HUNT VALLEY, Md.—Sinclair’s One Media Technologies has announced that it will host its annual ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV Interoperability Event from June 23-26, 2026, at its headquarters in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

The in-person event will bring together receiver manufacturers, technology partners, broadcasters, and industry stakeholders to test and validate interoperability across a broad range of NextGen TV services and applications.

During the event, participants will have access to live over-the-air ATSC 3.0 broadcasts in the Baltimore market, as well as a comprehensive suite of interoperability and performance testing scenarios designed to support continued advancement of the NextGen TV ecosystem.

“The continued success of NextGen TV relies on interoperability across devices, networks, and services,” said Mark Aitken, senior vice president of advanced technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group and President of One Media Technologies. “Our annual event provides an important opportunity for industry participants to collaborate, validate implementations, and accelerate innovation across the ATSC 3.0 ecosystem.”

During this year’s event areas of focus will include:

• Broadcaster Application interoperability, including Run3 TV Framework testing and Advanced Emergency Information (AEI) functionality
• Digital Rights Management (DRM) and signal signing validation across DASH and MMT environments
• Signaling enhancements, including new service categories, broadband signaling servers, dynamic service changes, and RSAT implementation
• Hybrid broadcast and broadband service delivery
• Physical layer performance, including dynamic ModCod changes, Layered Division Multiplexing (LDM), and Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) testing
• Dynamic Ad Insertion (DAI) implementation and A/344 API testing
• MIMO backward-compatible configurations
• App-based services including ROXi and GameLoop
• Testing of the Broadcast-Enabled Streaming TV (BEST) channel and live Baltimore ATSC 3.0 OTA signals

More information is available at www.onemedia.tech.

HUNT VALLEY, Md.—Sinclair, Inc. and its subsidiary, ONE Media Technologies have announced that their executives and engineers will be participating in demonstrations, multiple panel discussions, and technical paper presentations relating to NextGen TV/ATSC 3.0, BPS and other topics during the 2026 NAB Show between April 18-22 show in Las Vegas.

In addition, Harvey Arnold, Sinclair’s senior vice president of engineering, will be honored with the 2026 Television Engineering Achievement Award from the NAB during the We Are Broadcasters awards ceremony on April 21.

“Sinclair is focused on advancing the future of broadcast through innovation and collaboration. At this year’s NAB Show, we look forward to demonstrating the continued evolution of ATSC 3.0 and the transformative opportunities it creates for broadcasters, consumers, the broader media ecosystem, as well as the national interest with the Broadcast Positioning System,” said Chris Ripley, president and CEO, Sinclair.

Sinclair and ONE Media will participate in ATSC’s booth in the Central Hall #C1655 of the Las Vegas Convention Center, demonstrating the next evolution of broadcast delivery, “Broadcast Once. Deliver Everywhere”: a single ATSC 3.0 transmission reaching every screen, TV, tablet, and mobile device.

The Sinclair/ONE Media leadership team will also participate in the following NAB panels and presentations (all times PT):

• Saturday, April 18, 3:30-4:40pm. Broadcast Positioning System (BPS): Deployment Progress, Industry Collaboration and the Path Beyond GNSS. Harvey Arnold, Senior Vice President-Engineering. N261
• Saturday, April 18, 3:30-4:40pm. Broadcast Positioning System: Experts Gather to Discuss Current State. Harvey Arnold, Senior Vice President-Engineering. N261
• Saturday, 3:40-4:15pm. Devoncroft Executive Summit: Agentic AI in Media: Business Case and Structural Impact. Mike Kralec, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Main Stage
• Sunday, April 19, 4:00-5:00pm. American Bar Association: Representing Your Local Broadcaster – Video Distribution in 2026 and Beyond. David Gibber, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer. Wynn Lower Event Space
• Monday, April 20 2:00-2:45pm. DigiCAP Introduces AlOps for ATSC 3.0. James Willis, NextGen Deployment Manager, ONE Media Technologies. N249
• Monday, April 20, 3:20-3:40pm. Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) as a Complementary Time Source to GPS for Datacenters. Harvey Arnold, Senior Vice President-Engineering. N256
• Monday, April 20, 3:45-4:15pm. Programming Everywhere: LTN and Tennis Channel on Navigating the IP Transition and Driving Reach and Revenue. Del Parks, President of Technology and Paul Spinelli, Assistant Vice President of Corporate Engineering. W213-W214
• Monday, April 20, 4:00-5:00pm. NextGen TV Tech in Motion: Inside Two Live ATSC 3.0 Lab Prototypes. Jason Kim, Senior Systems Engineer, ONE Media Technologies and So Vang, Vice President, Emerging Technologies, ONE Media Technologies. C2450
• Tuesday, April 21, 11:15-12pm. America 250: Owning the Moment — How Radio and TV Will Drive Community, Culture and Revenue in 2026. Ryan Moore, Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer. N259

As part of the Broadcast Engineering and IT (BEIT) Conference track of NAB, Sinclair/ONE Media will present several technical papers:

• ATSC3 B2X: A Way Towards O-RAN Compliance for Broadcasting. Sangsu Kim, Senior Director, ONE Media, (co-author, presentation by Radisys and Freestream). Saturday, April 18 | 11:40am – noon | N256.
• Broadcast Positioning System Deployment in a Single Frequency Network. Nick Hottinger, Senior Systems Engineer and Liam Power (Edgebeam). Sunday, April 19 | 4 – 4:20pm | N256.
• Only SFNs Deliver ATSC 3.0 Everywhere: Turning Broadcast Theory into Nationwide Reality. Louis Libin, VP, Spectrum Strategy and Engineering, ONE Media. Monday, April 20 | 9:30 – 9:50am | N256.
• ATSC 3.0 – B2X Interworking With 5G Core for End-to-End Broadcast Integration. Sangsu Kim, Senior Director, ONE Media, Mike Simon, Director Advanced Technology, ONE Media Technologies; and Rashmi Kamran, Freestream. Monday, April 20 | 10:10 – 10:30am | N256.
• Standardized but Sleeping: Awakening a Forgotten Feature – Wake Up Bits. Jason Kim, Senior Systems Engineer, ONE Media. Monday, April 20 | 11:40am – noon | N256.

HUNT VALLEY, Md.—Sinclair and its wholly-owned subsidiary One Media Technologies have released a new report focused on how ATSC 3.0, the IP-based NextGen TV standard, delivers data more efficiently and in a more sustainable manner than other wireless transmission alternatives.

The report, “ATSC 3.0: Efficient, Scalable, Sustainable Wireless Capacity,” was penned by One Media Technologies strategic marketing advisor Josh Gordon with an introduction by Sinclair senior vice president and One Media Technologies president Mark Aitken.

“ATSC 3.0’s IP streams are now opening business and efficiency opportunities at broadcast stations as well as with the IP systems used by telecoms, streamers, CDNs, and data transport companies,” the report says.

While covering a lot of familiar ground for those involved with the standard, the report brings a good deal of context to the discussion, particularly in terms of how 3.0 and 5G together address some major problems with growing video consumption over unicast wireless networks. It examines how 3.0 can reduce 5G capacity spikes and thereby reduce the need for infrastructure buildout, additional electrical power and associated carbon emissions created to power new network cells as well as create massive savings in the capital expense otherwise needed to construct new 5G cell sites.

Hybrid 5G-Broadcast Examples
The report points to two examples of the benefits of a hybrid multicast-unicast data network. In the U.K., British Telecom has spent about $1 billion to create its Multicast-Assisted Unicast Delivery System (MAUD), which leverages existing terrestrial broadcast and satellite spectrum to augment 5G service and cut capacity peaks in half.

The report quotes a CSI magazine interview with BT director of engineering Ian Parr as saying: “We can expect MAUD technology to use up to 50% less bandwidth during peak events, reducing energy usage through the use of fewer caches, and network equipment scale. What is more, next generations of equipment will use even less power and drive down carbon emissions of media distributions.”

If current media consumption trends continue, with individuals accessing content via a solely unicast wireless network, it could cost the U.K. wireless industry as much as $20.8 billion to build out capacity to handle the traffic, making MAUD’s $1 billion price tag a bargain, the report says.

Similarly, India’s 5G wireless network “sometimes gets clogged” with video, the report says, pointing out that congestion will only get worse going forward as mobile content consumption is expected to double every three to four years. That’s why Prasar Bharati, the nation’s public broadcaster, has conducted two rounds of trials of 3.0-based Direct-to-Mobile (D2M). The D2M initiative is in keeping with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goals of using advanced digital technologies to advance the nation’s socioeconomic growth, it says.

According to the report, D2M could “shift 25-30%” of video traffic from 5G to enable operators to moderate their 5G network expansion.

Quoting a May 2025 article from The Economic Times of India, the report says: “India appears to be moving closer to a commercial roll-out of the direct-to-mobile (D2M) technology, having completed significant preparatory work.”

ATSC 3.0 Efficiency
The report begins with a discussion of the efficiency of the ATSC 3.0 physical layer. It discusses how closely 3.0’s different operating points (capacity vs. robustness) are aligned with the Shannon Limit—the maximum number of bits that can pass through a channel, pointing out that on this basis alone 3.0 is 28% more efficient than ATSC 1.0.

It also discusses how the High-Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC) is four times more efficient than the MPEG-2 codec used for 1.0. Together, the physical layer efficiency and HEVC’s efficiency “deliver a 5x video efficiency increase over ATSC 1.0,” it says.

It then explores how even greater video efficiencies can be achieved with the standard. It points out that the Versatile Video Codec (VVC), which the Advanced Television Systems Committee standardized support for earlier in the year, is twice as efficient as HEVC. Further, efficiencies are possible through the use of Multiple Input Multiple Output technology, which is supported in ATSC 3.0 and is one of the centerpieces of Brazil’s TV 3.0 standard, which leverages many components of the ATSC 3.0 suite of standards.

The report is published as a PDF with links to multiple reference works, including guides, manuals, articles and videos, such a 30-minute video on the functionality of the 3.0 physical layer by Luke Fay of Sony Electronics, former chair of the ATSC committee that developed it.

The report concludes by reiterating how ATSC 3.0 enhances efficiency and sustainability. “Broadcasters that adopt ATSC 3.0 advance responsible stewardship of their broadcast spectrum by both raising the efficiency of TV delivery, and by adding efficiency to IP systems they integrate with. In short, ATSC 3.0 transforms the output of a terrestrial TV station into a series of multipurpose streams that can natively integrate with digital infrastructure.”

According to a One Media Technologies spokesperson, the report will be discussed during a Dec. 11 TVNewsCheck webinar.

Click here to download the report.

More information about the webinar is available online.

Many U.S. broadcasters have refused to see mobile as an important part of their future, Sinclair senior vice president of advanced technology and ONE Media Technologies president Mark Aitken says. But he hasn’t.

Sure, the path to linear NextGen TV on mobile phones will be difficult, especially as carriers and device makers control the device ecosystem. But that hasn’t dissuaded him.

Returning from IBC in September, Aitken said he had conversations with fellow broadcasters from Brazil and India that illustrate the challenges of getting linear TV onto cellphones, as well as a possible solution.

In this interview, Aitken discusses the lessons broadcasters can learn from the ISBD-T SEG-1 mobile phone experience of Brazilian broadcasters, the role India and its direct-to-mobile (D2M) strategy may play, the growing ecosystem of ATSC 3.0-enabled consumer devices, and other key business opportunities that 3.0 offers U.S. broadcasters.

