SOUTHWICK, Mass.—Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark has introduced the EC600HP-BB3 VHF Band 3 E-Compact series high-efficiency, air-cooled solid-state DTV transmitters.    

The EC600HP-BB3 product line is available with up to 4x power amplifiers (PAs) in parallel, producing from 1150W to up to 4.6kW, respectively. These output power levels are measured after the mask filter. The new VHF band 3 E-Compact delivers the same features as the UHF version, including:

• EXACT-V2 digital TV exciter licensed for ATSC 1.0 and optional license for ATSC 3.0.
• Hot-swappable rectifiers accessible from the front panel of the PA chassis.
• Dual commercial off-the-shelf GE AC-to-DC rectifiers per PA in load share mode.
• Single drive exciter & controller or optional dual drive with auto switching.
• Newly improved system controller with a simpler Graphical User Interface (GUI).
• Built-in surge protection devices (SPD) to minimize power grid overvoltage.
• Optional front panel touchscreen for easier user access to the control/monitoring GUI.

The EC600HP-BB3 features the latest broadband Doherty LDMOS RF power amplifiers with efficiency of up to 40%. The air-cooled PA design includes automatic cooling fan speed control that provides lower acoustic noise levels during operation while extending the life span of these fans. Each 3RU PA features a rear-panel plug-in design for easy installation and maintenance. Multiple RF amplifiers are combined with an insulated RF combiner enabling hot swap of the PAs, the company said.

The transmitters use a built-in embedded web server that provides control and management of the transmitter through a web-GUI (via PC or mobile phone standard browser) without the need for any external software or drivers. SNMP for transmitter remote control and monitoring is also available, it said.  

The E-Compact features the EXACT-V2 IP-optimized DTV exciters with DualCast technology and is easily upgraded from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0. EXACT-V2 delivers an ATSC compliant, on-channel RF output and performs RF precorrection of both linear and non-linear distortion via Digital Adaptive Precorrection (DAP) technology, it said.

DAP automatically corrects both the linear and non-linear system distortions inherent to all DTV systems. The use of DAP provides the lowest cost of operation with very high system efficiency and RF SNR performance, it said.

The E-Compact family is compact and rugged, well-suited for broadcasters looking to replace their older and less efficient equipment or for future ATSC 3.0 SFN systems. 

More information is available on the company’s website.

SOUTHWICK, Mass.—Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark LLC has promoted Michael Anderson to the position of chief operating officer. He will be responsible for the day-to-day administrative and operational functions of Hitachi Comark and will report directly to President and CEO Matsuzaka Toshihiro.

Anderson has held numerous positions with Hitachi Comark since joining the company 40 years ago, including inventory control, buyer, purchasing manager and vice president of manufacturing and operations. All of these years have been spent with the Hitachi Comark organization operating under the following names: COMARK, Thomcast, Thales, Thomson Grass Valley, Thomson Broadcast and currently Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark LLC.

While serving as senior vice president of manufacturing and operations, Anderson, in addition to manufacturing responsibilities, supported the president and CEO in achieving corporate revenue and profitability goals. He also oversaw day-to-day company operations, managed annual budgets and directed departmental initiatives.    

Earlier Anderson was responsible for implementing several initiatives that streamlined assembly, including reorganizing material flow on the manufacturing floor and point-of-use inventory. He championed employee input into the entire process and has increased efficiency and reduced overall lead-time to market.

SOUTHWICK, Mass.— Damon Roach has joined Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark LLC as the business development manager at Comark Digital Services (CDS) and is responsible for the company’s NextGen TV projects and opportunities. CDS was relaunched in 2018 to assist customers with navigating the migration to ATSC 3.0.

“We are excited to add Damon to our group in this new position,” said Joe Turbolski, vice president of sales and marketing at Comark. “His broad experience over the years will help Comark continue to build our momentum and success in the ATSC 3.0 marketplace as well as help our customers have the best products, innovative NextGen TV systems and great support.”

Roach’s most recent experience in the broadcast industry was with AWS Elemental, where he served as the federal sales manager of encoding and transcoding, which included cloud media services for U.S. federal government civilian agencies and various nonprofit organizations.

Prior to AWS Elemental, Roach spent more than 10 years at Imagine Communications where he focused on driving revenue for media software and video infrastructure solutions for broadcast and multichannel video programming applications. He also spent time at MRC, Tandberg Television, ParkerVision and Sony Corp. of America.

SOUTHWICK, Mass.—Edge Networks, creator of the Evoca ATSC 3.0-based OTA pay-TV service, is on the air in Boise, Idaho, the first of its planned markets, with a pair of Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark 1.5kW E-Compact air-cooled UHF transmitters for its KCBB-LD and KSBE-LD low power stations, Comark has announced.

