You might not have noticed, but… we’re losin’ a lot o’ sleep over pleasing a bunch o’ dentists. Sheesh.

We’ll get to the dentists in a minute; but first, a story.

It’s a red-letter day around our place when an actual, real, live visitor gets walked through the studios—over the years, the number of civilians eager to watch the sausage being made has plummeted like an outdated holiday panettone off a grocery shelf. And I’m sure the antisocial nature of the technical staff hasn’t helped; who wouldn’t thrill to a detailed explanation of the PSIP protocol by a gassy, coffee-stained engineer?

This visitor, though, was a bright, older fellow… an engineer in his own right, although not attuned to TV. As I led him through room after room of the aging and/or obsolete equipment we all use (if it’s not already obsolete, it will be soon), I was yappin’ about the standards and formats we’d spooled-up over time—SD, HD720, HD1080i, 1080p30, 4K, HDR…

“And 3D?” the visitor added.

I laughed out loud. “Oh, that 3D nonsense,” I grunted. “Lucky that never went anywhere…”

TURNING INWARD

Not accustomed to self-examination—there are few mirrors in Mario’s world—I nonetheless found myself pondering my own kneejerk reaction some hours later, after copious doses of limoncello lubricated the thought processes. OK, so 3D was an awkward, kluge-y attempt at a theatrical novelty act; but I felt that the issue was bigger—it was about the bandwidth.

Now, I’ve used this space several times before to rant incoherently about this dichotomy of small versus big, regarding formats, screens, bandwidth… you name it. But for technologists worried about the future of over-the-air (OTA) TV—and there ain’t nobody left except us these days—this is the burning question: How can you possibly keep pace with algebraic leaps in next-great-invention bitrates?

I know, we’ve got our 6G-SDI and our IP infrastructure; but how many more times will we be able to pull the HEVC rabbit out of the hat… tighten down that compression valve until the bitstream trickles like a shopping mall water fountain? Our elected officials are auctioning spectrum out from under us, which made OTA 3D an even crazier thought—tie up multiple broadcast channels just to watch the snake pop out of the peanut brittle can? At the same time, I’m willin’ to bet that the brain trust at Japan’s NHK Laboratories, aghast at a mere 8K resolution, is putting the finishing touches on OTA 16K transmission.

I don’t know about the rest of youse, but my bandwidth budget is in the red.

LOOK TO THE FUTURE

Let’s pause for a brief (and rare) engineer-pat-on-the-back moment: Even though our original technology has mighty long whiskers, we were able to catch up and meet the OTT whiz kids on their own turf. We learned to send some content via RF, and push other content via cable, mobile and IP platforms… yay, us!

Now, it’s time to take it up a notch, and do what the non-technical types love so much: look at the consumers—our viewers—and see what they really want and need. What’s the one thing we’ve got that the whiz kids don’t got? It’s those towers! We may hate ‘em, we may love ‘em, but they’re the essence of what we are as broadcasters. To use their new-speak jargon, we’re hyperlocal.

We live and work in the communities and regions we serve, and we’ve got boots on the ground. There’s value in that. And until the day our beloved Commish sells out and allows one or two giant corporations to own us all—and to feed content from a single playout server—we’re independent, and we’re diverse. Some of us drawl like rednecks, some have that Cali chill goin’, and others of us sound like a table read for a Sopranos episode (who you thinkin’ bout?). We’ve got texture… local color… and a viewpoint that people wanna hear. Why aren’t we cashing in on that?

And here’s something no one can argue with: our next-gen audience doesn’t seem to give a hoot about high-bitrate streams, HDR and 4K… most of them are content to squint at their wireless devices. Sixty-five-inch 4K screen for $2,000? That’s for the dentists! Back in the days when high-end audio equipment took off, the term “audiophile” was synonymous with “rich guy”—cash to spare. Dentists. Today, the bleeding-edge video gear and high-bitrate services play to the same audience.

As broadcasters, we’re saddled with a pretty skinny bitbudget; but that doesn’t figure into what we really do best. Armed with ATSC 3.0, more modest pricing on production gear, and a love of community, we can make limoncello from the lemons we’re dealt, and keep on pumpin’ our stories into the ether.