(An edited transcript.)

TV Tech: Broadcasters are on the cusp of greater certainty with respect to an eventual shutdown of 1.0 and, ultimately, 3.0 finishing the transition. Is there any reason to think that the wireless carriers and their device vendors will enable linear TV to be received on mobile phones?
Mark Aitken: I think the answer to that is no. Not linear TV, but what we have to offer through ATSC 3.0 that is not TV in the conventional sense they will, over a relatively short period of time, come to understand that the multicast broadcast capabilities of ATSC 3.0 can work to their advantage.

TVT: Let’s set datacasting aside for a moment and focus on linear TV to mobile phones and devices offered by carriers. Why won’t that happen?
MA: I think the issue of controlling the device is a very real issue. One example came out during conversations at IBC with some Brazilians. As you know, Brazil recently adopted ATSC 3.0 for their terrestrial television.

Part of the Brazilian experience brought to light what ended up happening as it relates to ISDB-T. Previously, they elected to use ISDB-T for their physical layer and ended up doing their own version of some of the middle layers of the ISO stack, but they wanted mobility.

They were very aspirational and saw a future that U.S. broadcasters have long refused to see as a future. They see mobility as being an important part of their future, and they made the decision for ISBD-T.

[Editor’s note: Brazil officially adopted ISDB-T in June 2006. In August 2025, it adopted the ATSC 3.0 physical layer for its next-gen DTV+ system.]

And just as use of their linear mobile channel was available and a flood of devices that came to the Brazilian market—because the other alignment for ISDB-T was Japan, as Japan already had it—you had a large number of mobile device manufacturers that were already building ISDB-T 1-SEG-enabled mobile devices.

As they started to come into the market, suddenly other options for delivery of video came along, and that was the business of the carriers, and the broad availability of these free-over-the-air-capable phones suddenly dwindled down to just a couple of devices that were available, squeezed out by the mobile network operators.

It's clear. They’re in the business of making money. People want to watch relevant content. There was and continues to be a large amount of relevant content that TV broadcasting delivers, whether it’s local news or sports.

But they squeezed ISDB-T as a free service out of existence because they control the device universe. When someone like Qualcomm makes the statement: “We have no intent to build separable chips for broadcast services. 5G Broadcast is part of our silicon,” you know what they are making very clear is that the services and capabilities that the mobile network operators are demanding at the core of the devices that serve their consumers at the end of the day they will control.

Just because 5G exists as a small area on a 7nm chip structure in the middle of a phone doesn’t mean the carriers are going to allow its use. There are lots of ways to figure that one out.

In the U.S., you can use MediaFLO as an example. At the end of the day, Verizon could never come to business terms with a separate entity to operate the MediaFLO network.

(Read: Opinion: Why European broadcasters need to gain control of the mobile device ecosystem)

Verizon tried to operate it themselves, and they began to realize there’s a lot to this business that they didn’t understand. There’s a lot to the licensing side. There’s a lot to the IP royalty side.

This all enhances at least this one guy’s opinion: Thinking that Qualcomm and the mobile network operators are going to allow broadcasters to continue in the business of operating free-over-the-air television to mobile devices, it's insane to imagine that that's going to be the case. And I believe it’s a trap.

Will ATSC 3.0 ever make its way onto a system on a chip at the heart of a phone? I think that, again, it comes back to having success in showing a plentiful device universe.

TVT: Where does development of that universe stand?
MA: Well, I think that some years after we have success in showing a plentiful device [ATSC 3.0] universe is when 3.0 as a system on a chip may emerge.

By the way, we showed smartphones, tablets and obviously television sets, USB dongle devices and feature phones [with 3.0 receivers] at IBC in September.

Feature phones are a class of devices that I would venture to say you will never find Qualcomm engaged in supplying because the economics aren’t there.

We see that as an opportunity, particularly in a country like India or any number of developing nations, and we’re clearly going after some of those market opportunities.

My point is, we’ve had discussions with MediaTek and Qualcomm. By the way, MediaTek provides more SoCs [system on a chip] in the mobile phone market than Qualcomm—more than anybody in the world.

They are very clear. Show us a market that wants ATSC 3.0 and it’ll be on the SoC.

Until then, we've got a more than capable chipset. The fact that I can show you a half-dozen different types of devices that fill out that ecosystem shows that if we can do it, I would venture to say just about anybody can.

It's not our core business, but we feel that strongly about mobile that we’ve put in much effort to make that happen.

TVT: You brought up India, which has announced it favors a direct-to-mobile (D2M) strategy but hasn’t yet selected how it intends to make that happen. Where do things stand with ATSC 3.0 as the solution?
MA: Look, you know, if India adopts ATSC 3.0 for D2M and every imaginable device, that would be huge.

At IBC, we spent a lot of time with the chairman of Prasar Bharati, the public broadcaster in India, discussing exactly the future in India.

Has ATSC 3.0 been chosen? No, not yet. You’ve got a bureaucracy that’s being navigated. At the same time, you have other interests that don’t see that it’s to their benefit that ATSC 3.0 is chosen. So, we don’t have a slam dunk in India, but at the same time, most stakeholders in broadcasting have been engaged in support of ATSC 3.0.

Will a minority faction win out? Well, I guess some of that will come down to money and how much people are willing to lie. And you can quote me on that.

TVT: You mentioned how important feature phones with 3.0 reception will be in developing markets like India. Are there any other devices?
MA: I did leave out another class of devices. Intel now has a reference for ATSC 3.0 on their laptops. One of the reasons for that is remote learning, which is an exceptionally important piece of the puzzle in India. I can tell you that there is a another very large, well-known PC manufacturer that is moving to integrate ATSC 3.0.

TVT: Earlier, you said you believe carriers ultimately will recognize the multicast broadcast capabilities of ATSC 3.0. Why?
MA: This is because of the IP nature of the standard and the work that is going on openly now in ATSC with B2X [broadcast to everything.]

B2X is a two-stage program. It’s activity that ONE Media started and has been engaged in for more than three years. For more than the last year, it’s transitioned to a small group inside ATSC. The membership knew about it, but now it has become public-facing. ATSC has broadcast to the rest of the world that this activity is underway and is inviting folks from across the spectrum of telecom to participate.

What ATSC 3.0 has to offer is its unique multicast broadcast capabilities lend themselves to providing an economic incentive for large mobile network operators to contract capacity inside of our spectrum. Sinclair and ONE Media have been public about some of that activity. We've done webinars with a large focus on automotive.

I can tell you that it was a learning experience. It was one of the reasons that we internally decided to develop B2X broadcast-to-everything because we began to understand the needs of those folks who we saw as being potential clients in that datacasting activity.

We’ve also talked about CDN [content delivery network] offloads. When you dig deep into those verticals, it’s certainly not the same vertical we’re in as televisioners, but you begin to understand the unique relationship they have with the carriers and the uniqueness of that carrier infrastructure.

To be really attractive to them as a carrier of their bits, our bits and their bits need to be equals in the way they are formed, and the way that they are received and processed. That’s what B2X is all about. It is a bridging technology that’s nearing completion.

BALTIMORE—Sinclair will make the first public showing of a NextGen TV-enabled Android media tablet with integrated ATSC 3.0 receiver and antenna during the public-safety convention APCO 2025, to be held July 27-30 at the Baltimore Convention Center.

The broadcaster, exhibiting with the AWARN Alliance and Digital Alert Systems in booth 3065, is debuting the media tablet during the annual gathering of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials to underscore the important role ATSC 3.0 can play in keeping the public informed during emergencies—whether at home watching TV or on the move.=

“We’ve had our eye on APCO for this demonstration because we want to show public safety officials—particularly public-safety communications officials—what 3.0 can do in the home and on the go in a public safety context,” Patrick McFadden, senior vice president for global public policy and communications at Sinclair, said.

But why should a tablet that can already connect to a cell tower or Wi-Fi network need ATSC 3.0 to receive emergency messaging? It boils down to resiliency, McFadden said.

“I’m not taking a shot at the wireless carriers, but their networks are just designed differently than ours,” he said. “If you look at some of those counties in Western North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, 60 to 70% of the cell sites went out of service. Our station in Asheville never went off the air.

“That resilience and reliability is tremendous for the TV viewer, but what about someone who’s out of their home when the emergency happens or someone who’s been evacuated?” he asked, rhetorically. “If we can combine our resilience with the ubiquity of mobile devices, that’s a pretty huge public-safety benefit.”

McFadden declined to identify the company responsible for making the NextGen TV-enabled tablet but said Sinclair has been “working with a number of manufacturers” to develop 3.0 mobile devices, including tablets and phones.

In October 2020, Sinclair subsidiary ONE Media Technologies surprised the industry when it unveiled production samples of the Mark One NextGen TV-enabled smartphone. Since then, it has rolled out the next-generation Mark Two smartphone.

Like the Mark One, the tablet shown next week at the gathering is not available for purchase, he said, adding, “I would characterize it as a precommercial trial.” However, the broadcaster has ordered “a large number of these devices,” a sign that the tablet is beyond the proof-of-concept stage. “We’re confident that the market will advance as 3.0 moves forward,” McFadden said.

Besides the NextGen TV-enabled tablet, Sinclair will show the Mark Two 3.0-enabled smartphone as well as NextGen TV dongles that work with mini devices. All of these devices will be used to demonstrate to the more than 5,000 show attendees what emergency alert messages and advanced emergency information could look like on these devices, he said.

Broadcasters in North Carolina, including PBS North Carolina and Capitol Broadcasting’s WNGT, along with several technology developers and vendors demonstrated a few years ago the ability of ATSC 3.0 digital broadcast paging to transmit emergency call data to first responders in the field.

Sinclair’s APCO 2025 demonstration of the version 3.0 tablet and phone, however, will focus on the consumer-facing side of emergency communications, not first responders. “One of the great things about 3.0 is it can do both [communicate to first responders and the public],” he said. “Broadcasters’ use of 3.0 to communicate emergency alerts and information to the public is a valuable service we can provide to the communities we serve, and we want to make that clear to those attending APCO.”

Of course, having the ability to receive an over-the-air TV signal on a tablet beyond emergency alerting and information is important to both the public and broadcasters. “Obviously, the way people consume video has evolved and will continue to evolve, and the opportunities for us to reach viewers wherever they are is hugely significant for the industry,” he said.

TORONTO—The North American Broadcasters Association said board member Louis Libin, VP of spectrum engineering and strategies at One Media Technologies/Sinclair, has been named by the Federal Communications Commission to its 2027 World Radio Communications Conference Advisory Council (WRC-27 WAC).

The WRC-27 WAC provides the FCC with advice, technical support and recommended proposals for the 2027 World Radiocommunication Conference, as well as helping to identify public/private sector priorities and objectives and gathering the data necessary to formulate meaningful recommendations for these objectives, NABA said.

Libin was tapped for this role based on considerable expertise and experience in International Telecommunications Union matters, NABA said. He will step down from his seat on NABA’s board of directors and will be succeeded by Sinclair President of Technology Del Parks, a 50-year veteran of the broadcast business.

“This is a significant role for Louis and the interests of broadcasting, and while we will miss his work with the NABA Board, we look forward to his continued involvement at the Committee level,” NABA Director-General Rebecca Hanson said. “Del will make an excellent addition to the NABA board. He is actively engaged in a variety of projects at the cutting edge of broadcast technology.”