The pay-TV provider ordered the air-cooled EC702HP-BB ATSC 3.0-enabled transmitter systems in March 2019 following a successful demonstration of the technology and on-air trials. Comark Digital Services (CDS), which is focused on helping broadcasters upgrade their headend solutions for ATSC 1.0 and their migration to ATSC 3.0, assembled best-of-breed solutions and offered its system expertise to help Edge Networks with the deployment.

“Partnering with CDS to implement ATSC 3.0 in Boise allows us to deliver an uninterrupted signal with superior picture quality directly to our subscribers,” said Edge Networks President and CEO Todd Achilles. 

The ATSC 3.0 system includes:

• SmartGate ATSC 3.0 Broadcast Gateway in a 1+1 redundant configuration; 
• MediaCast ROUTE/MMTP server in a 1+1 redundant configuration; 
• EdgeProbe Advanced ATSC 3.0 DTV transmitter monitor equipped with quad inputs; 
• Referee3 portable field receiver and RF signal analyzer; 
• VideoFlow IP-STL solution for reliable content delivery over an IP network connecting Edge; Networks’ network operations center to the broadcast tower in Boise; and 
• DASDEC-IR Intelligent Remote EAS receiver for the Boise DMA. 

“Our CDS group was formed specifically to help customers with these types of complex projects.  CDS has the high-level view of ATSC 3.0 technologies and we lined up the right partners to help get our customers on-air, successfully,” says Joe Turbolski, Comark vice president of Sales and Marketing.

“Our team and our partners worked very closely with the staff at Edge Networks to provide exactly the right solution, and we are extremely pleased to be a major contributor to this NextGen TV deployment,” he said.

More information is available on the Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark website.

SOUTHWICK, Mass.—WHRO-TV, the Hampton Roads Educational Telecommunications Association pubic broadcaster serving Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News, Va.,  deployed a Comark 68kW Parallax UHF transmitter this summer as part of its TV spectrum repack work, Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark has announced.

The station’s new HPTV-PRLX-U42 68kW transmitter, upgradeable to ATSC 3.0, consists of three rack cabinets each equipped with 14 UHF Asymmetric Broadband Doherty power amplifiers. The transmitter has dual Exact-V2 ATSC exciters (in main/standby configuration) and a liquid cooling system, the company said.

The company supplied the complete RF system, which includes Constant Impedance Filter (CIF) technology and high-power external hybrids for combining each of the transmitter’s PA cabinets. Comark managed shipping, offloading and placement of the new equipment in the station’s transmitter facility, it said.

The transmitter was needed to meet the station’s Phase 9 spectrum repack deadline. While mechanical work was completed in late March to meet the phase deadline, COVID-19 delayed the station’s actual transition till July 3. Comark assisted the station in turning on the new transmitter and performed complete proof-of-performance testing in late June, it said.

“COMARK worked with the management of WHRO to provide a complete solution for their repack requirements,” said Joe Turbolski, company vice president of Sales and Marketing. “The new transmitter installation was a tight fit into the existing facility, so we performed a detailed site survey and system design to ensure there were no surprises during the mechanical installation.”

More information is available on the company’s website.

SOUTHWICK, Mass.—Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark has released to Parallax All-In-One (AIO) DTV transmitter designed for stations not repacked in the reallocation of TV spectrum and those desiring to roll out NextGen TV service.

Parallax AIO is a simplified, compact version of the Parallax liquid-cooled, solid-state DTV transmitter introduced in spring 2015. It is intended for medium power DTV applications and is designed with the complete liquid cooling system and RF filtering inside the transmitter cabinet rather than being external subsystems, Comark said.

As a result, on-site installation time is reduced. A field engineer simply connects the transmitter’s RF output to the transmission line and two cooling hoses to the outdoor heat exchanger, the company said. 

The transmitter can be equipped with three to eight power amplifiers in a single transmitter cabinet to deliver between 5.4 kW and 13 kW total power output (TPO). The transmitter’s power amplifiers use the latest asymmetric Doherty LDMOS FET devices, which provide broadband high efficiency operation and the equivalent output power in ATSC 1.0 (8VSB) and 3.0 (OFDM).

The Parallax AIO’s RF system is fully contained in the transmitter rack cabinet. It accommodates either six- or eight-pole variations. The system also offers a motorized RF output switch and liquid-cooled station load with a switch fully integrated into the transmitter’s controls, Comark said.

Hitachi-Comark has published a video overview and demo of the new transmitter on YouTube.  

More information is available on the company’s website. 

CEREDIGION, U.K.—The Reliable Internet Stream Transport (RIST) Forum has announced 15 new members have joined its ranks, led by NBC Universal and Hitachi-Comark.

The list of companies that have joined the RIST Forum as affiliate members includes American Public Television, Arena HD, Broadcast Wireless systems, Caton, Cyan View, Enensys, Hitachi-Comark, NBC Universal, Sienna TV, SIP Radius, Softvelum, Tata Communications, Tubical and Videohouse. DTV Innovations has also joined as an associate member.

