially if the devices are inexpensive, he says.

“Many school districts already give away computers to students—even before the pandemic,” says Lawson. “The FCC has a whole lot more money to subsidize rural broadband. They have all sorts of money for that. It may be that you open up new streams of funding for these gateways.”

Joonyoung Park, fellow and chief architect of the HomeCaster at DigiCAP, says the target retail price on Amazon for the HomeCaster gateway will be less than $100. However, in quantities that could reach into the millions if this strategy were employed on a massive scale in the United States, the price of the product would be less, he says.

Park envisions a scenario in which local broadcasters will play an important role in HomeCaster distribution. “I think the right way to distribute HomeCaster to local school districts is in collaboration with local broadcasters because they already have a presence in their local markets,” says Park. 

SCHOOL’S OUT

It must be emphasized that this model for delivery of classes to homebound students is far more sophisticated than the approach many public broadcasters traditionally have taken, says Lawson. Rather than blanketing an entire market over the air with a class that may or may not be relevant to individual students at home, classes delivered via 3.0 to home gateways can be school-, class-, subject- and even student-specific because the broadcast standard supports delivery of IP packets for non-real-time (NRT) playback.

“Education requires customization, and this would make the lesson applicable to the right student,” says Lawson. “With 3.0, you have all of these different PLPs [physical layer pipers],” he says. “You could dedicate as many as you want to education and deliver the content overnight so it’s stored on the gateway for the student to use in the morning.”

The back channel students use to submit questions, homework and multiple-choice tests to teachers need not be broadband. Simple dial-up or DSL would suffice, he adds.

Both commercial and public broadcasters have roles to play in developing 3.0 as an educational delivery mechanism. To DeChant, it’s simply a part of being a broadcaster. “We do serve the public, and are licensed to do so.”

To Lawson, this strategy offers the opportunity for greater cooperation in market between commercial and public broadcasters. “Maybe commercial stations that light up 3.0 can do deals with public stations that are still 1.0 to distribute their educational content,” he says.

Regardless of the particulars, 3.0 has an important role to play in the future of education, says NETA’s Simmons. “There is clearly a need for educational materials to get out to students, teachers and districts, and I think 3.0 will provide some amazing opportunities,” she says.

Details about the Remote Learning, NextGen TV & CARES Act Funding webinar and registration are available online. The May 12 webinar begins at 3 p.m. EDT. 

The opening ceremony of Korea’s 2019 Broadcast Industry Promotion Week included a launch ceremony for an ATSC 3.0 emergency alert system. At the ceremony, The Korean Ministry of Information and Communication announced the launch of a UHD Emergency Alert Service for delivering disaster response information for earthquakes, heavy rains, and fires. The Ministry predicts the new system will be able to deliver information more quickly using a terrestrial UHD broadcast network.

The new system will not replace Korea’s existing telecom-based alert system, but will work with it to improve performance and coverage. Korea IT Times reports, “South Korea already has an emergency alert system based on telecom technologies. The addition of using ATSC 3.0 signals from broadcast spectrum is designed to enhance the alerting process, offer backup to the existing telecom networks if they are compromised, and finally cover blind spots that telecom signals do not reach.”

New coverage will include use of large outdoor display screens placed in bus, subway, and multi-use facilities such as nursing homes. The large screens will more dramatically and graphically communicate emergency information. The new service will also include innovations to support hearing impaired citizens with voice guidance based on text-to-speech (TTS) technology, and support the visually impaired by using beacons and vibrometers as guides to safety.

According to BusinessKorea, part of the alert plan was put into place the day of the announcement. ATSC 3.0 receivers and displays were activated in bus and subway facilities in South Korea’s capital city of Seoul. The Korean government has plans to expand the new emergency service to other cities in 2021 and go nationwide in 2022.

While the announcement of an ATSC 3.0-based emergency alert system surprised some in the US, Pete Han, CEO of DigiCAP, a technology supplier for the project, thought it was inevitable, “In Korea we are starting our third year working with live ATSC 3.0 broadcast networks. When you work with this technology day in and day out, you realize how much room for innovation there is. You can see evidence of this in this new EAS system.”

According the Korea IT Times, “These alert services, based on ATSC 3.0 next-generation broadcasting and communications technology, are expected to change the paradigm of information transmission…The Ministry of Science and ICT is planning to overcome the limitations of the current emergency alert and broadcasting services by refining the initial pilot services in cooperation with the Korea Communications Commission, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Korea Meteorological Administration.”