NABA is a nonprofit association of broadcasting organizations in the United States, Mexico and Canada committed to advancing the interests of broadcasters at home and abroad. It is a member of the World Broadcasting Unions (WBU).

COCKEYSVILLE, MD.—Sinclair and its subsidiary, ONE Media Technologies, hosted another in a continuing series of ATSC 3.0 device interoperability trials this week.

This time, the testing centered on DRM (digital rights management) and signal signing, dynamic ad insertion, the ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer, dynamic service changes, interactive services, enhanced audio and video services, failover recovery, and performance of a “BEST” (Broadcast-Enabled Streaming Television) channel feature whereby an over-the-air signaled channel is delivered via a broadband connection.

According to Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media Technologies and Sinclair’s senior vice president of advanced technology, the June 3-7 “interop,” or “plugfest” was the seventh such event to be hosted by ONE Media, and the second in-person trialing of NextGenTV technology since 2020.

More than two dozen equipment manufacturers and broadcast groups participated in the trialing, which took place in the ONE Media lab facility at Sinclair’s headquarters located in this Baltimore suburb. More than 100 separate tests were scheduled to be conducted during the four-and-a-half-day event.

Trials involved air chain (encoder, packager, gateway and exciter) technology providers, as well as 3.0 receiver and emergency alerting equipment manufacturers. ONE Media and Sinclair, in addition to providing the facility, also distributed Baltimore area ATSC 3.0 off-air signals to participants’ workstations to create a real-world testing environment.

What's Being Trialed This Time
Along with continued testing of ATSC 3.0’s MMT (MPEG media transport) and DRM (digital rights management) components, this year’s sessions also addressed signal modulation changes, with the latter being especially important as new NextGen TV services such as datacasting, DAI (dynamic ad insertion) and BPS (broadcast positioning service) are rolled out.

As explained by the event’s coordinator, and ONE Media senior systems engineer, Jason Kim, with 3.0, the signal modulation component is not fixed as was the case in earlier DTV implementations and standards.

“With ATSC 3.0 you can make your signal robust, but you’re not going to have as much bandwidth and throughput,” he said. “[Alternatively], you can change things to increase bandwidth to deliver as much data as possible, but the signal is not going to be as robust. There’s a tradeoff.”

“We’re trying to find a sweet spot where we can continue our linear video services and also provide robust mobile data delivery. Since the ATSC 3.0 physical layer modulation is flexible, we can optimize this,” he added.

Kim stated that testing of 3.0 physical layer configurations in preparation for datacasting would be part of the interop schedule.

“This is important, not just for Sinclair, but for others as well,” he said. “We are testing different configurations end-to-end in the delivery chain. Our number one priority is to ensure that there is no service disruption to television viewers. We want to find a modulation ‘sweet spot’ where this is possible.”

Kim observed too that while DRM testing had been part of previous interop events, it figured heavily into this year’s schedule as well.

“We want to make sure that there is interoperability with all of the existing receivers out there,” he said.

Aitken amplified Kim’s remarks.

“You’ve had early issues in connection with DRM that have stuck in the minds of some,” said Aitken, recalling that there had been mixed opinions about the technology developed to ensure that a network’s high-quality content wasn’t accessible by those who would want to use it for monetary gain.

“The battle cry has been that DRM gets in the way,” said Aitken. “At this event, we’re seeing that the different permutations of DRM are working quite well. This is a testimony to everyone involved, and also serves to raise a hand in the crowd and say ‘wait a minute — there’s a lot being said about little to nothing.’ Here’s the proof [a consensus on DRM]. Here’s the industry coming together.”

A Quicker Way of Rolling out NextGen TV
Kim observed that the “failover recovery” element of the interop testing was being performed in connection with a technology that’s being developed to allow broadcasters to very quickly deploy ATSC 3.0 services.

“This is an air chain that’s set up in the cloud,” said Kim. “It’s a totally virtual air chain. ONE Media and Sinclair demonstrated this air-chain-in-the-cloud concept at the NAB Show this year. We’re using the same air chain in our tests this week. This is the first time that a cloud air chain has been used at an interop.”

He elaborated that the “failover” component of the testing was especially important for when cloud-based 3.0 is implemented on a large scale.

“We’re testing failover between cloud and on-premises air chain implementations to see how fast these changes can be made,” said Kim. We need to [establish] the best way to do this so the viewer doesn’t notice. We need to see how receivers react and if this changeover can be done seamlessly.”

Interop Timing
Aitken noted that this year’s interop event had been scheduled to occur close to the June 12-13 ATSC NextGen Broadcast Conference and associated meetings.

“We thought that a lot of folks would be in town for either the interop or the ATSC annual conference; maybe for one or the other, and for many, both,” said Aitken. “If it didn’t make sense to come for one thing, it makes sense to come for two things. This event [the interop] is all the more timely because of the push within the FCC to sunset ATSC 1.0.

“I expect that within the next few years we’ll have the ATSC 3.0 national rollout well underway. Washington is sort of a strange place these days, so nobody is taking bets on exactly what’s going to happen and when something’s going to happen, but I can tell you that’s something’s going to happen.”

Advantages of In-Person Testing
While noting that ATSC 3.0-related interops of plugfests had continued virtually during the pandemic, both Aitken and Kim acknowledged that there was no substitute for the in-person testing and evaluation that was taking place at this year’s event.

“At an in-person event, we all see the same thing and work together to troubleshoot any problems,” said Kim. “This happens a lot faster when you’re doing things in person. You get more things done in person. It’s very different from a virtual environment.”

“If you get the right people together at the same time in the same place, and deal with the same issues, many of these issues are easy to resolve,” said Aitken. “We saw that last time, especially in connection with signal signing. One party had it right and three had it wrong. What they had differently was quickly worked out.

“We’ve got encoding, packaging, scheduling, modulation, along with the demodulation and display — the entire chain all in one place,” he observed. “It’s rare that you have in the same room multiple representatives from every piece of the broadcast chain.

The interop event attracted some 55 participants traveling from a variety of countries with a presence or interest in NextGen TV development. Organizations represented included ADTH, Airwavz, Alticast, Anywave, Ateme, DigiCAP, DS Broadcast, DTV Innovations, EiTV, Enensys, Gray Media, Harmonic, Hisense, Heartland Video Systems (HVS), iWedia, Koherence, Maru Eng, News-Press & Gazette (NPG), Pearl TV, Rhode & Schwarz, Samsung, Sinclair/ONE Media, Sony, Synamedia, TCL, Triveni Digital, Velope, and Zixi.

BALTIMORE—Sinclair and its subsidiary ONE Media Technologies have issued a reminder that they are hosting an end-to-end interoperability event taking place June 3-6 at Sinclair’s headquarters in Hunt Valley, Maryland.

The event is being put on in collaboration with Pearl TV. More than 30 manufacturers, developers, and vendors representing all aspects of the broadcast air chain, including encoder manufacturers, transmitter manufacturers, receiver manufacturers, and others, are attending the event.

Participants will bring products and systems to test their compatibility and identify and resolve interoperability issues. Resolving these issues before devices are deployed to consumers will save time and resources and is an important part of a successful transition to NextGen TV, the organizers reported.

“NextGen TV is the future of the broadcast television industry,” Mark Aitken, Sinclair’s senior vice president of advanced technology and president of ONE Media Technologies, said. “Ensuring a successful transition to ATSC 3.0 by February 2028 in the top 55 markets and February 2030 in remaining markets will require working together with all elements of the broadcast ecosystem to ensure consumers are ready to receive our signals. We are proud to host this event, bringing together so many of our partners to help bring broadcasting into the modern era with NextGen TV.”

More information is available from Jason Kim (jkim@sbgtv.com or 410-891-3577).

HUNT VALLEY, Md.—Sinclair, Inc. and its subsidiary, ONE Media Technologies, have announced that members of their leadership team will be participating in multiple panel discussions and technical paper presentations during the 2025 NAB Show in Las Vegas between April 5-9 show.

Sinclair and ONE Media will also be participating demos of NextGen TV/ATSC 3.0 in ATSC’s NAB booth in the West Hall (W3056). During the show it will be involved in demonstrations of the features that will be enabled by ATSC 3.0 when broadcasters can sunset their 1.0 signals, including 4K Advanced HDR video, Advanced Emergency Alerting capabilities, the Broadspan Data Distribution platform and a Broadcaster Application. The Broadcaster Application will enable NextGen TV features such as enhanced content, program restart, hyper-localized weather and programmatic advertising.

Sinclair will also be providing an update on the use of ATSC 3.0 to provide complementary position, navigation, and timing services in conjunction with eLORAN, to back up GPS service in the event of disruption.

In addition, Sinclair’s president and CEO Chris Ripley, along with executives from Scripps, Gray and Nexstar, will host a fireside chat discussion on Monday, April 7 at 2PM PT in the NAB Briefing Room, W208 LMR (2nd level) to discuss EdgeBeam Wireless, LLC, a joint venture created to provide robust wireless data services to a wide range of businesses and industries across the country.

“Sinclair is committed to driving technological innovation and shaping the future of the industry. As we look ahead in 2025, we will continue to explore new advancements, foster industry collaboration, and showcase Sinclair’s thought leaders as they provide insights into the expanding opportunities of NextGen Broadcast,” said Ripley.

The Sinclair/ONE Media leadership team will participate in the following NAB panels and presentations (all times PT):

Saturday, April 5

11:45AM-12:45PM

"BPS Project Update and eLORAN Demo & Using BPS & eLORAN as PNT Survivability Solution on Loss of Space Resources" (W222-W223)

Harvey Arnold, SVP, Engineering

1:30PM-1:50PM

"Beyond the Antenna: Cloud-Native Broadcasting with ATSC 3.0, A Blueprint for the Future of Broadcast Operations" (W220-W221)

James Willis, NextGen Deployment Manager, ONE Media Technologies

Sunday, April 6

9:00AM – 9:45AM

"Programming Everywhere: Understanding the Audience in a Fragmented Age" (Beethoven, Encore Hotel)

Rob Weisbord, Chief Operating Officer and President of Local Media

10:00AM-10:30AM

"Bridging the Gap: Deploying Live Ultra HD Broadcasts Across HDR and SDR Systems"

(W222-W223)

Matthew Goldman, VP, Strategic & Technical Initiatives

11:00AM-11:20AM

"BPS Mesh Network – Initial Deployment Report" (W222-W223)

11:20AM-11:40AM

"Field Test of ATSC 3.0/BPS Precise Time Distribution" (W222-W223)

11:40AM-12Noon

"Transferring traceable time to BPS-enabled ATSC 3.0 station" (W220-W221)

Harvey Arnold, SVP, Engineering

1:15PM-2PM

"Programming Everywhere: (Re) Building a Sports Business on Local Broadcast" (Beethoven, Encore Hotel)

Scott Shapiro, EVP Corporate Development and Strategy

3:30PM-4:00PM

"NextGen TV: the New Frontier for Content Interactivity and Immersive Experiences" (W222-223)

Amit Mathur, Senior Vice President of Product Engineering

4:15PM-4:45PM

"Never a Slow News Day: Transforming 24/7 News Operations" (W1343 AWS Theater)

Ernie Ensign, AVP, News Technology & Operations

Monday, April 7

8:00AM-8:45AM

"Innovation at the Helm CTO Views on 2025 MediaTech Trends" (IABM Lounge N259 LMR)

Mike Kralec, SVP, Chief Technology Officer

11:00AM-11:30AM

"Deloitte/ Women in Media: 30 Things I Wish I Knew at 30" (W2631)

Lucy Rutishauser, EVP and Chief Financial Officer

1:30 PM – 2PM

"Strategies for Architecting Scalable Cloud Video Stacks for FAST, Live and SVOD" (W106-W107)

Walid Hamri, AVP, Media Systems Engineering

1:30 PM-2PM

"How Sinclair Migrated to an IP-Based Platform to Facilitate the Transition of their Station MCRs into the Cloud" (W108-W109)

Mike Kralec, SVP, Chief Technology Officer

2:00-3:00PM

"Edgebeam Wireless Press Briefing" (208 LMR)

Chris Ripley, President and Chief Executive Officer

4:10PM-4:30PM

"Optimizing Dynamic Ad Insertion for ATSC 3.0 in Low Broadband Access Markets" (W222-W223)

Liam Power, Senior Systems Engineer, ONE Media Technologies

BALTIMORE—Matthew Goldman was named VP of strategic and technical initiatives at ONE Media Technologies, the tech subsidiary of station group Sinclair.