The RIST Forum, which now features more than 80 members, is committed to the adoption of the RIST protocol for high quality broadcast-grade video over the public internet. RIST aims to create an industry-wide, interoperable transport solution that can be implemented by any vendor into its equipment.

For more information, visit www.rist.tv.  

ATLANTA—Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) operates a state-wide PBS TV network using nine full-power DTV stations and a handful of low-power translators. All but two of our high-power stations were already using high- band VHF channels prior to the FCC repack, so it was reasonable to assume most of these stations were safe from having to move from the pre-repack channels to new ones. 

As luck would have it, five of the state’s seven VHF stations were repacked and therefore required new transmitters. Two of our stations that operated on UHF channels opted to sell their spectrum and switch to VHF low-band (WJSP and WNGH).

TALKING OUT OUR NEEDS

GPB only had one DTV station in the early phase of the repack (WJSP). We thought air-cooled transmitters would be the best way to move forward so we ordered a 12kW air-cooled unit from Hitachi-Comark for this station on VHF Channel 5. We also looked at the remainder of our station’s requirements for repack, most of which were in the later phases of the process. Upon further discussions with Hitachi-Comark, we chose the company’s Parallax liquid-cooled DTV transmitters to satisfy our remaining requirements.

Hitachi-Comark’s Parallax series offers several advantages, including high efficiency, minimal requirements for in-building air conditioning and low acoustic noise levels inside the transmitter facilities. We ordered the balance of our repack DTV transmitters from Hitachi-Comark and swapped out the original air-cooled transmitter at WJSP for a Parallax liquid-cooled replacement.  All of the Parallax transmitters deployed use a single cabinet design, varying from 4.3kW “V3” (three PA’s) through 15.9kW “V11” (eleven PA’s). Each transmitter is paired with a separate indoor cooling module with dual pumps and an outdoor dual-fan liquid-to-air heat exchanger.

THE INSTALLATION

Field deployments went very smoothly. Hitachi-Comark assigned a program manager who oversaw our entire project from start to finish. First, they performed comprehensive site surveys at all our transmitter facilities to ensure all details were documented prior to actual on-site work. New transmitter equipment and associated accessories were deployed systematically to each repack transmitter site directly from the vendor’s facility. Hitachi-Comark’s installation crews were highly professional and extremely efficient with their on-site work.  

One of our most difficult site locations was WGTV, with a transmitter facility located on top of Stone Mountain Park. The mountain has an elevation of just under 1,700 feet AMSL—great for broadcasting, but difficult and highly dependent on weather conditions to access. Additionally, we could not modify the building to accommodate new equipment.

We installed two new Parallax transmitters (main and standby) in the basement of the building at WGTV. Each transmitter included a separate cooling system for complete redundancy. Speaking of cooling systems, the outdoor heat exchangers needed to be mounted to the roof of the building—three stories above the transmitters. Hitachi-Comark even designed and supplied a custom mounting frame for both heat exchangers, utilizing existing mounting points from the previous analog systems. It was also extremely difficult to route the interconnected cooling system hoses between the outdoor heat exchangers and the indoor equipment.

Even with all these constraints, the team at Hitachi-Comark did a great job. They delivered the equipment on time and on budget. We are glad we chose to work with Hitachi-Comark, and would recommend them to anyone looking for new equipment and field services.

Adam Woodlief has served as the chief technology officer for GPB since 2018. He currently serves on PBS’s Engineering Technology Advisory Committee (ETAC) and is co-chair of the ETAC Public Safety working group. He can be contacted at awoodlief@GPB.org.

For more information, visit www.comark.tv or contact 800-345-9295. 

SOUTHWICK, Mass.—Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark and Triveni Digital have signed on the dotted line for a reseller agreement that covers transmission, test and monitoring systems used in ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 integrated systems.

The details of the agreement appoints Comark as an authorized reseller of Triveni Digital hardware and software, including program generators, metadata management, data broadcasting and test and monitoring systems. Through Comark Digital Services, Comark will focus on the North American broadcast DTV market for ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 technology.

As ATSC 3.0 deployments are beginning to occur, Triveni Digital’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Ralph Bachofen, points to Comark’s history in the U.S. broadcast market as a way to better address the needs of broadcasters during this new era.

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

TV TECHNOLOGY:What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trend at the 2019 NAB Show?

RICHARD E. FIORE JR.: The 2019 NAB Show will have a heavy focus on ATSC 3.0/Next Generation Broadcasting Technology. We were elated to see the release of the complete suite of ATSC 3.0 standards last January, allowing companies such as Comark to develop, test and deploy exciting new technologies. NGBT provides broadcasters with more avenues to engage the consumer than ever before, and from a technology standpoint it extends the IP-enabled workflow all the way through to the transmitter’s input. NGBT also allows us to promote and integrate software-defined encoding solutions that provide the flexibility for today’s challenges and support tomorrow’s more efficient encoding algorithms.

