LAS VEGAS—At this week’s CES here (Jan. 7-10), the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is showcasing a number of new NextGen TV/ATSC 3.0 receivers, gear, services and improvements to the broadcasting standard at its booth in Central Hall 20340.

The group reported that a host of new ATSC 3.0 receivers and enhanced broadcast services will reach U.S. consumers this year, with RCA launching a lineup of NextGen TV sets and new ATSC 3.0 accessory receivers from ADTH, MyVelo, Stavix, Vbox, Zapperbox and Zinwell among the new consumer products showcased at ATSC’s booth.

Expanded High Dynamic Range, interactive gaming, and digital signage options are also on show this week, as local stations and networks take advantage of the key benefits of next-generation broadcasting—including the ability to launch virtual channels with internet connections, the group said.

The displays come at as the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard is now widely deployed in the U.S., South Korea and Jamaica, with Brazil also recommending ATSC 3.0 to power its DTV+ service. Additionally, tests of ATSC 3.0 broadcasts are on the air in Trinidad and Tobago, India, Mexico, and Canada, the group said.

“More than three-quarters of U.S. viewers now have access to NextGen TV broadcasts, and at CES we’re very pleased to see the addition of RCA as a sixth TV manufacturer to join the roster of those offering NextGen TV sets, a list that now includes nearly 100 different receiver models,” Madeleine Noland, president of ATSC, said. “The first affordable USB-style receivers will also soon be available from ADTH for Android and Fire TV devices. These new products will reach even more consumers, with millions already enjoying NextGen TV receivers at home.” Panasonic recently returned to the U.S. television market with several OLED models powered by Fire TV equipped with NextGen TV electronics, and the addition of RCA in 2025 will bring even more choices to consumers planning a display upgrade.

More specifically, the group said that technologies from six TV and six accessory device manufacturers are on display this week at the ATSC booth at CES, including more than a dozen different types of NextGen TV products, device software offerings from Tolka and Mirakulo, the Run3TV broadcast application, and Advanced HDR from Technicolor. NextGen TV displays from Hisense, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, RCA, and TCL are in the ATSC exhibit, as are ATSC 3.0 accessory receivers from ADTH, MyVelo, Stavix, Vbox, Zapperbox, and Zinwell.

In addition, ATSC’s NextGen TV “Wall of Champions” in its booth highlights growing investment across the ecosystem. “We invite CES attendees to experience all these innovations in person at the booth. Plan your visit for 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 7, to join us for a much-deserved coffee break sponsored by Rohde & Schwarz,” Noland said.

ATSC will be showcasing NextGen TV’s ability to transmit digital data for new purposes such as digital signage. ATSC will feature a new signage kiosk equipped with everything necessary to offer messaging—including an antenna for over-the-air reception, a receiver and on-board storage and playback. In the ATSC booth, the signage kiosk managed by USSI Global will feature local headline news, traffic and weather updates, emergency alerting and advertising messages and promotions from KTVN-TV, the Las Vegas ABC affiliate owned by E.W. Scripps.

Also on display will be enhanced services from broadcasters for HDR and interactivity.

More than 200 NextGen TV services in the U.S. now include HDR, with many also adding immersive Dolby Atmos audio to daily broadcasts, the group said.

At CES, Sinclair is showing a side-by-side demonstration of the eye-popping consumer benefits of HDR, highlighting the enhanced picture quality made possible with ATSC 3.0 HDR broadcasts compared to standard ATSC 1.0 digital TV broadcasts. Local stations started adding HDR to sports broadcasts in 2024, greatly expanding offerings that take advantage of what the ATSC 3.0 standard makes possible. Today, more than 80 million viewers have access to NextGen TV with HDR.

In terms of interactivity, ATSC said that many stations are enhancing local content with the Run3TV broadcast app, which offers on-demand programming from local stations and opens the door for interactive content such as program restart and hyperlocal weather forecasts. The ATSC exhibit will also demonstrate gaming over NextGenTV by GameLoop, which is launching a new channel and its “Play Now” feature, which allows NextGen TV viewers to instantly play games showcased on the channel by using their TV remote or mobile phone.

In addition, broadcasters are also using the ATSC 3.0’s internet protocol backbone to add channels and local content streamed through internet connections, the group said.

For more information, visit www.atsc.org.

MONTREAL—Matrox Video today launched the new Matrox LUMA series of graphics cards with Intel Arc GPUs that includes three single-slot cards.

The LUMA A310 is a low-profile fanless card; the LUMA A310F is a low-profile fanned card; and the LUMA A380 is a full-sized fanned card, the company said.

The company developed the cards to satisfy demand in the mainstream graphics market for the ability to drive multiple screens. Matrox is targeting several market segments for the cards, including digital signage, control room and video wall users, it said.

The fanless design of the LUMA A310 card offers quiet operation and eliminates a point of failure (the fan), thereby increasing reliability and extending the card's life. The LUMA A310 is well-suited for those in need of a small card that fits in a small-form-factor system, the company said.

The single-slot, low-profile LUMA A310F card can be used for applications requiring more performance, such as commercial gaming, where casino machines or arcade games require a small card and extra performance to drive video and 3D rendering. Another application is in the retail space to drive multimonitor graphics, such as digital signage and digital menu boards, it said.