Goldman will lead the implementation, expansion and support of advanced operational technologies, including High Dynamic Range video (HDR). Goldman will also manage conformance testing and develop operational handoff processes for ATSC 3.0, the advanced terrestrial broadcasting standard marketed as NextGen TV, ONE Media Technologies said.

Goldman, who joined Sinclair in 2021, had most recently been senior director of media engineering and architecture. He now reports to ONE Media President and Sinclair Senior Vice President Mark Aitken, Sinclair said.

“Matthew brings extensive industry expertise and technical insight to guide the upcoming transformation of the broadcast industry,” Aitken said. “His contributions are invaluable to Sinclair and ONE Media’s highly skilled teams.”

Goldman has been deeply involved in developing digital television systems for the past 30 years. In the 1990s, he played a key role with the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), contributing to the creation of the MPEG-2 standard.

He also co-developed the Program and System Information Protocol standard for the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). In the mid-2000s, he pioneered the broadcasting industry’s first compressed-domain program splicer.

A recipient of multiple Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards and other industry honors, Goldman served a two-year term as president of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) starting in January 2017.

He also has contributed to the 2007 and 2017 editions of the NAB Engineering Handbook and authored various works published in IEEE Proceedings and the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal.

“As we deploy new business models and capabilities across our NextGen stations, we are excited to have Matthew fill this position at this critical time,” Sinclair President of Technology Del Parks said. “His deep industry experience and technical expertise at many levels of technology provides Sinclair with unique capabilities in the areas of signaling for addressable advertising and techniques for improved picture quality.”

Goldman earned Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He holds many patents related to digital video transport.

A SMPTE Fellow, he is also a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and an inductee to the Academy of Digital Television Pioneers. He is currently chairperson of the North American Broadcasters Association Technical Committee.

“I’m excited to take on this position at such a pivotal time in the broadcast industry,” Goldman said. “As we continue to advance technologies like ATSC 3.0 and HDR, it’s crucial to ensure seamless integration and operational excellence. I look forward to contributing to these groundbreaking initiatives and driving innovation that will shape the future of broadcasting.”

More information is available on the company’s website.

When Max bought his hybrid electric vehicle in 2020, he loved being able to drive back and forth to his business without using a drop of gas. Then came the software updates. One dealership charged for something he thought was supposed to be free. The next was a black hole of never knowing when he would get the vehicle back. The experience halted his plan to buy a second HEV until something better came along.

Fortunately, something better is in the works. ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology would put vehicle software updates on par with cell phones and laptops — fast, seamless and largely unnoticed.

In the meantime, noted Roger Lanctot, “We are at this strange crossroads where not everyone is doing updating the same way.” A former director of global automotive connected mobility at Strategy Analytics who’s been involved in auto telematics since the early 2000s, Lanctot said there are updates via thumb drives, smartphone apps, private cellular networks and of course, dealership visits. None of these methods are ideal, uniform or data efficient.

The technology standards group responsible for ATSC 3.0 has understood its potential for the automotive industry for some time, but OEMs and their tier 1 suppliers are still learning about it, according to broadcast veteran Mark Barrington, who heads up the ATSC’s Automotive Implementation Team (IT8).

“The initial scope of work [of IT8] is building membership and participation and industry awareness,” Barrington said. “We’re raising the profile of what we’re doing. We’re building implementation guides for integration ATSC 3.0 into vehicles and what specs need to be agreed on.”

Software updates are just one of several vehicle applications that require ‘on’ connectivity. Besides crash and service notifications and roadside assistance, carmakers are looking at popular streaming platforms and the type of enhanced navigation capabilities necessary for autonomous driving functions.

“Because of the growing number of vehicle applications, automakers recognize that connectivity is no longer optional,” Lanctot said. “If you have hundreds of millions of lines of code in the car, you need a way to connect to the car and maintain it.”

As a result, vehicle data usage is on the rise, said Chip Goetzinger, a connected-vehicle specialist previously with Nissan and SiriusXM. Vehicle software is becoming dramatically more complex, with as many as 150 electronic control units, or ECUs, in a vehicle, with more and more lines of code on each. ECUs control one or more of the electronic systems in a vehicle, e.g., engine control, powertrain, transmission, brakes, timing, suspension, etc. Each essentially comprises a separate computer system.

“Both software and firmware are being updated more regularly,” Goetzinger said. “The way this works from an OEM standpoint — they must identify all vehicles that need updating, update them and confirm the updates. With a large number of vehicles, they have to carefully coordinate with the [wireless] carrier so as not to overwhelm the network.”

Automakers recognize the growing necessity of automotive connectivity. A few months of free satellite radio no longer cuts the mustard. Toyota, for example, is now providing a free 10-year trial period of its connected safety and service apps on several models. GM will offer eight years of free OnStar starting next year. New Volvos have complementary roadside assistance connectivity for four years, while certified used models come with five years. All are cellular dependent. This leaves customers exposed to the vulnerability of cellular networks, which sputter when congested or fail during weather or other natural events that broadcast technology typically withstands.

This is leading automakers to consider multimodal connectivity combining cellular, satellite, WiFi and C-V2X (vehicle-centric 3GPP), but virtually none of those technologies enable simultaneous mass downloads like ATSC 3.0.

Goetzinger emphasized that ATSC 3.0 would not replace cellular connectivity: “Given pros and cons of different methods, there will need to be several. There’s no backchannel with broadcast. Cellular is data inefficient for downloads but perfect for the backchannel. These are complementary capabilities that can keep costs down.”

Current methods for bringing data into vehicles fall into three categories, Goetzinger said, each with its own strengths and drawbacks:

Built-in connectivity involves the use of telematic control units, or TCUs. These are typically embedded cellular devices either added by the manufacturer or an aftermarket supplier. These provide access to core vehicle data but leave the OEM responsible for the cost of data. They also add to the cost of the vehicle and are subject to bricking when a network sunsets.

Brought in data uses a customer device paired to the vehicle or a WiFi connection. The data cost is covered by the customer or WiFi owner. This keeps the vehicle cost down but also limits access to core systems and data.

Beamed in data via AM/FM, satellite, GPS and eventually ATSC 3.0 TV signals. The upside is ensured data availability, global standards and lower cost. The downside is the one-way nature of the connection.

Even with the one-way limitation, ATSC 3.0 is a unique value proposition for automotive connectivity. In addition to simultaneous, over-the-air updates to hundreds, even thousands of vehicles, it can deliver high-definition audio and video, local and national content, high-resolution map data and more to moving vehicles— also simultaneously. This can bring the cost of vehicle data delivery down to pennies on the dollar.

“Another key advantage of ATSC 3.0 is that the network already exists,” Barrington said. There are thousands of TV stations across the United States transmitting signals that cover nearly all of the country, many of them transitioned or transitioning to ATSC 3.0, a global technology standard also adopted by South Korea, India and Brazil.

Furthermore, an automotive-grade ATSC 3.0 chipset is already available, and because because ATSC 3.0 is being built into TVs by major manufacturers, technology providers are embedding it. Google has integrated ATSC 3.o stacks into Android, Barrington said.

“Those chipsets are being deployed by the millions,” he said. “You’re not starting from a chip that doesn’t exist.”

IT8, the ATSC 3.0 automotive implementation team, is in the process of engaging OEMs and tier 1 suppliers. “There are service models and a conformance regime, so everyone knows it will work,” Barrington said. The group is open to ATSC members and non-member alike.

The information in this article is from a July 25th webinar entitled, “Automotive OTA Software and Services Using the ATSC 3.0 Wireless Network.” For more information, see the ATSC 3.0 Datacasting Webinar Series of white papers at https://www.atsc3advocate.com.

For more than a half century, Jerry Fritz has been at some of the most momentous turning points in the broadcast and telecommunications industries—much as the fictional character Forrest Gump was an up-close part of and witness to major events in U.S. history.

As a broadcaster, lawyer, FCC Chairman chief of staff and most recently a key player at the vanguard of NextGen TV during his tenure with ONE Media, Fritz has witnessed and influenced a lot. 

On July 1, he will say farewell July 1 to ONE Media and the industry. Reflecting on his career, Fritz likens himself to Gump. But to be sure, the parallel is only circumstantial—not intellectual.

In this interview, Fritz offers his insights on the progress of NextGen TV, the importance of an ATSC 1 shutoff, the future of UHF spectrum auctions, how the regulatory landscape has changed over his career and what he will do in retirement.

(An edited transcript.)

TV Tech: During your 56-year career in the broadcast industry, you’ve held many roles. I want to start off with NextGen TV. At ONE Media you have worked to make NextGen TV a reality. As you retire, what’s your assessment of where the rollout is today and the challenges facing broadcasters? 

Jerry Fritz: I'm heartened by the rollout. This is a hockey stick acceptance when you compare it to other transmission systems that have rolled out.

Our company alone is already launched in 46 markets. We're [as an industry] at over 70% of the country. We have patent pools formed so that manufacturers can have a one- stop shop to get their technology into devices. 

So, I'm very heartened—not just domestically, but internationally as well. We not only got it approved at the FCC, but now we've got it approved at the ITU [International Telecommunications Union] as one of the four international standards. It's obviously here in the U.S. and in Korea, but now we're looking for Canada, Mexico, Brazil and India. So, we're quite heartened at the rollout.

TVT: What are your thoughts about bringing ATSC 1.0 to a close? How and when will it happen?

JF: The sooner the better, and I'm directing that comment to the government. We need to have a rapid termination of ATSC 1 because all of the capabilities of ATSC 3.0 are handcuffed due to this requirement of simulcasting. 

We're using all of this valuable capacity, where we could be doing not just video, but all of the data operations. I will tell you that if broadcasters are successful in this BPS [Broadcast Positioning System], being the supplement to GPS [Global Positioning System], that's going to put enormous pressure on the government to get all broadcasters—not just some in these 70 [existing ATSC 3.0] markets we're in but all broadcasters in all markets—to convert so we can have this redundant and complementary system to GPS.

It's a national security issue, and that should really give the government pause to move forward on the deployment of 3.0. It’s so much more advantageous than what we have today. It's remarkable that we're still hamstrung.

TVT: Has there been any movement on the part of the government when it comes to evaluating BPS as a GPS complement? 