TVT:What will be your most important product news?

FIORE: We are focused on integrating technology and software solutions to meet the upcoming demands of NGBT with our team of experts here at Comark Digital Services (CDS). CDS is not a product but rather an integration, test and deployment arm of our company that has already helped broadcasters with their end-to-end solutions. To that end, we are testing various technologies and products to bring the best-of-breed solutions to the market. One of these technologies is our software encoding solution CDS powered by TITAN Live. Software encoding is a cost-effective solution that easily supports a station’s current requirements including ATSC 1.0, high-quality feeds to cable/DTH MSOs, as well as the station’s OTT feed. The same system can also be provisioned for ATSC 3.0, all of the above within a single software solution.

On the transmitter front, we continue to promote and produce our award-winning PARALLAX liquid-cooled, solid-state, high-efficiency product line (4 kW–100 kW). This year we are also introducing the E-Compact “MP series” of air-cooled, solid-state transmitters for LPTV/SFN applications. The new EC710MP-BB is a perfect solution for customers requiring a compact 1 kW DTV transmitter, featuring separate PA and PSU chassis that utilize only 4RUs of cabinet space. In addition, future compatibility with both ATSC 1.0/ATSC 3.0 is ensured, providing the same output power for either standard.

TVT:How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

FIORE: CDS powered by TITAN Live is a pure software encoding solution and as such it provides the flexibility to meet the needs of all broadcasters, present and future.

First, it is flexible enough to be deployed on a variety of configurations including bare metal servers, blade servers/data centers or even the cloud. Also, CDS is able to assist broadcasters with deployments, integrations and even migrating the software encoding solution from one configuration to another.

Second, the solution allows each video program to be processed and then sent simultaneously in multiple output formats. This means CDS powered by TITAN Live supports legacy MPEG-2 (ATSC 1.0), H.264 (HQ feeds to the local MSO), HEVC/SHVC (ATSC 3.0) and even HLS (a dedicated OTT feed via a CDN). And all of this capability contained within a single software solution running in a variety of deployment environments.

Third, since CDS powered by TITAN Live is a pure, software-based solution, additional features or software codecs (such as AV1) can be introduced into the product suite as the market changes and technology continues to evolve.

TVT:What is it about the NAB Show that brings you back every year?

FIORE: For almost 45 years I have been attending the NAB Show with the same company since the Chicago convention in 1975/76. Over the years much has changed, but we have built many strong relationships with broadcasters and we look forward to bringing innovative products and customer-focused solutions to the NAB Show. For Comark, the NAB Show is about technology and relationships. We have many customers but also many friends that we enjoy seeing at this venue.

CLEVELAND—NAB and the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) have deployed a fully integrated ATSC 3.0 Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark demo system at the Tribune Broadcasting-owned WJW-TV in Cleveland, the company announced today.

Comark Digital Services (CDS) delivered, installed and activated the ATSC 3.0 demo system after initially integrating it at the company’s lab in Southwick, Mass. The system was shipped to the transmitter site in a short portable “fly-pack” equipment rack.

The demo system, capable of transmitting UHD content from WJW with Comark’s Titan Live HEVC software-based encoder, includes a ROUTE encoder, an Enensys Broadcast Gateway, a Triveni Digital GuideBuilder, an EXACT-V2 DTV exciter and 3.0 test and monitoring equipment. The system drives a Comark DCX-3H three-tube IOT-based transmitter operating on DTV Channel 31 originally deployed in 1999.

“Having already provided ATSC 3.0 solutions to Dish Networks, the OneMedia Dallas SFN and PBS member station WKAR, CDS has been set up with the experience and integration capability just for these types of projects,” says Dick Fiore, Comark president and CEO.

More information is available of the Comark website.

For comprehensive coverage on ATSC 3.0, visit TV Technology's ATSC3 silo.

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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.

COOKEVILLE, TENN.—Lots of TV towers live on the tops of mountains. In that respect, there’s nothing unique about the location of WCTE’s 800-foot broadcast tower outside Monterey, Tenn., about 10 mile drive from the PBS station’s Cookeville studio over mostly good roads. But when our engineers were having to drop everything and fix issues nearly every day—sometimes more than once—it seemed far too remote.

The trips were wearing us out physically and financially. In addition, we were spending a fortune on amplifiers and the ones we needed were getting hard to come by. The power supplies inside the amps were proprietary and couldn’t be repaired.

We needed something more reliable so last year we took delivery of a new Hitachi-Comark Parallax transmitter. In a week, the site team from Comark had installed the single-cabinet, complete with a new heat exchanger.