At NAB New York October 22

Pete Han, who attended the Korean emergency alert system launch in Korea will be a part of a panel discussion at NAB NY about the system. He will be joined with John Lawson, Executive Director of the AWARN Alliance, and Joonyoung Park, VP and Fellow at DigiCAP.who worked on key technology for the project. Link to NAB NY Korean EAS Session

QUINCY, Ill.—Elenos Group’s Broadcast Electronics subsidiary has big plans for ATSC 3.0 in small- and medium-sized markets.

Elenos Group has entered into an agreement with DigiCAP to make available the company’s all-in-one broadcast gateway, which performs eight virtualized ATSC 3.0 headend functions on a commercial off-the-shelf server, through Broadcast Electronics.

Newly appointed Broadcast Electronics COO Perry Priestly views this market segment as being underserved and aims to help these stations implement 3.0 inexpensively using the DigiCAP gateway, the company said.

The virtualized services available via the gateway can be turned on as needed, which Priestly sees as a way for smaller stations to launch 3.0 at a low cost and activate other services in the future as Next Gen TV business models evolve and new revenue opportunities emerge, the company said.

Broadcast Electronics transmitter-translators-exciter tech offers the Pro Television supercomputer, also known as PTV inside, which makes converting ATSC 1.0 operations to 3.0 quick and easy. No hardware changes are required, the company said.

The feature will make it easy for stations to test 3.0 and more quickly initiate Next Gen TV service by offering stations a way to start the FCC’s five-year countdown clock to discontinuing 1.0 service.

More information is available on the Broadcast Electronics website.

For a comprehensive source of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see ourATSC3 silo.

SOUTHWICK, Mass.—ATSC 3.0 is just around the corner, expected to start rolling out in earnest in 2020, and Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark and DigiCAP have announced a partnership with an eye toward the Next Gen TV standard. Through the companies’ agreement, Comark will be the authorized reseller and service provider of DigiCAP hardware and software, with a focus on the North American broadcast DTV market for ATSC 3.0 solutions.

The DigiCAP product line will fall under the purview of Comark Digital Services, a group originally formed in 1997 and relaunched in 2018 to assist customers with migrating to ATSC 3.0. CDS operates a laboratory for equipment testing, integration and customer demonstrations.

One of the products that CDS will represent is DigiCaster, an integrated and virtualized ATSC 3.0 broadcast gateway system that combines eight different functions integrated into a unified system that runs on a COTS server or in a cloud.

It will also offer HomeCaster, which is designed for over-the-air ATSC 3.0 reception that provides in-home video/data distribution through Wi-Fi to both legacy DTV sets and tablets.

DigiCAP is a Korea-based company. Korea has had a live, nationwide ATSC 3.0 system operating for the last two years.

Comark has made similar partnership agreements with other companies for ATSC 3.0-related products, including Triveni and Enensys.

WASHINGTON—During the ATSC Next Gen TV Broadcast Conference from May 29-30, attendees will be treated to new developments from DigiCAP and Triveni Digital and how they are utilizing the next-gen television standard.

DigiCAP is planning on demonstrating a simultaneous live reception of ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 through a single home gateway. Supported by Sinclair Broadcast Group, DigiCAP will acquire a live ATSC 1.0 signal from WJLA-TV in D.C., while an ATSC 3.0 signal will be acquired from the Baltimore/Washington Sinclair ATSC 3.0 experiment SFN. The ATSC 3.0 signal will be delivered through DigiCAP’s DigiCaster head-end system and the live signals will be converted to broadband using a DigiCAP HomeCaster home gateway device. The Wi-Fi distributed video will be simultaneously displayed on a TV screen and tablet while the control UI for the demo will be viewable on a separate laptop.

“This demonstration is important because it shows that the home viewer experience of watching over-the-air TV can be as convenient as watching OTT services on the same devices,” said Sang Jin Yoon, DigiCAP senior vice president of business development.

For Triveni Digital, the conference will be a chance to showcase its end-to-end ATSC 3.0 solutions suites made up of the ATSC 3.0 Broadcast Gateway, StreamScope XM Verifier, StreamScope XM MT analyzer and GuideBuilder XM ATSC 3.0 transport encoder, all of which support ATSC 1.0 and 3.0. The main focus will be on the ATSC 3.0 Broadcast Gateway, which enables stations to generate ATSC 3.0 signal information for HD and UHD broadcast service delivery. The Gateway can integrate with Triveni’s GuideBuilder and StreamScope analyzer family. The StreamScope XM Verifier, meanwhile, verifies ATSC 3.0 quality assurance metrics from a Windows 10 laptop.