JF: I don't know about any official decision, but we in the broadcast industry are making plans to do this testing. We have a robust test to demonstrate to the Transportation Department [the agency charged with finding a complement to GPS] the value of broadcasting as this supplement. So, I think we're moving full steam ahead, and hopefully they will because they want to move quickly, and we can move quickly. We have an infrastructure that's already in place.

TVT: FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr suggested earlier this month at the ATSC annual meeting in Washington, D.C., that another spectrum auction is around the corner. What are your thoughts about that? And how does the industry pursue avoiding a succession of UHF spectrum auctions going forward?

JF: That ties right back to what we were just talking about as relates to BPS. If the Defense Department and the Transportation Department are looking for a viable alternative and substitute and supplement to the satellite-based geo positioning system we have today, then broadcasting is it.

If you do that with broadcasting, you're not going to be taking away broadcast spectrum. It is going to be locked in. It is a national security imperative, and I believe that if that comes to pass, there will be no more spectrum auctions.

TVT: How important is it to broadcasters to augment their existing business with revenue from new 3.0-enabled services such as datacasting?

JF: The flexible use of broadcast spectrum is absolutely crucial. The broadcast spectrum we've been licensed should not be siloed into just a television service. 

There are lots of television services out there. Lots of distribution from cable to satellite to Internet. A lot of people are competing for eyeballs.

If broadcasters want to remain in that business—and we do—no one has ever invented a better way to reach a mass audience than broadcast television, bar none. No one’s even close. If we're going to continue that business, and it's a very expensive business, we need supplemental income.

Retrans is going to cap out—whether that’s from satellite, cable, and hopefully virtual MVPDs as well. We need to do more than just television. The datacasting businesses is crucial. As you know, Sinclair [ONE Media’s parent company] just launched Broadspan as the first foray into this. I believe truly that within a decade and a half, broadcasters can make more money from renting their spectrum—renting their bits—than they make today from advertising. 

TVT: Does the government generating revenue from FCC spectrum sales skew the larger mission of the agency when it comes to advancing the public interest?

JF: In the 90 years that the FCC has been in existence, there have been, I think, 33 chairs. I've known 21 of those chairs. I've worked with seven. I've worked for four of those chairs, and I've seen this enormous swing of the pendulum of what the public interest means—from Newton Minow talking about the public interest and having a government control over the content that is seen, and that was his vision of the public interest, which continues today for many people, to the swing back under Mark Fowler.

He pursued marketplace regulation, which really lets the marketplace determine what the public interest is. I’ve seen this swing, and it goes back and forth at the commission depending on who’s the chair. And the Congress has different ideas of what the public interest is. 

Recognize that the entire notion of the government owning the spectrum dates back to Herbert Hoover trying to say that it is a good idea for the government to control this because he couldn't control the newspapers.

But courts in 1924 were in the process of allocating private property rights to broadcast channels, using the idea of trespass. So, there's nothing inherent that says the government has to own these things.

The government, the FCC, has for many years had the silo approach to regulation based on content. The broadcasters have content. The common carriers have different types of public interest.

But there's no reason it has to be allocated that way. You could get rid of the silos. You could get rid of the Media Bureau and merge it into what is originally the original Wireless Transmission System, which is broadcasting.

Broadcasting can merge into the Wireless Bureau, and you could have the flexible use of broadcasting channels regulated in a different way and spin off the 15 or so content regulations that the FCC imposes specifically on broadcasting, and Congress has imposed on broadcasting. You could do that.

You could have a much more flexible approach to licensing of spectrum in the public interest, so that the public gets the benefit of all of the things that spectrum can do, not just television.

TVT: Isn’t spectrum scarcity the fundamental reason the government can avoid being at odds with the First Amendment in regard to regulating TV and radio? They aren’t making any more of it.

JF: There's nothing available in the universe on an unlimited basis. Everything is scarce. Land in Manhattan is scarce. If you're going to put up a billboard in Manhattan, does that give the government the right to say what goes on that billboard? 

There's really nothing available in limitless quantities. The scarcity principle was written in the Red Lion decision in 1969. The government made it a question of law as opposed to a question of fact.

If you take a look at the number of voices that are out there today via the Internet and the competition that broadcasters face from the from big tech, tell me where the scarcity is. There's no scarcity of viewpoints.

It's just this notion that the government needs to own spectrum because it's scarce. Well, timber in the United States is scarce. That doesn't mean we get to control the newspapers.

TVT: What do you plan to do in retirement?

JF: I don’t know the answer to that question. I've been thinking about it long and hard. I'll continue to teach. I love teaching and the broadcasting business.

I feel sort of like Forrest Gump in my career, having been in the background of all of these big ticket items that went on in the last 56 years. 

My first job in television was at WMAQ, the NBC-owned station in Chicago in 1968. I remember walking out of the studio during a break and taking a deep breath, and there was sort of a pungent aroma in the air. You know what it was? It was the tear gas wafting over from Grant Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention. And here we are going full circle with the Democrats going back to Chicago this year.

I've been extraordinarily fortunate, you know. I was there when cellular was approved in 1981 with Fowler. We deregulated long-distance rates and implemented the AT&T divestiture. I was part of the group that finally got rid of the hated Fairness Doctrine, along with the personal attack rule and the political editorializing rule.

We changed broadcast ownership. It used to be you could only own seven AM, seven FM and seven television stations. Only five could be in the top 50 markets, which is crazy.

So, we went from a station to an eyeball test. We got rid of the Top 50 policy; we got rid of the regional concentration of control rule, and we wanted to get rid of the local rules. The Commission's tried, but we're stuck in this rinse and repeat cycle in the courts to try to change the ownership rules.

I was there for the analog-to-digital transition when I was on the NAB Board. Did the first retransmission consent contracts and was involved in creating News Channel 8 and the first local cable news channel and was part of the team that formed Politico.

So, I've been [like] Forrest Gump [all over this industry]...Now I'm kicking back, and saying, “Well, I'll probably do some writing. I'll probably do some teaching, and I want to give up the list of to dos.”

I just read a book called “Table for Two,” and the author, Amor Towles, had a great quote in there that “lists are the foot soldiers of tyranny.” So, I'm giving up lists.

ARLINGTON, Va.—Jerald “Jerry” Fritz, executive vice president for strategic and legal affairs at ONE Media Technologies, LLC, a subsidiary of Sinclair, Inc., has announced his retirement. After an illustrious career spanning more than 55 years in and around the broadcast and communications industries, Fritz will step down on July 1, the company reported. 

For the past decade, Fritz has been responsible for the long-term strategic planning and public policy for ONE Media, supporting the adoption and deployment of the broadcast industry’s groundbreaking NextGen Broadcast (ATSC 3.0) transmission standard. 

Throughout his tenure, Fritz also played a critical role in shaping ONE Media’s and Sinclair’s national and international spectrum use and intellectual property positions. His work on the adoption of ATSC 3.0 as a global digital broadcast standard was recently recognized by the North American Broadcasters Association with its prestigious International Achievement Award.

“No one knows broadcast television better than Jerry. He brings a unique blend of legal expertise, policy know-how, and technical facility that has made him instrumental in the industry’s advancement of ATSC 3.0,” said Patrick McFadden, senior vice president global public policy and communications. 

Mark Aitken, ONE Media’s president added, “We honor the incredible legacy of Jerry, one that has impacted our entire industry. His wisdom and contributions will be deeply missed, but his influence will continue to inspire and guide future generations.”

Fritz joined ONE Media from Allbritton Communications Company and POLITICO where he served as general counsel and director of strategic affairs for nearly 30 years. Previously, he served as the chief of staff to FCC Chairman Mark Fowler, where he was a key member of the team that pushed to deregulate the broadcasting and telecommunications industries including abolishing the Fairness Doctrine, dramatic loosening of station ownership rules, implementing the AT&T divestiture, approving the first cellular phone service, and deregulating long distance rates. He had a hand in helping to form multiple new ventures including the nation’s first local cable news channel and launching POLITICO. Prior to joining the Chairman’s staff, Fritz was in private practice at Pierson Ball & Dowd specializing in communications law, held several staff positions at the FCC and taught on the adjunct faculty at George Mason University Law School.

Fritz has also served on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Broadcasters, where he chaired the NAB-X.com Task Force, served on the Digital Television Implementation Team and the EEO and Copyright Committees. He is a past Governor of the ABC Affiliates Association and was former chair of its Government Relations Committee. Fritz is also a former Governing Committee member and Division Chair of the American Bar Association’s Communications Law Forum and a past co-chair of the Pre-Publication Review Committee for the Media Law Resource Center. He has been a mainstay on the NAB’s Broadcast Leadership Training Program’s faculty for a quarter century.

COCKEYSVILLE, MD.—The Sinclair Broadcast Group, along with the Pearl TV consortium, hosted yet another ATSC 3.0 device interoperability test at the ONE Media lab at SBG headquarters in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Md., June 3-7. 

The latest in a series of ongoing trials, this interop event was focused on such NextGen TV elements as digital rights management and signing in connection with MMT (MPEG Media Transport) and ROUTE (Real-time Object delivery over Unidirectional Transport), the Advanced Emergency Information broadcaster application, as well as basic interoperability testing of new models from TV set manufacturers.

According to Mark Aitken, SBG’s SVP of advanced technology, this is the sixth time Sinclair has sponsored an interop, the first occurring in 2016. It is also the first fully in-person testing event post-pandemic.

 The testing sessions involved most of the major hardware and software players in the field of NextGen TV—some two dozen—including encoder technology providers, emergency alerting gear, test equipment and receiver manufacturers. In addition to providing the facility, SBG also distributed ATSC 3.0 off-air signals from Baltimore broadcasters to provide a real-world environment. 

Jason Kim, ONE Media Engineer and coordinator of the event, said that literally thousands of tests were scheduled to be performed during the four-and-a-half-day event.

“There are many air chain equipment combinations—encoders, packagers, schedulers—with the ways things are implemented in each varying from vendor to vendor,” he said. “For instance, one encoder will be tested with a combination of all different packagers. By the time everything is finished), there will be thousands of different combinations trialed.”

What's Driving This 'Interop?'
With ATSC 3.0 now available to more than 75% of U.S. households, one might ask: Why is such continued testing necessary?  Weren’t all of the pieces fitted together a long time ago? It works—why do we need more interoperability testing?

The answer is both “yes” and “no.” While NextGen TV is—and has been—informing and entertaining broadcast audiences, it was designed to be flexible and extensible in terms of feature sets and functionalities as the technology surrounding it evolves. 

 “There are parts of the standard that are in the ATSC’s ‘Candidate’ phase, and it’s usual before putting these to a full vote of the ATSC membership that the Candidate Standard be fully vetted,” Aitken said, adding that testing on some elements of the standard was intentionally sidelined as the new TV service emerged. 

“MMT, which is one of two transport mechanisms in the standard, was put off for implementation intentionally by the big TV manufacturers,” he said. “We are now finalizing the MMT side of transport, particularly around security and DRM (digital rights management) and those related activities.”

 Aitken added that a very important aspect of the security-related portion of plugfest testing this time involved “signing.”

 “This is testing the certification by the broadcasters that it’s their content (signal and application), and also expiration of that certificate,” he said. “When in the process of exchanging this secure content along with DRM and the authorization to receive the content, the certificates expire,” he said… “and when those certificates expire—they are intentionally allowed to expire in this testing—we want to watch to see what happens to the various TV sets and set-top boxes.