MODULAR POWER SUPPLIES

With the new transmitter installed, we’re not driving to the transmitter every day, and operation costs are about half as much as our old transmitter. Our first electric bill was literally half what we’d been spending, resulting in savings of at least $2,000 a month. It was that energy savings that allowed us to replace our old transmitter, though other factors were just as important. One of the biggest-selling points was the fact that Parallax amps have modular power supplies that can be purchased on eBay for about 5 percent of what we’d been paying every time we lost a power supply in an amp.

Since WCTE’s tower facility is located at the end of a road that runs several miles through mountainous woods, power failures are common. The emergency generator always kicks in and there are plans to purchase and install a UPS to carry the whole plant through the moment of failure before power is restored, but the ease with which Parallax recovers from a dip has been beneficial.

The transmitter powers back up within seconds and the web server allows us full control and monitoring from anywhere. We get emails from the Parallax immediately when there’s an issue—in nine months there hasn’t been anything but power company problems—but we can see voltages on each leg, water temperature and flow, error logs... everything you could ask for.

NEW COOLING SYSTEM

After the Parallax was installed, the site’s old transmitter became the backup, and aside from a new three-phase power circuit for the Parallax, the installation of the new cooling system was the only modification needed in the transmitter building. The new cooling system utilizes an indoor tank, further limiting exposure to ice-fall from the tower. The use of flexible hoses allowed for convenient placement of both the tank and the outdoor heat exchanger.

Even the efficiency of the cooling system is surprising. The heat exchanger didn’t run much at all during the fall and winter so I’ll be interested to see how it does in the summer, with the indoor tank and the reduced heat load. It’s gotten up to about 85 degrees outside already this spring, and our air conditioners don’t seem to be having any trouble keeping it cool indoors.

The Parallax has transformed how we work. WCTE only has two engineers, and we were scrambling to move our master control, maintain and operate a production truck and two IT networks and provide technical leadership for the station. When you take into account the cost savings on energy and on our time, it really has made a huge difference.

Craig LeFevre is a 12-year veteran of WCTE with an MBA from Tennessee Technological University and CBTE certification from the Society of Broadcast Engineers. He can be reached atclefevre@wcte.org.

For more information, visitwww.comarktv.comor call 800-345-9295.

SOUTHWICK, MA. — Hitachi-Comark is rushing numerous Comark Parallax and E-Compact UHF transmitters to broadcasters in Puerto Rico so they can accelerate their Spectrum Repack timetable that has been impacted by Hurricane Maria.

The Puerto Rican stations to receive new Comark transmitters include: WNJX, WTIN, WAPA, WVSN, WCCV, WMTJ, WQTO, WJWN, WSJN-CD, and WQSJ-CD. Equipment production is underway, and shipments are expected to reach both repack and non-repack stations in time for their scheduled installations.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, one of the most destructive storms to hit the island, affected DTV broadcasters were facing the prospect of rebuilding their facilities twice over the next year. Earlier this year, the FCC granted their request to accelerate the repack schedule, enabling them to move directly to their new repack channels.

(Since most were originally slated for Phase 3 of the FCC’s repack process, they weren’t even scheduled to begin testing until April of 2019, with completion by June 21, 2019.)

[Read: WGBH/WBGY Taps Hitachi-Comark Transmitters for Repack]

On several occasions, Comark sent field teams to the island to survey the broadcasters’ facilities and draft individualized site construction plans to get them on the air on their post-repack channels. Comark also handled program management, shipping logistics, and on-site labor for installation and proof-of-performance testing.

Designed for high-power, broadband requirements, Comark Parallax solid-state transmitters are high efficiency, repack-ready liquid cooled systems offering Doherty performance and a future proof design. They’re available up to 27.5 kW transmitter power output (TPO) per rack cabinet, or up to 100kW with multiple cabinets.

For low-to-medium power requirements, Comark’s E-Compact high efficiency, air-cooled UHF DTV transmitters provide asymmetric broadband Doherty, solid-state amplifier technology, requiring less energy to deliver more power. With its 950W 3RU amplifier chassis, the compact, rugged E-Compact is available in TPO levels from 850 W to more than 10 kW.

While the transmitters will operate in ATSC 1.0, they can be upgraded to the ATSC 3.0 DTV broadcast standard in the future.

For comprehensive news and information on the repack, visit TV Technology's repack silo.

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SOUTHWICK, MASS.—KVIE, the public broadcaster serving Sacramento, Stockton and Modesto, Calif., has ordered a new Hitachi-Comark Parallax VHF Band 3 DTV transmitter for Channel 9, the broadcast transmitter announced today.

Initially, the transmitter will be equipped with 12 VHF power amplifiers, which will provide 17.3kW TPO. To enable a future boost in power output, the transmitter is pre-wired to accept additional PAs that can take TPO to 23.1kW if necessary.