Mario Orazio can be reached attvtech@nbmedia.com.

You might not have noticed the buzz. What’s the buzz? Now that’s a classic ’ole game I used to play in “the olden times”: I’d grab my tools and my test gear, slide down off my dinosaur, and try to troubleshoot that gawd-awful, annoying TV buzz. Usually, an over-deviated modulator, a lifted ground or my own personal gremlin, the cold solder joint, was to blame, and the viewing experience was soon restored to mediocrity… a hallmark of the NTSC standard.

These days, light-years away from the technologies of my youth, there’s a different gawd-awful, annoying TV buzz: the high-frequency buzz induced by marketers spinning the ATSC 3.0 feature set.

Of course, it’s not just marketers of consumer electronics, or even broadcast equipment purveyors, crankin’ the buzz generator for 3.0. Rightfully enough, it’s the noble architects of the ATSC itself, whose long and ignominious labors have delivered this bundle of joy to the world. Just stop and think about that task for a minute: warring factions seated around the table, each pitching a hair-brained—and often self-serving—idea about what’s a must-have vs. a no-can-do.

That’s more of a nightmare than the holiday Seven Fishes dinner with Mario’s famiglia… and at least we had my mama nonna whacking the uncles with a wooden spoon when they got outta line. Sheesh.

Is 3.0 buzz-worthy, empirically speaking? You betcha. But the annoying part is that it’s a big buzz for a small, inbred audience—and by that, I mean us. Aside from us techno-nerds, here’s the thing about ATSC 3.0 and its fantabulous features: I don’t think anybody cares.

IGNORANT AND BLISSFUL
Stick with me here: Have you seen the astounding statistics for consumer adoption of UHD? Crazy, right? Runaway success. But uno momento per favore, I’m thinkin’ that the consumers who drove that trend have no idea what UHD is, much less that there’s almost no way to view 4K content today. They simply bought a TV… and, lo and behold, they’re a 4K trendsetter, because those are pretty much the only TVs you can buy. They didn’t care about UHD and 4K, or about surround decoders, or “smart TV” features. They didn’t care about features.

Of course, if you’re an advertiser or marketing wonk, and you want that ATSC 3.0-delivered data stream of granular viewing data, you love the buzz. If you’re a content owner looking to lock up your intellectual property, that buzz means bucks. And, of course, if you’re sellin’ TV sets, well, 3.0 gives you a valid claim on delivering the newest and best tech there is.

But let’s pause for a reality check here… an occupational slap-in-the-chops… and admit that OTA isn’t exactly the bees’ knees any more. There are relatively fewer viewers reached with RF than with boxes and bits; and… if ol’ Mario may dare to hazard a guess… many of the OTA folks aren’t gadgeteers, not as tech-savvy.

One of the real technical triumphs of the 3.0 standard is to bring off-air viewers, armed with nothing more than $12 plastic panel antennas and rooftop bowties, some of the same advanced features boasted by set-top boxes, Rokus and tablets. I know, we’re not allowed to talk about it—I swore the same no-such-thing-as-cord-cutting oath as you did—but some of the ATSC’s jazziest stuff just doesn’t mean anything to those on the eyeball end of the broadcast chain. It could… it should! But the likelihood is low that they’ll ever know about the goodies rolled into 3.0.

And that makes me sad, because along with the wizards of the ATSC and the manufacturers who support both the consumer and broadcast sides, we engineers did what we do best… what we always do. We found clever ways to trick a hostile technical platform—channelized, old-school RF transmitters—into doing basically the same whizbang magic that the digital kids embed with a chunk o’ code.

Some of us will reap some modest benefits here and there, but the rest will have to be satisfied with simply being proud of the crazy-wonderful technical tour-de-force… the HEVC, the AC4, companion devices, IP embeds and watermarking, the whole shebang.

And that’s why the ATSC 3.0 buzz is makin’ me nuts. Because I’m just wondrin’ whether anyone will actually notice.