 “The whole purpose of security (signal and application signing) and DRM is to protect the user and the content, and the other side of the equation is that when the related certificates and DRM keys expire, you want to make sure that the sets operate normally and don’t get locked up,” he added.

Ensuring the New ‘Keys’ Fit All of the Existing “Locks’
Plugfest coordinator Kim noted that such compatibility testing is becoming more and more crucial as NextGen TV matures.

“As we deploy more of the advanced features of ATSC 3.0, interoperability has become more important than ever,” he said. “Right now, we are deploying services that we weren’t able to with 1.0, so there are a lot of new features that we are deploying as part of ATSC 3.0 service. So, we want to make sure that all receivers can support the services we are providing.”

In describing the trialing, Kim observed that it begins with some basic or “baseline” testing as a generalized health check of receivers from multiple manufacturers. 

“We call this ‘watch only’ TV,” he said. “It’s basically to see if all of the receivers function with over-the-air signals from our rooftop antenna. We want to baseline all the receivers that are here to ensure that they can support basic audio and video services. Once this is done, we go into different features that are now in production or that are going to be deployed.”

Kim said an important part of the testing for Sinclair was in evaluating “what we call ‘BEST (Broadcast-Enabled Streaming Television) Channel,’ where we are broadcasting the media presentation description over-the-air and the receiver is also pulling audio and video segments from a broadband connection.”

He noted that SBG has initiated this dual-delivery mechanism in some 40 markets over the past several months, but a few glitches were observed in the rollout.

“When we first deployed it, not every receiver supported it,” he said. “We are working together with the receiver guys that are here at the interop and with our broadcast air chain companies to make sure that our new BEST channel is supported by all receivers out there. We want to make sure what we are deploying can be received by all receivers.” 

What's it Like at an Interop?
For those not familiar with plugfests, perhaps the best way to describe the environment as something akin to a college study hall, with individuals huddled over laptop computers and a generally hushed atmosphere. There’s an adjacent break room where participants are free to fortify themselves with snacks, coffee, and soft drinks. 

What sets an “interop” event apart is that there are multiple (a dozen or so) wall-mounted large screen television receivers filling up most of the available lab wall space, and two distinct groups of players or teams—the “transmitters” and the “receivers”—continuously interacting with each other. The first group sends out various sets of computer code and the other attempts to decode it across multiple devices or device simulators. Such trialing is necessary to ensure complete compatibility between all hardware and software used in NextGen TV broadcasting.

Most of the communication among players is via computer keyboards and displays, with only an occasional “in-person” visit from a representative of one group with another when there’s a snag. Such events are essential in delivering an end-to-end digital television system that performs without any hiccups, as a very minor parameter change “upstream” has the potential to disable functions or even shut down operations in devices that are “downstream.”

Aitken noted that timing and location of this latest interoperability testing event was planned to facilitate attendance at the June 12-14 ATSC NextGen TV Broadcast Conference in Washington, D.C. by out-of-area plugfest participants—particularly those based outside the United States. 

The plugfest attracted some 65 participants from seven countries, who represented some two dozen companies. These included ADTH, Airwavz, Alticast, Ateme, DigiCAP, DS Broadcast, DTV Innovations, Enensys, Gray Television, Heartland Video Systems, Hisense, Harmonic, iWedia, Koherence, Lowasis, NBC Universal, Pearl TV, Samsung, SBG, Sony, TCL, Triveni Digital, Vbox, and Verance.

HUNT VALLEY, Md.—Sinclair, Inc. and its subsidiary, ONE Media Technologies have laid out extensive plans to participate in a variety of panels, events and demonstrations during the 2024 NAB Show in Las Vegas. 

Members of the company’s leadership team will participate in multiple panel discussions and technical paper presentations during the April 13-16 show, and Sinclair will host a press conference event on April 14. 

Sinclair and ONE Media also be participating in ATSC’s NAB booth in the West Hall (W3056) and conducting private demonstrations while at the show.

“At Sinclair, we take pride in being at the forefront of technological advancement within the industry. We look forward to discussing new developments in technology and showcasing Sinclair’s top thought leaders, where they’ll share insights on the exciting opportunities for NextGen Broadcast growth,” said Chris Ripley, Sinclair’s president and CEO.

Sinclair’s press conference will take place on Sunday, April 14 from 10-11am PT in the NAB Press Briefing Room, N249. Chris Ripley will discuss a major technology initiative and associated partnership.

Additionally, the Sinclair/ONE Media leadership team will participate in the following NAB panels and presentations (all times PT):

Friday, April 12

2:15 PM – 3:00 PM. Public Media Venture Group: Technical Briefing on 5G Broadcast Renaissance Hotel. Mark Aitken, President, ONE Media Technologies & SVP, Sinclair

Saturday, April 13 

11:50 AM – 12:10 PM. Dynamic Ad Insertion through DDaaS – MMT Protocol. W222-W223. Niakam Kazemi Principal Product Architect, Technology, Sinclair and Sangsu Kim, Advanced Technology / Senior Director, ONE Media Technologies. 

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM. Digicap Introduces the First System for Automating ATSC 3.0. Press Room, N249. Security Certificate Lifecycle Management. Paul Spinelli, AVP, Engineering, Sinclair and Jay Willis, NextGen Development Manager, ONE Media Technologies

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM. DOT Complementary PNT & the Role of BPS. W220-W221. Harvey Arnold, Senior Vice President-Engineering, Sinclair.

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM. Cybersecurity for Broadcasters. W222-W223. Nick Hottinger, Senior Systems Engineer, ONE Media Technologies. 

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM. IEEE BTS: ATSC 3.0 Business Case and Monetization. W220-W221. Technical Paper Presentation. Liam Power, Senior Systems Engineer, ONE Media Technologies. 

4:15 PM – 4:45 PM. Devoncroft Executive Summit, Executive 1:1 The CFO Perspective NAB Main Stage. Lucy Rutishauser, EVP and CFO, Sinclair. 

Sunday, April 14

8:00 AM – 8:10 AM. Brazilian Society of Television Engineering (SET). ATSC Empowering a New Era of Broadcasting (Keynote). Mark Aitken, President, ONE Media Technologies & SVP, Sinclair.

8:00 AM- 9:00 AM. IABM State of The Industry Breakfast: 2024 Technology Roadmap. Westgate Hotel. Mike Palmer, AVP Advanced Technology/Media Management, Sinclair.

9:00 AM – 9:45 AM. Programming Everywhere: Programming Leaders on Ideas Beyond Boundaries. Encore Hotel. Scott Ehrlich, Chief Innovation Officer, Sinclair. 

10:00 AM-11:00 AM. Sinclair Press Conference. Press Room, N249. Chris Ripley, President and CEO, Sinclair. 

1:00 PM – 1:45 PM. Programming Everywhere: Using AI as a Creative Content Tool. Encore Hotel. Mike Palmer, AVP, Advanced Technology/Media Management, Sinclair.

1:30 PM -2:30 PM. NABA and the Evolution of HDR in the ITU Process. W220-W221. Matthew Goldman, Senior Director, Media Engineering & Architecture, Sinclair and Louis Libin, VP, Spectrum Policy & Engineering, ONE Media Technologies.

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM. Timing Solutions for Broadcasters. W222-W223. Harvey Arnold, Senior Vice President-Engineering, Sinclair.

2:00 PM – 2:30 PM. NEXTGEN TV: Merging Streaming and OTA for Unprecedented Reach. Connect Zone Theater. Skip Flenniken, VP & GM, Technology Business Development, Sinclair. 

2:05 PM – 2:10 PM. Sinclair / ONE Media: NextGen Broadcast Platform. Booth SU4039. Mark Aitken, President, ONE Media Technologies & SVP, Sinclair.

3:15 PM – 4:15 PM. ABA: You Belong with Me, Sports Return to Local TV. Wynn Hotel. David Gibber, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, Sinclair. 

3:45 PM- 4:15 PM. Programming Everywhere: Monetizing the Future Today: A New Era of Service and Measurement Brought by NEXTGEN TV. Encore Hotel. Chris Ripley, President and CEO, Sinclair. 

4:15 PM – 5:00 PM. Programming Everywhere: The Future of Syndicated Programming in a Multiplatform World. Encore Hotel. Dave Howitt, SVP of Programming, Sinclair. 

Monday, April 15

11:15 AM – 12:15 PM. How to Maximize Next Generation TV’s Content and Data Potential. W214-W215. Paul Spinelli, AVP, Distribution and Network Systems, Sinclair.

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM. SBE: Broadcast Technology Update. W220-W221. Ernie Ensign, AVP, News Technology & Operations, Sinclair. 

3:00 PM – 3:20 PM. The Convergence Opportunity for ATSC 3.0 and 5G Technologies. W222-W223. Louis Libin, VP, Spectrum Policy & Engineering, ONE Media Technologies and Michael Simon Director, Advanced Technologies, ONE Media. 

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM. A Return to Long-Form: The Convergence of Legacy Entertainment & Social Media. W219. Scott Livingston, SVP, News, Sinclair.

3:15 PM – 3:45 PM. Streaming Summit: The Evolution of Broadcast Delivery Through ATSC. W108-109. Kevin Cotlove, EVP, Chief Digital Officer, Sinclair.

Tuesday, April 16

10:00 AM – 10:30 AM. Fostering Community Defense – Cybersecurity Joining Forces with Infrastructure, Operations, Engineering and Strategic Partners. W3943 Connect Zone. John McClure, SVP, CISO & Enterprise Infrastructure, Sinclair

11:30 AM – 12:00 PM. How to Seamlessly Enhance Catalog Metadata – With IMDb, Fabric. W1343 AWS Theater. Ben Lister, AVP, Head of Programming, Sinclair Growth Networks.

12:10 PM – 1:00 PM. AI in the Newsroom: The Good, Bad, and What’s Ahead. SU4087 Create Zone. Scott Ehrlich, Chief Innovation Officer, Sinclair.

12:15 PM – 12:45 PM. How Can We Make Broadcast TV More Successful? W2149. Skip Flenniken, VP & GM, Technology Business Development, Sinclair.

1:30 PM – 1:50 PM. CDN Offload via Hybrid Delivery over ATSC 3.0 for Video Streaming. W220-W221. Liam Power, Senior Systems Engineer, ONE Media Technologies.

3:00 PM – 3:45 PM. Streaming Summit: FAST, AVOD and SVOD, Defining the New Pay TV Bundle. W106-107. Scott Ehrlich, Chief Innovation Officer, Sinclair.

3:00 PM – 3:45 PM. Streaming Summit: Streaming Investor Economics: Interest Rates, Consolidation and Growth. W108-109. Scott Shapiro, EVP, Corporate Development and Strategy, Sinclair.

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM. Striving for Efficiency in Video Technology. W222-W223. Louis Libin, VP, Spectrum Policy and Engineering, ONE Media Technologies.

WASHINGTON—NextGen Broadcast datacasting via ATSC 3.0 is “an ideal” technology to complement wireless networks, filling coverage gaps and offering seamless delivery continuity during emergencies and disasters, ONE Media Technologies today told the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau in filed comments.

The wholly owned subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group told the bureau datacasting via ATSC 3.0 can bolster delivery of emergency information that otherwise would rely only the “fragile” existing wireless system that “can be impaired or entirely disabled during times of crisis, when alerting is most needed.”