[Read: WGBH/WBGY Taps Hitachi-Comark Transmitters For Repack]

The transmitter will be delivered with a liquid cooling system and dual Exact-V2 exciters in a main-standby configuration, Hitachi-Comark said. The company will manage shipment, offloading and placement of the new unit and remove and dispose of the station’s existing transmitter.

“Comark worked with the management of KVIE to provide a complete solution to replace their existing unit with the latest technology. The transmitter will be delivered with ATSC 1.0 compatible exciters, but the unit is easily upgradeable for ATSC 3.0 as soon as the station is ready for testing,” said Dick Fiore, president and CEO of Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark. 

SOUTHWICK, MA—WGBH Educational Foundation has ordered two new VHF Parallax liquid cooled DTV transmitters from Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark LLC for its WGBH Boston PBS station and the WGBY PBS station in Springfield, Mass. Both stations are in the process of a post-spectrum auction channel repack.

At WGBH, Comark will supply a multicabinet Parallax VHF band 1 liquid cooled transmitter on channel D5. The transmitter is designed for initial operation at 7.5kW TPO but allows for future power upgrades up to as high as 55kW should the station decide to maximize their ERP in the future. The transmitter cabinets will be pre-wired to facilitate a quick upgrade with additional power amplifiers and PA combiners.

In addition, Comark will supply another Parallax VHF band 3 transmitter on D13 for WGBY. The WGBY transmitter will be configured for 1+1 redundancy with a main/standby configuration. Each half of the transmitter can fully supply the required 13kW TPO with custom RF switching between transmitter cabinets. Both cabinets will be pre-wired to accommodate future power upgrades.

Comark will manage all aspects of both transmitter installations including program management, equipment delivery, on-site installation, and proof-of-performance testing. Both transmitters are fully upgradeable from ATSC 1.0 to ATSC 3.0 due in part the EXACT-V2 exciter technology.

[Read: Maryland Public TV Chooses Comark Parallax UHF TX]

“We expanded our Parallax product line from UHF to VHF band 3 and most recently to cover VHF Band 1” says Dick Fiore, President and CEO of Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark, LLC. “WGBH/WGBY has been a long standing customer of Comark for many years, having previously purchased their original UHF DTV rigs from the transition from analog to digital. We are very pleased to be working again with WGBH Educational Foundation on this exciting project.”

“WGBH is looking forward to continuing our long relationship with Hitachi-Comark” says Emeric Feldmar, Director of Engineering at WGBH. “We have received excellent products, and support throughout the years. We purchased these Parallax VHF band 1 and band 3 transmitter systems for our WGBH and WGBY facilities that are being upgraded as a result of the spectrum auction/repack with capability to upgrade to ATSC 3.0.”

For more information on the repack, visit TV Technology's repack silo.

SOUTHWICK, MA.—Maryland Public Television has ordered a Comark 75kW Parallax UHF transmitter for its WMPT site serving central Maryland, Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark said last week.

“Comark worked with the management of Maryland Public Television to provide a complete solution for their repack requirements,” said company President and CEO Dick Fiore.

The transmitter consistS of three rack cabinets. Each has 16 UHF Asymmetric Broadband Doherty power amps providing up to 75kW TPO. The liquid-cooled transmitter will be equipped with dual Exact-V2 exciters in a main-standby configuration and an RF mask filter system inclusive of Magic Tees combining each cabinet, the company said.

[Read: Meredith Preps For Repack With Comark Parallax Transmitters]

Comark will manage shipment, offloading and placement of the new transmitter as well as remove the station’s existing DTV transmitter.

For more information on the repack, visit TV Technology's repack silo.

LAS VEGAS—Hitachi-Comark has a new VHF Band 1 (54-88MHz) version of its PARALLAX solid-state, liquid-cooled DTV transmitter to promote at the 2018 NAB Show. It supports RF power levels from 4.0 up to 41kW and shares the same architecture, including cabinet, distributed control system and user interface, as their UHF and VHF Band 3 models.

Hitachi-Comark will also show its E-Compact transmitters, which are optimized for the U.S. spectrum repack and upgradeable to ATSC 3.0. The series now incorporates the latest air-cooled broadband, asymmetric Doherty amplifiers, which feature 888E LDMOS devices and utilize 950W high-efficiency PA blocks. The transmitters are available for 10kW or greater TPO.

Also at the booth will be the EXACT-V2 DTV exciter, which is fully optimized for ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 RF-performance, with 7 GigE ports. The exciter’s “DualCast” technology allows migration from ATSC 1.0 to ATSC 3.0 with a simple license upgrade.

For ATSC 3.0, the exciter supports MFN/SFN, multiple PLPs and TDM or LDM. The QoS-1000RT RF Layer Monitoring Receiver is also available for ATSC 3.0 via a simple upgrade. The receiver, which is a cost-effective, real-time tool for ATSC DTV RF signals, is available in either a 1RU chassis or portable tabletop versions, and features a web-based GUI, coupled with high-precision, near-real-time metrics.