The full-sized, single-slot LUMA A380 card offers greater performance and more Graphics Double Data Rate 6 Memory (GDDR6)—6 GB versus 4 GB—than the other LUMA models, it said.

All three cards have four outputs and can drive four 5K60 monitors. They also can drive up to 8K60 or 5K120 displays but are limited to two outputs in those applications. The cards are compatible with all the latest graphical capabilities, supporting DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, Vulkan 1.3, and OpenCL 3.0, as well as Intel's oneAPI for compute tasks and the Intel Distribution of OpenVINO toolkit for AI development. The cards also have codec engines that can both encode and decode H.264, H.265, VP9 and AV1, it said.

Close collaboration with Intel made it possible for Matrox Video to customize certain features of the LUMA cards to address specific markets, the company said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

MELBOURNE, Fla—At the 2023 NAB Show, April 15-19 in Las Vegas, USSI Global will conduct a proof of concept demo using ATSC 3.0 to show how the NextGen TV standard can be used for digital signage applications. 

The demo—which targets the rapidly evolving world digital out of home (DOOH) market—will take place at the NextGen TV Korean Alliance booth W4126 in the West Hall of the LVCC. USSI Global, a provider of customized network, broadcast and digital signage systems and services, will show a kiosk that utilizes a variety of file-based content broadcasted by Sinclair, received by DigiCAP, conditionally selected by AdMobilize, played out by Ryarc CMS, and displayed on a 55-inch Samsung. The system also supports live streaming (such as emergency alerts or breaking news) and includes directional audio benefits that are ideal for outdoor pedestrian operation in Smart Cities.

“Businesses are effectively using digital signage software to display dynamic content on their outdoor digital signage to draw people into their stores,” said Anthony Morelli, COO, USSI Global. The Broadcast reputation as a trusted source of local content is amplified with the multimedia delivery capabilities of ATSC 3.0. Our mission at NAB is to convey the real-world value and benefits that broadcast and digital signage convergence offers. We believe that outdoor kiosks provide a compelling foundation for the two mediums to join forces, generate revenue for all parties, and drive foot traffic for local businesses.”

Ted Korte, USSI Global Vice President of Technology, said that the ATSC 3.0 standard will bring important benefits to digital signage network operators, content owners and advertisers that include high-speed data file transfers, improved bandwidth management, reliability, determinism, and more refined automated workflows. USSI Global has integrated a broadcast-quality media server into the kiosk to ingest fresh broadcast and out-of-home content, and play out content based on customer-defined criteria, according to the company. Built-in computer vision analytics will also make decisions on what content to play when, which includes switching between live broadcast and digital signage content as warranted.

“There may be breaking news including severe weather updates, road closings and Amber Alerts that come from local broadcasters, which would interrupt rotational digital signage content,” said Korte. “The broadcaster serving the DMA has only one file transfer to televisions, mobile devices and any number of kiosks located in the same market. It takes the highly efficient one-to-many broadcast model into the unique out-of-home media world on displays that essentially demand consumer attention as a first mover of information to a final message before purchase.”

NextGen TV services will also provide what Korte calls “perishable content,” such as general news breaks and sports updates, that generate real-time audience attraction. “It’s about delivering compelling content to audiences while ripe which, when coupled with more contextual digital signage content, offers a powerful hyper-local experience,” said Korte. “Broadcasting is about public service and communications, and we believe that bringing the two mediums together has value for broader-reaching connected initiatives including Smart Cities.”

The 2022-2023 NHL season is now underway and along with it, a new way of garnering new advertising revenues. 

Borrowing a script from other sports leagues, the NHL has now added virtual ads superimposed on barriers surrounding the hockey rink. These virtual ads are visible only to viewers watching from home but already have stirred controversy among some fans who contend that the fast moving sport is not conducive to this type of digital signage.    

“The NHL is instituting moving advertisements on the dasherboards that surround the rink, despite the fact that the play in the NHL tends to pinball wildly back-and-forth, and as a result, the camera has to pan quickly from side-to-side in order to follow the action,” writes HockeyBuzz.com. “There will likely exist scenarios during gameplay whereby the puck is moving in one direction while the advertising moves counter to the play, and the resulting discombobulation will distract from the product on the ice, not to mention the possibility for disorienting motion sickness.”

The NHL’s move towards motion advertising is a result of the impact Covid has had on the sport, which, unlike other major U.S. sports leagues, relies more on gate revenues, which comprised approximately 35% of operating revenue in 2019-2020, according to Statista.com. The league has also given permission to teams to sell advertisement patches on player uniforms and helmets.

Fans voiced their disapproval over Twitter: 

One hockey fan even referenced an earlier NHL TV tech advance that failed miserably (remember the “glowing puck?)

Although the move toward motion digital signage ads adds to NHL revenues, the addition of this feature could turn off potential new fans, HockeyBuzz.com writes. 

“The major problem with these new technology-based “solutions” will result from the portion of the public that already finds hockey difficult to follow due to its byzantine rules, quick-moving action and small puck.” 

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