The filing pointed to wildfires in Maui and California as examples of cell tower destruction during disasters and network overload during the Jan. 6. 2021 riot when cell traffic swamped delivery of vital information as only a few instances that “highlight the perils of overreliance on cellular service.”

NextGen Broadcast, now covering about three-quarters of the U.S. population, can deliver “much needed redundancy and enhance the quality and targeting of… emergency alerts,” it said.

The ONE Media filing laid out the benefits of NextGen Broadcast-based Advanced Emergency Information (AEI) capabilities. Topping the list is the ability of NextGen Broadcast AEI to reach mobile devices regardless of cell coverage. 

The filing pointed out that 3.0 transmission enables advanced alerting capable of distributing emergency messages even when cell networks are unavailable, power has been interrupted, high winds are present and falling trees are an issue. 

“… [T]he NextGen Broadcast standard was purposely built to be a mobile-first standard and reflects the designed-in capabilities to reach all portable devices,” the filing said. “Thus, rather than getting frozen out because of a downed cell tower, power outage, or an overloaded cell system, NextGen Broadcast AEI can continue to provide critical information instantly and directly to all users in affected areas in even the most extreme circumstances.”

Working with Saankhya Labs and partly financed by the Indian parliament, ATSC 3.0 is being demoed as a “Direct-to-Mobile” technology pilot program that serves that nation’s bandwidth needs. The demonstrations offer “an excellent use case” to inform “U.S. domestic AEI policy,” the filing said.

For the pilot, ATSC 3.0-receiver-enabled devices like the Mark ONE smartphone, dongle accessories and Wi-Fi hotspots are being demonstrated.

“India’s adoption of the standard would be a monumental step toward international synchronization of the NextGen Broadcast standard and inevitably propel manufacturing of consumer devices to serve a vast population, resulting in benefits to consumers in the U.S. and around the world in the form of more (and more affordable) mobile ATSC 3.0 device options,” the filing said.

The filing also laid out five different examples demonstrating how NextGen Broadcast AEI can alert users regardless of the availability of cell or Wi-Fi service or while they are running other applications. It also presented a link to a video demonstrating four of the five use cases using the Mark ONE phone and 3.0.

Other benefits explained included: enhanced alerting capabilities, such as delivering rich multimedia like maps and evacuation routes, as well as distributing large amounts of encrypted data to emergency responders across a market; broad coverage; and operation by existing EAS participants setup to receive and retransmit IPAWS-delivered alerts.

The filing also discussed several successful NextGen Broadcast ADI pilots, including a launch involving the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments in April.

Introduction
The Holy Grail of spectrum planning is finding the most efficient transmission path for the most used data.  In today’s digital world, this data can range from NBA basketball games to enhanced GPS coordinates to 3D maps for autonomous cars.  International and domestic spectrum czars have recognized that flexible channel use is the licensing key, and U.S. broadcasters have jumped at the opportunity.  While continuing to provide public interest-based video programming, they are now fully embracing a new transmission standard: ATSC 3.0, aka NextGen Broadcasting.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute, with help from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), has cobbled together a different option: the so-called “5G Broadcast System.”  5G Broadcast is built on the existing unicast 4G LTE waveform.  It is far from “new.” Despite the hype (and money) surrounding these two options—ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast—they are not equal. Is this Betamax vs. VHS? Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD? PlayStation vs. Xbox? Or is this something more dynamic? Which is better? Read on. (Spoiler alert: it’s ATSC 3.0!)

Background
Technological advances and audience demand have pushed past plain-old linear program services. Free over-the-air (OTA) transmissions are giving way to paid, on-demand services, both physically connected (cable, fiber, phones, internet) and wirelessly connected (satellites, cellular and WiFi). Those have been, by and large, inefficient, one-to-many, dedicated, unicast services.    

U.S. broadcasters, recognizing their inherent advantage of robust, one-to-many, high power/high tower (HPHT) broadcast capabilities, have now added fundamental enhancements. Those include transmissions using the same “language” of the internet—Internet Protocol (IP)—and new frequency modulation and coding technologies for reliable mobile reception. They have also solved the challenge of delivering hyper-localized content to different parts of a community. 

The new capabilities of ATSC 3.0 are elegant, efficient, and evolvable, aligning perfectly with the increased demand for multimedia content over mobile devices, which have swamped conventional cellular unicast networks. For television broadcasters, the ‘ALL IP’ standard and associated revenue projections have stoked the imaginations of those looking for whole new business opportunities.  

Meanwhile some entrenched wireless players (e.g. Qualcomm and Ericsson) are hyping approaches and technologies that facially appear to focus on similar objectives. While this reinforces the idea of additional revenue opportunities in mobile and datacasting, the allure is essentially illusory. Yes, they both provide IP transport, are more efficient than previous iterations and provide enhanced content.  But the similarities end at the physical layer: The ATSC 3.0 system is dramatically more efficient, robust, mobile, and evolvable.

Here’s why.

ATSC 3.0 – NextGen Broadcasting
NextGen Broadcasting is the most advanced digital terrestrial broadcast standard designed for over-the-air reception. It delivers an extraordinarily improved viewing experience, supporting ultra-high-definition high dynamic range (HDR) content, immersive audio, interactivity, and other advanced features to both fixed and mobile devices. 

It also enables use of the broadcast spectrum for a host of new data services. It was designed from the outset to offer multiple simultaneous wireless-based services in addition to broadcast television. It simultaneously accommodates fixed, portable, and mobile use cases, allowing flexible spectrum utilization tailored to various new platforms. And the ATSC 3.0 standard is adaptable for different use cases in different countries. 

At the heart of the ATSC 3.0 standard is System Discovery Signaling—the so-called “Bootstrap.”  It serves as the universal entry point into the broadcast waveform, ensuring that all receive devices identify and decode each unique signal, even those yet to be defined. This “evolvability” attribute is key to ATSC 3.0 ability to expand and adapt to support emerging offerings.

ATSC 3.0 Key Features

• Ultra-High-Definition (UHD) and Immersive Audio: ATSC 3.0 supports UHD resolutions with higher image quality and immersive audio formats, enhancing the overall viewing experience.
  
• Hybrid Broadcast-Broadband: It seamlessly integrates OTA broadcasting with broadband, enabling interactive content, targeted advertising, and other data-related features.
  
• Advanced Emergency Infomation: The robust bootstrap permits triggers for advanced emergency alerting that can wake up devices at very low signal levels, enabling the delivery of rich media supplements to target geolocations.
  
• Interactive Services: Viewers can access interactive content, on-demand video, and personalized services through the hybrid capabilities of ATSC 3.0.
  
• Data Delivery as a Service: IP transport and one-to-many architecture of the high power/high tower broadcast service provides efficient delivery of common data including video offloading, enhanced GPS offerings, automobile telematics delivery and IoT support services.
  
• Efficient and Flexible Broadcast/Multicast: OTA broadcast, native to ATSC 3.0, enables efficient data delivery to multiple users of fixed and portable/mobile services simultaneously.

5G Broadcast
In Europe, the search for an IP-based solution for fixed and mobile broadcasting gained momentum when the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) Project shifted its focus to DVB-I (IP content delivery). Activities like those of 5G-Xcast, 5G-MAG identified needs and uses of IP-based delivery.  5G Broadcast emerged as a multicast technology specified by the 3GPP, designed to provide broadcast and multicast services over various networks. 

(Read more: What is 5G Broadcast?)

To be clear—5G Broadcast is based on the old 4G LTE waveform. Over the past few years, 3GPP has tried to meet the challenges of the OTA broadcast environment. But, despite work to better support OTA broadcast environments, efforts to improve the physical layer of the underlying 4G LTE Broadcast platform (time and frequency interleaving as an example) have been rejected and/or withdrawn, including the latest Release from 3GPP.

5G Broadcast Key Features:

1. Efficient Multicast: 5G broadcast uses multicast transmission, efficiently delivering data to multiple users simultaneously, reducing the network load compared to unicast streaming to individual users.
   
2. Content Delivery Efficiency: It efficiently distributes live events, emergency alerts, software updates, and other high-demand content to many users as a “one-to-many” service.
   
3. Cellular Network Integration: 5G broadcast could seamlessly integrate with existing 5G cellular networks, enabling mobile network operators to provide content services without significant infrastructure changes.
   
4. Broadcast Mode: It operates in broadcast mode where many users need access to the same content concurrently.

Comparing the Two
There has been considerable hype suggesting that these two technologies are roughly equivalent and that 5G Broadcast has an edge given it is a 3GPP standard. While both technologies employ IP transport and one-to-many wireless distribution technologies using the same modulation scheme, the similarities largely end there. 

The implied notion that, because 5G Broadcast is a 3GPP standard and in phones today, it somehow magically opens the market to hundreds of millions of devices compatible with 5G wireless reception is wishful thinking. Here are a half dozen reasons why ATSC wins out:

1. ATSC 3.0 has the Bootstrap: Absent from 5G Broadcast, the real technological magic of the Bootstrap is its ability to discover and identify a near infinite number of different signals (including those that have yet to be defined) and pass only the needed one to the specific receive device, thereby enabling a host of new services. More significantly, the robust bootstrap carries triggers for advanced emergency alerting that can wake up devices at very low signal levels—think deep indoors.
   
2. ATSC 3.0 has better error correction: Better error correction means a more reliable signal than 5G Broadcast. The two transmission standards are vastly different in performance. 5G Broadcast employs a suboptimal waveform.
   
3. ATSC 3.0 is “robust by design” in mobile environments: ATSC 3.0 outperforms 5G Broadcast in mobile environments with fast fading channels. Its sophisticated time interleaver provides a 3 dB to 11 dB performance advantage, depending on vehicle speeds. 5G Broadcast has worse pedestrian (<3 kph) performance and terrible mobile (Doppler) performance above 10 kph since it has NO bit interleaving. This may be one reason why older versions of 5G Broadcast have been discarded by mobile operators.
   
4. ATSC 3.0 is compatible with IMT Services: Claims that the ATSC 3.0 physical layer is incompatible with International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) services are misleading. ASTC 3.0 has demonstrated interworking at the IP level, and major mobile ecosystem stakeholders have endorsed this for future 3GPP standards activity. If differing physical layers were a real issue, WiFi (an IEEE standard), as an example, would similarly be an implementation problem.
   
5. ATSC 3.0 can share IMT resources: The assertion that only 5G Broadcast can share IMT resources is overstated. ATSC 3.0 can also achieve this through device-level solutions and network topology adjustments. While there are minor challenges any standard would face in integration at the device level (antenna size, receiver front-end, band-filtering as examples), there are solution paths at the device level (e.g., the MarkONE phone). Notably, there are no commercial phones today that support either 5G Broadcast or ATSC 3.0.
   
6. The cost of adding ATSC 3.0 to chips is negligible: While ATSC 3.0 is not yet integrated into IMT device system-on-chip silicon, the cost of adding an ATSC 3.0 demodulator is negligible compared to the incremental cost of mobile chipsets. The front-end frequency tuner, filters, and antenna(e) are common to either ATSC 3.0 or 5G Broadcast. 

Conclusion
In technology comparisons, it's crucial to separate what we think we know from the facts. 5G Broadcast has some visceral appeal:  Why not simply integrate and extend broadcast into the already existing cell phone 3GPP ecosystem? How hard can that be? However, that’s a compromise that has serious drawbacks. With 5G Broadcast you would give up on:

• a standard that can grow as needs and uses change,
• technological advancements and future capabilities while maintaining backwards compatibility, and
• maximizing the flexibility to do other things with your valuable spectrum. 