Comark Digital Solutions (CDS), powered by Titan Live ATSC software based encoding, can replace aging ATSC1.0 encoder systems, including channel-sharing requirements, while supporting ATSC 3.0 requirements. CDS supports any resolution from SD to 4K, MPEG2, H264 and HEVC codecs, and HDR, for ATSC 1.0, ATSC 3.0 and OTT output.

The 2018 NAB Show takes place in Las Vegas, April 9-12. Hitachi-Comark will be in booth C4309. For more information, visit www.nabshow.com.

Read up on all of TVT's NAB Show Sneak Peeks and other 2018 NAB Show news here.

SOUTHWICK, MASS.—Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark today announced a partnership with ATEME Corp. to become an authorized reseller and service provider of Ateme ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 hardware and software encoding solutions.

“After careful evaluation of the encoding market and extensive product testing in our encoding systems lab at the Southwick, Mass., facility, we decided to work with Ateme.” said Dick Fiore, Comark president and CEO. “The Ateme Titan encoding solution offers best-of-breed encoding, flexibility of implementation and a future-proof upgrade path for next-gen broadcast television deployments.”

Under the agreement, Comark will focus on the North American broadcast DTV market. The company will also offer integration and system design services for stations.

[Putting Next Gen TV to the [Full] Test]

Comark has an extensive history in DTV encoding dating back to the formation of Comark Digital Services to offer MPEG-2 solutions to broadcasters during the early days of the analog-to-digital transition.

“We’re thrilled to extend our partnership with Comark to our Titan software encoding,” said Walid Hamri, Ateme vice president of business development. “It’s enabling Comark to provide an end-to-end, flexible solution for the DTV market, ready for next-gen TV broadcast.”

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

SOUTHWICK, MASS.—Tom Barbeau has joined Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark as VP of engineering, after a seven-year hiatus from Comark, the company said today.

Barbeau previously spent 11 years with the company as an embedded system engineer. In 2010, he moved to Thomson Video Networks where he worked as a senior systems engineer until last year.

Before entering the civilian workforce, Barbeau had a 28-career in the U.S. military.

“We are pleased to have Tom back with us in his new position,” said Comark President Dick Fiore in a press release. 

SOUTHWICK, MASS.—Hitachi-Comark will ship a new Comark Parallax transmitter to WCTE/Upper Cumberland Public Television in Cookeville, Tenn., in early September. WCTE is a PBS member station that covers the north central counties of Tennessee.

WCTE’s new DTV transmitter will be equipped with eight broadband power amplifiers providing 13kW Transmitter Power Output level. It will be delivered with dual Exact-V2 exciters and a liquid cool system. Comark is handling the shipping, offloading/placement of the transmitter at the WCTE facility.

Additional features of the Parallax transmitter include vertical high-gain power amplifiers that provide 2kW per PA module for UHF or 1.6kW per PA module for VHF band 3; asymmetrical Doherty; hot-swappable between AC and DC; and it is ATSC 1.0 compatible, but is also upgradable to ATSC 3.0.

Hitachi Kokusai Electric Comark LLC has a long standing history in the broadcast TV market. COMARK started more than 45 years ago manufacturing RF components for UHF transmitters and branched out to design and deliver full TV transmission systems. Hitachi-Comark has been involved in many innovations that have revolutionized the market. They are the only transmitter manufacturer to win multiple technical Emmy awards including for the Klystrode tube transmitter and for Digital Modular Adaptive Precorrection (DAP).

Over the last 24 months Hitachi-Comark has been preparing for the FCC repack with a full portfolio of equipment and services. For DTV transmitters, Hitachi-Comark and its sister organization Hitachi Kokusai Linear have introduced two highly efficient Doherty solid state transmitter designs: Parallax liquid cooled and E-Compact air cooled. Both products utilize “repack optimized” broadband Doherty RF amplifier designs.

Beyond amplifier technology, what else should broadcasters look for when evaluating their repack DTV transmitter needs? The FCC has indicated that they will replace “like-for-like” in terms of equipment. Below is a quick list of questions that all broadcasters should be asking before purchasing their DTV transmitters.

UPGRADABLE RF OUTPUT POWER
Does your current or future repack transmitter provide the ability to upgrade/increase the RF output power easily and cost effectively? It should if you are migrating from a horizontal polarized antenna to a newer model with elliptical polarization (adding a vertically polarized component). E-Pol provides added benefit of improved indoor and mobile coverage through its higher power density. Systems like the Parallax utilize a modular design to accommodate customer requirements to increase their power by providing upgradability in terms of adding additional amplifiers or cabinets. Flexibility in design is critical, be sure that your new transmitter is easily upgradeable and expandable and cost effective.