Mario Orazio is the pseudonym for a well-known television engineer who wishes to remain anonymous. Email him atmorazio@nbmedia.com.

You might not have noticed, but… some things ain’t worth protectin’.

Now, I’m not talkin’ about your sister’s honor, or about the protection my cousin pays for running that mozzarella store downtown. I’m talkin’ about the kind of protection that really gets under my skin: wasted effort, extra work and a nonstop stream of ugly.

I’m done protectin’ 4-by-3.

Now, I’m as nostalgic as the next guy… probably more so, considering all the museum-grade circuitry stuffed into my apartment. But these days, whether shooting, editing or packaging shows for distribution, the extra work required to keep the legacy SDTV zone “safe,” and the rampant creative compromises that result, are enough to make me blow a fuse.

When will we admit 16:9 is the law of the land, and stop protecting 4:3?

BRIDGE TO NOWHERE

Transitions are hard, I know. The NTSC transition from black and white to color, intended to protect legacy TV owners, was a messy affair, commercially and technically—and one that wasn’t ever really solved until the final analog carrier dropped on June 12, 2009. Of course, at that time, high def and 16:9 flat screen receivers were already well-entrenched… a majority of U.S. homes had opened their pocketbooks and moved on up.

But a majority ain’t everybody, and since then, we’ve helped smooth the transition, so they tell me, by pushing the “important” content to the center of the screen, and pretending the rest of our newfound real estate doesn’t exist. Station bugs magically appear near the middle of screen. Talk show sets are built extra-wide so panelists number 1 and 5 aren’t chopped off on legacy CRTs. We’ve tried our darndest to accommodate.

And now… enough is enough.

BY THE NUMBERS

A centercut-safe template, reprinted with permission from Aberdeen Broadcast services If you’re of the “no-viewer-left-behind” mentality, it’s time to climb down off that perch, too. We’re engineers and technologists, and evidenced-based data trumps all the warm-and-fuzzy you can muster. Sure, it’s possible to summon up a mental portrait of old Aunt Ethel and Uncle Al, out past the last cable drop, with nothing but digital hash on the screen of their mighty Magnavox. Touching? Perhaps. Realistic? Not in the least.

First, there’s the most unimpeachable source of data you’ll ever find… your ol’ Uncle Mario. For reasons I can’t properly explain, I’ve sat in the pre-dawn parking lot of a big-box store on Black Friday, and watched the great unwashed literally drag, without benefit of shopping cart, 50-inch flat screen TVs out the doors by the hundreds. In most cases, their new set was worth twice the value of the car that carried it home. And if the DTV transition was a solid investment in this socioeconomic stratum, you can bet there’s ongoing broad adoption.

Don’t trust my keen observations? Well, the good folks at the Leichtman Research Group have been tracking this sort of stuff since the DTV transition, and their numbers tell the tale. In 2010, a bit more than half of U.S. households had an HDTV; that number passed 80 percent by 2015, and continues to grow as prices drop. It’s done, baked. Stick a fork in it.

And there’s another factor, too. Even if Aunt Ethel had actually overcome her hatred of the government, and had sent away for their free DTV converter box, and if she’d sent Uncle Al up onto the farmhouse roof with a new DTV-optimized Yagi, she still couldn’t prevent the ravages of time. A gassy tube will let go one day, or that ol’ flyback’s gonna pop, and soon; and the Philco repairman don’t make house calls any more. Problem solved—even a pensioner can afford a new 40-inch flat screen.

EYES WIDE OPEN

So let’s get to it, and drop the blinders that keep significant action out of the periphery. Imagine an unfettered world where a person can walk on from the left edge of the screen… and walk off the right! Sheesh. Pure poetry.

Having put my stake in the ground, I hereby begin the next battle: to get the centercut provisions struck from the hundreds or thousands of production guides and tech-spec sheets in use at stations, networks and content delivery platforms. Put the bugs back in the corners, and let the DPs and camera operators put our wonderful widescreen world into the proper perspective.

Mario Orazio is the pseudonym of a well-known television engineer who wishes to remain anonymous. Email him atmorazio@nbmedia.com.