The ATSC Next Gen TV Broadcast Conference will take place from May 29-30 at the Ronald Reagan Center in Washington, D.C.

For a comprehensive source of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see ourATSC3 silo.

DALLAS—A new company with hundreds of LPTV stations and CPs is pinning its hopes for a vibrant, profitable broadcast industry on ATSC 3.0.

Specifically, ARK Mediacom is hoping to leverage the inherent one-to-many strength of broadcasting and reliable wireless IP delivery via the OFDM-based Next-Gen TV standard to become an affordable last-mile alternative for OTT providers to reach the home and data to reach vehicles in the future.

In late September, the company performed a proof-of-concept test with the assistance of Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark in Southwick, Mass., designed to evaluate the connectivity and integration of all elements needed to deploy an ATSC 3.0 service. Comark is serving as system integrator with 13 technology companies providing products and services for the test.

On Oct. 11, religious broadcaster IBN television announced its test of the ARK 5G Broadcast Network.

In an interview with TV Technology Contributing Editor Phil Kurz, ARK Mediacom CEO Vern Fotheringham discusses the initial test, a broader-based trial slated to begin sometime in Q1 2019, how broadcasters can leverage ATSC 3.0 to grow into OTT delivery and new wireless data delivery services and the need to address challenges like intercarrier operations, billing, settlement and roaming in broadcasting to support a nationwide IP data delivery service to vehicles.

(An edited transcript.)

TVTechnology:What is ARK Mediacom?

Vern Fotheringham: It’s a new company, the go-to-market brand that we’ve created as the service delivery platform spinning up from Edge Spectrum Inc.

Edge Spectrum Inc. is the company we’ve operated under. It’s the broadcast holder of 283 television assets—145 licenses and the balance are construction permits [CPs] we intend to build here in the third phase of the repack and the displacement process. We are primarily a low-power TV licensee.

We launched ARK Mediacom in July as our publicly facing brand, and it is a broadcasting entity that’s leveraging all of the wonderful things that broadcasting has always been with linear TV services, but most important for us, we are leveraging the new capabilities of ATSC 3.0, ultimately to deliver one to millions IP multicasting.

TVT:ARK Mediacom announced a recent test of using 3.0 to deliver last mile service over-the-air for OTT providers and more broadly datacasting IP packets to consumers. What’s broadcasting’s role here?

VF:At the highest level, we are adding a multicasting extension to the unicast internet. For the first time with the new standard, we literally can be integrated seamlessly into the internet.

The internet has evolved as a one-to-one-based service with remote data centers hosting multiple layers of networks transmitting information across the core of the internet to whatever first and last mile distribution network, always subsidized by the public at their own expense.

ATSC 3.0 offers an interesting opportunity for broadcasting to reassert itself with its unique advantage of one to millions. You marry that up against what’s happening in the over-the-top video world.

It’s literally a world where 95 percent of the downloads are about 5 percent of the titles. That’s a broadcasting paradise. We were made for that mission.

TVT:So, you envision offering an alternative to traditional ISPs when it comes to delivering OTT content.

VF: By offloading the vast majority of the most commonly replicated video content into a broadcast-based offload network, we bypass all of that one-to-one connectivity from remote data centers, third party transiting and the consumer’s first and last mile network.

TVT:Your press announcement refers to this as the "ARK 5G Broadcast Network." Why 5G?

VF: When we call ourselves part of 5G, I believed that it is absolutely essential for the broadcast industry, just like the satellite industry, to raise its hand and say, “Hey, we are part of 5G, too, everybody.”

5G, the next generation of telecom and infrastructure, is a heterogeneous combination of networks, of which we are one.

We the broadcasters really need to put our flag on the flagpole and say we are part of this evolution, too.

TVT:ARK Mediacom is predominantly LPTV-based. LPTV is a secondary service, and in the repack it is possible some stations will be unable to find vacant TV spectrum to continue service. Are you confident you will remain intact and be able to move forward with your plans?

VF: Yes. We have a few MX [mutually exclusive] markets that we are working through. I think we have four of them, principally in larger markets. But by and large, we have lost no licenses out of the entire footprint.

TVT:Tell me about your 3.0 test.

VF: What we wanted to do is put end-to-end connectivity and integration of all of the network elements that are needed to deploy a full end-to-end ATSC 3.0 service to the test.

We originated from our sister company’s [IBN’s] master control in Dallas at the Westar facility on Sept. 26 and transited via fiber in an IP format over to the Atlanta Teleport.