SOFTWARE UPGRADABLE FOR ATSC 3.0
The ATSC has done a tremendous job of bringing ATSC 3.0 from concept to standard in record time. Repack does not mean that stations will start off immediately broadcasting ATSC 3.0; there will be a transition from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0 in the future. The Hitachi-Comark Exact-V2 exciter platform is IP Optimized that features seven Gigabit Ethernet ports. The exciter is compatible with the STL interface (A/324) plus it offers (optional) built-in ALP encapsulation. It features “DualCast” technology, which is easily upgraded from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0 protecting investment today for use tomorrow by a simple software upgrade, no hardware required. Be sure you understand the impacts of upgrading to ATSC 3.0 but also the cost implications (hardware, software, or both). 

AIR OR LIQUID COOLING
There are practical limits to air cooled transmitters due to size and waste heat load. However, if your TPO is between 5 and 10kW, either an air or liquid solution can be utilized. Generally, an air cooled transmitter will be quicker to install but they use the room’s air conditioning (and associated HVAC capacity) to keep the transmitter cooled. Beyond 10kW, liquid cooled DTV transmitters are more practical since the waste heat is moved outside of the transmitter building with an external liquid to air heat exchanger. Consider possible implications that liquid cooling brings to installation and site work including cooling system component location (indoor and outdoor), interconnect plumbing routing and building penetrations.

RF MASK FILTER FOR ADJACENT CHANNELS
Moving from your current RF channel to a new one is cumbersome enough. However, have you considered what RF channels your in-market neighbors will be using? And are these channels adjacent to your new channel? If so, then you should be working with your transmitter supplier to be sure that the proper filter is used and rated for both adjacent channel operation (typically 8-pole filter) but also for future ATSC 3.0 operation. Also, if you have been allocated channel 14, there will likely be additional RF mask filtering requirements to protect adjacent wireless services.

SYSTEM DESIGN REVIEW/SITE SURVEY
No one knows your transmitter site like you do. However, it’s a good idea to have a third party complete a site survey and prepare a system design review. This service is designed to evaluate the current transmitter facility in terms of space, electrical capacity, delivery access, HVAC capacity, transmitter sub-system locations (indoor and outdoor) as well as equipment de-commissioning and removal. Having a vendor such as Hitachi-Comark prepare the System Design Review ensures that lines of demarcation are known and eliminates surprises. Best of all, this service is an expense that can be reimbursed through the FCC 399 budget submittal.

While this is not an exhaustive list, it does cover the major points that all broadcasters should be considering as we enter this very busy time. Hitachi-Comark offers broadcasters more options, more solutions and more services to help broadcasters through the upcoming FCC repack. Visit www.comarktv.com to learn more about Hitachi-Comark and its RF technologies and associated products.

To follow TV Technology's online coverage, visit our repack silo, www.tvtechnology.com/repack. 

TV TECHNOLOGY: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trend at the 2017 NAB Show?

RICHARD E. FIORE, JR.: ATSC 3.0 without question, but it should be noted that the 2017 NAB Show will be the “Year of RF” thanks to the FCC’s completion of the 600 MHz spectrum auction and upcoming repack of the broadcast TV band. Having said that, incorporating ATSC 3.0 into RF products that focus on performance and efficiency will be a key driver towards decision-makers.

TVT: What will be your most important product news?

FIORE: Comark will be announcing the VHF Band 3 version of the award-winning PARALLAX. PARALLAX is our flagship liquid-cooled solid state Doherty DTV transmitter that was designed specifically for repack. Last year this transmitter won the NewBay Media’s Best of Show award. At the NAB Show we will be introducing a VHF Band 3 version of the PARALLAX transmitter that features up to 50 percent efficiency. The VHF Band 3 version of PARALLAX shares all the mechanical architecture, user interface and performance with the UHF version of PARALLAX. The PARALLAX family provides the highest reliability and efficiency, for the lowest overall cost of ownership.

TVT: How is your new product different from what’s available on the market?

FIORE: PARALLAX was specifically designed from the ground up for the U.S. repack market. It is band optimized for Channels 14–36, with broadband Doherty technology, high efficiency and unparalleled RF performance utilizing the latest devices available for RF amplification making this product timely! PARALLAX also provides broadcasters with future proof technology—a transmitter that operates at the same RF output power level in ATSC 1.0 and 3.0. So the transmitter you deploy today will be perfectly suited for use with ATSC 3.0 in the future with no need to de-rate the output power due to the different (OFDM) waveform. 

TVT: What is it about the NAB Show that brings you back every year?

FIORE: For more than 40 years I have been attending the NAB Show with the same company since the Chicago convention in 1975/76. Over the years much has changed, but we have built many strong relationships with broadcasters and we look forward to bringing innovative products and customer focused solutions to the NAB Show. For Comark, the NAB Show is about technology and relationships.