There our sister company –our own satellite content delivery network, called V-Satcast, which is in partnership with Intelsat—distributed our test content via an Intelsat satellite.

We use Newtec and Broadpeak as our network elements—both for the tiering of the various caches.

We are layering caches in four tiers—the origination, which is likely to be various cloud and hosting environments into our own private cloud, which starts at the satellite uplink. Then at each transmission facility there is a next tier of caching, essentially extending the cloud out to each layer of the network. Then ultimately at the consumer receiver edge.

TVT:Where was the signal downlinked?

VF: Yes, back to the link. The satellite uplinked via a Newtec hub and then down into a Newtec receiver at the Comark facility in Southwick, Mass.

From there, into the chain where all the magic happens in ATSC 3.0 and all the different elements, the ATEME encode, the Enensys scheduler, another layer of caching and then into the encoder and out through the Hitachi-Comark transmitter.

Then a short, attenuated 3.0 transmission to a Samsung 3.0 receiver for the linear TV feed. We also in parallel used a DigiCAP home gateway. That was with four parallel streams—all different content, all encoded in the same ATSC 3.0 data stream.

This was a parallel test, by the way. It was not part of an end-to-end origination. It was all done locally at Comark. Then into four separate receivers: a television receiver, a laptop, a tablet and a cell phone—all from Wi-Fi streaming out from the home media gateway that DigiCAP provided in 3.0.

It was incumbent upon us before we went out into the field where we are going to deploy our first four trial markets [plus ARK’s headquarters] that we made sure that the handshakes between everything worked properly, that the APIs between all the vendors’ different equipment was functioning smoothly.

TVT:Where will the field trial happen?

VF: We’re deploying in Ardmore, Okla., Lawton, Okla., Tyler, Texas, and Lufkin, Texas, and our headquarters in Dallas. They will be the first five locations where we do our testing of different market environments for our 3.0 infrastructure to test and prove out both the technology side as well as the different market applications enabled by this new technology.

Over the coming year, it’s a "crawl, walk, run environment." We want to make sure all of the network elements are functioning before we send people out into the field to bolt hardware down far from home.

So, we are starting with a cluster around our corporate headquarters in Dallas. That should be coming together late this quarter and early next.

We picked these sites for the test because they are all different; they all represent different types of second and third tier markets. A college town, a military base, flat as a pancake, hilly, vegetation, no vegetation.

TVT:Besides last-mile delivery of OTT content via 3.0 broadcast, what other markets interest ARK Mediacom?

VF: In terms of the other markets, our big belief is 3.0 enables mobility services.

Sinclair has been making a lot of progress on their mobile first strategy. Our version of mobility is vehicular. We think 3.0’s first and perhaps most profitable application in the datacasting world may very well be the connected car.

What is interesting about that is with mobility now being a part of the ATSC 3.0 ecosystem, what is its impact on the broadcast industry? We as an industry face some really interesting challenges that were never part of the broadcasting landscape.

TVT:What new challenges?

VF: Roaming, intercarrier operations, billing and settlement—all of the things that we wrestled with back in the early days of cellular when we had lots and lots of independent owners on the non-wireline side of the cellular industry. But we had no common branding.

We’ve been trying to organize and lead a transition where broadcasters can create new areas of cooperation. If you are going to serve a connected car market, no single broadcaster has the ubiquitous footprint necessary to make that happen. It is going to take the creation of a national consortium of like-minded operators and broadcasters to combine efforts to create that national footprint. Together, they will have to enable the intercarrier and control the intercarrier authentication and roaming that will be needed.

So, I think the future of ATSC 3.0 will not only be the exciting technology evolution and new things we can do as broadcasters, but also ways and business models that broadcasters can come together to operate and provide broadcasting as a combined industry.

We can give the cellular operators a run for the money.

TVT:That sounds like quite a significant change in how broadcasters view themselves.

VF: We’ve been laying back and taking a nap for about 25 years while the cellular industry ate our lunch.

Broadcasters forgot they were wireless operators. One of the really fascinating things is the $2 trillion cellular industry has been built on spectrum that virtually came out of the broadcast industry’s hide–with the small exception of the PCS spectrum, which was an old railroad microwave band.

It was all us. We gave it all up. It’s amazing that we are finally awakening to the fact that broadcasters are wireless providers, not just in the retrans business. 3.0 is our next-gen salvation as an industry.

For a comprehensive list of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see our ATSC3 silo.