It’s as if you have a plot of land and are forever restricted to only growing corn on it.  Would you give up growing a more profitable plant or mining for minerals below the dirt or constructing a high rise to maximize the value of that land?  We should want to maximize the flexibility and new uses for our little “plot of spectrum.” The best equipment to maximize that is ATSC 3.0.  It’s the equivalent of a sophisticated EV tractor vs. a shovel. Go with the tractor. The upside is far, far greater.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) and One Media 3.0, a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, have launched the nation’s first pilot project to use Next Generation Broadcast to disseminate Advanced Emergency Information.

“The jurisdictions that we represent are always looking for more and better ways to inform the public during emergencies,” said Scott Boggs, managing director, homeland security and public safety at COG. "We see NextGen AEI as a powerful new tool for both public warning and providing vital information for recovery after disaster strikes. Because it uses over-the-air broadcast signals, AEI can be especially effective for reaching underserved audiences.”

According to Jerald Fritz, executive vice president strategic and legal affairs at One Media 3.0, the pilot project is an opportunity to showcase the life-saving capabilities of NextGen Broadcast. 

“Sinclair and One Media 3.0 have developed an open-source broadcaster app that provides a range of new consumer services, with AEI being the most powerful from a public service perspective," Fitz said. "Sinclair has made a huge investment in local journalism at our stations across the country. Working with the COG to voluntarily deploy AEI through the 7 News newsroom paves the way to extend our ‘first informer’ role to many more markets,” he said.

The pilot program will provide free, over-the-air redundancy to emergency messaging currently sent by local governments via text, email. social media, and other system platforms. 

One Media 3.0, through its affiliated WJLA (7 News) newsroom, will also provide enhanced, rich media supplements to those emergency messages that meet its newsworthy criteria.

Initially, the pilot will focus on emergency messages from Arlington and Fairfax Counties in Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia. The pilot will be expanded to other area jurisdictions in coming months. The pilot program will initially use the facilities of WJLA’s sister station in Washington, WIAV, and then migrate to WJLA 7 News with its broader reach.

NextGen TV standard, aka ATSC 3.0, enables exceptionally advanced alerting and informing tools, One Media and COG stressed. 

Rather than simple text crawls across a TV screen that a tornado is approaching, for example, NextGenTV powers a much more robust signal that can render real time doppler radar, weather images, evacuation routes, shelter locations, flood maps – and do it in multiple languages, the backers of the pilot program said. 

In addition, the messages can be geo-targeted to just the area affected by the emergency warning based upon inputs by the viewer. Not limited to weather emergencies, the new tool will be employed for virtually all emergencies including civil unrest, hazardous spills, and AMBER Alerts.

This Advanced Emergency Information (AEI) can include both alerts and vital recovery information received on a wide range of enabled consumer devices and connected vehicles. Because TV stations operate independently of the cellular network and have backup power, they can continue to distribute emergency messages even when the cellular network and electric grids are down. 

The pilot is an outgrowth of the AWARN Washington, DC Roundtable, which brought together local TV broadcasters and emergency managers from across the National Capital Region. The discussions centered on the voluntary deployment of Advanced Emergency Information using the NextGen platform and ways to continue COG’s longtime commitment to supporting emergency communications.

AWARN Executive Director John Lawson said the National Capital Region pilot is an extension of a dialogue at the national and grassroots levels between broadcasters and emergency managers in several regions. 

“Through our AWARN roundtables, we found that technology is only the front-end of the conversation,” Lawson said. “Just as important is developing the relationships between local stations and emergency managers to actually use the technology. The Washington AEI pilot is a testbed for both technical capabilities and the working relationships between broadcasters and emergency managers that are vital to keep the public safe,” he said.

Anyone in the WIAV (display Channel 58) viewing area who has a NextGen TV set or a NextGen set-top converter box should be able to receive the emergency messages from WIAV. As other devices, including NextGen-enabled phones, are deployed, those too will benefit from this sophisticated new emergency tool.

Up until last week, all of the major parties involved in the transition from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0 appeared to be on the same page. Advocates touted the continuing progress in deployments, pointing to the fact that more than 60% of American TV households are capable of receiving NextGen TV. Although CES came and went with little news about NextGen TV, four of the world’s largest manufacturers now offer sets with 3.0 tuners with Sony making them available across its entire TV line. 

On the enterprise side, the evolution of ATSC 3.0 as a data delivery system is ongoing, with companies like Sinclair and its ONE Media subsidiary, along with partners including Bitpath, have made great strides in enabling data delivery to motor vehicles and positioning the standard as an important element in an ecosystem that can provide more efficient methods of wireless delivery to both commercial and non-commercial entities.

More Support Needed
But all is not well with the situation as NAB has now made public. Characterizing the transition as “stalled,” the association asked the FCC last week to recommit itself to promoting the standard to the public and take steps to advance the development of peripherals that consumers could use to access 3.0 signals (since the standard is not-backward compatible)  as well as establish a Task Force to focus on the resolving issues hampering the transition. 

All of these requests lead to what the NAB wants most: A deadline that would allow broadcasters to switch off 1.0 and broadcast just ATSC 3.0. Currently the transition involves stations in individual markets collaborating with a “host station” that carries the station’s 3.0 signals off of one tower, a dual transmission scheme the NAB describes as “wasteful.”

The FCC, which approved the ATSC 3.0 standard in 2017 with the usual grandiose statements of support that come with the passage of a new standard, has never publicly wavered from that support, but has also stressed the importance of constant feedback in an effort to possibly tweak the rules based on changing scenarios.  

In an interview with NAB President Curtis LeGeyt at the 2022 NAB Show, FCC Chairperson Jessica Rosenworcel emphasized the commission’s “partnership” with broadcasters in advancing 3.0; but she also wanted feedback. 

“Come to us, tell us what you’re seeing,” she said. “Tell us what’s working and where there might be a hurdle in our rules that we should figure out how to fix.”

Likewise, in a speech last summer in which he voiced support for NextGen TV while raising questions about the privacy issues that come with a standard that will now give broadcasters the ability to gather far more data about viewers than ever before, FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks opened the door for more oversight from the commission. 

“[I]s there perhaps an effort for the FCC to lead here, as we did in developing a Congressionally mandated digital transition equipment subsidy program, or using our role as the regulator of television equipment?” Starks mused. “Let’s get creative.  I want to hear the industry’s ideas here.”

A More Competitive Market
NAB responded last week by holding several meetings with FCC officials that included executives from several broadcast groups, including Nexstar, the nation’s largest. Touting the advantages of a standard that combines the flexibility of IP with far more efficient use of spectrum, the broadcasters told the commission that the deployment of 3.0 will help the industry better compete with streaming companies and similar Silicon Valley giants. 

Add to that the slow but gradual increase in streaming 4K content and broadcasters are understandably concerned that without more clarity to the 3.0 transition, the industry could be left behind. .  

“Ultra-high-definition (or 4K) video has grown from a futuristic capability to a common capability available across nearly all other video platforms,” broadcasters told the FCC. “Soon, 4K will be considered table stakes to gain access to high value content.”

Broadcasters didn’t get to this point without some experience. We’ve been through this before several decades ago in the transition from analog to digital, which ended with the nationwide shut off in 2009. 

And while there were some similarities—the promise of spectrum efficiency and the lack of backward compatibility with existing consumer products—there are some big differences: Advocates of ATSC 3.0 have long promoted a market-driven approach with minimal FCC regulations while the stakes in the transition from analog to digital were far higher with a less than clear outcome: namely a hard deadline (that changed several times) along with a mandate to include 1.0 tuners in all sets sold in the U.S.

Don’t Expect a Mandate
Today, support for a similar tuner mandate is practically non-existent. In the first transition, the CEA initially opposed the mandate but eventually manufacturers had to comply with FCC rules that were implemented in 2005. But that stipulation was also part of an agreement that set a hard deadline for the analog switch off. While NAB is pushing for such a deadline today, it has consistently supported a mostly market-driven approach for the transition to 3.0.

An NAB spokesperson said that broadcasters are not advocating for a mandate and called the consumer electronics industry "a great partner" in the development of the ATSC 3.0 standard.  

The CTA, for its part, has been an integral part of the transition, establishing a program that certifies compatibility with 3.0, giving manufacturers the opportunity to carry a NextGen TV logo as well as working with such initiatives as the AWARN emergency alerting service. 

But it also vigorously opposes a tuner mandate, instead, parroting NAB’s position that the transition be market driven but that they, in the words of CTA President Gary Shapiro, “have to promote the heck out of it.”

TV sets that support NextGen TV represented only 8% of overall TV set sales in the U.S. in 2022 and CTA predicts that almost 5 million will ship to dealers in 2023, representing 12% of the total. It expects that share to hit 50% by 2025. 

However, those figures don’t take into account whether more manufacturers will get on board. Currently only a small number of TV sets—mostly high-end—from LG, Samsung and Hisense—offer 3.0 support, while Sony has gone all in, announcing last year that all of its sets sold in the U.S. will support NextGen TV.

A CTA spokesperson said that the association believes set sales will accelerate, but that broadcasters have to make a purchase more compelling by offering more than what they’re providing now. “We expect unit growth to increase sharply over the next two years as new ATSC 3.0 broadcast features become available,” the spokesperson said.

One of the hurdles in consumer adoption is the fact that the turnover rate for purchasing new sets is now longer than it was two decades ago, which means the time between purchasing new sets is longer. Does that mean there’s a market for peripherals?

So far the market for such devices that support ATSC 3.0 has been minimal to say the least and none of them—including Silicon Dust’s HD Home Run Flex 4K box— have been certified by the CTA to carry the NextGen TV logo. Nevertheless, NAB says it fully supports the development of such devices, according to their spokesperson, who said the association has "worked closely with consumer electronics manufacturers to develop cost-effective tuners and converter devices to help ensure consumers can receive ATSC 3.0 signals.” 

For those who have purchased 3.0 enabled TV sets, how many are actually using them to view NextGen TV? If history is any guide, not many, particularly in such an early phase of the transition. Although in 2022, Nielsen estimated a slight uptick in households that view free over the air TV to 19 million homes, that represents just 15.3% of all households and is equally unimpressive in light of the wave of cord-cutting that has accelerated in recent years. 

The industry's reluctance to release any numbers can lead one to conclude that there's not enough yet to significantly impact public perception of the standard.   

What it Means for Broadcasters
Undergirding the concern over lack of public interest in NextGen TV is the burden imposed by requiring broadcasters to simulcast both ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 during the transition. Although the financial burden is minimal—the cost of broadcasting both are mostly in purchasing the equipment needed—the inefficiency really lies in the way the spectrum is used. 

Requiring stations to simulcast with the same amount of bandwidth they had for 1.0 is forcing broadcasters to reduce the bandwidth (and quality to some extent) of their ATSC 1.0 programming. Although 3.0 does allow for a more efficient (HEVC) video coding, there’s just not enough left over to offer 4K HDR, the one feature that most agree could help spur more interest.

Hence the push for a hard deadline to end simulcasts is quickly moving to the top of broadcasters’ wish lists. What hasn’t been publicly mentioned in the current debate is the role of cable and satellite companies who have vigorously opposed any rules requiring them to carry 3.0 and 1.0 at the same time.

In comments to the FCC last year, NCTA-The Television and Internet Association doubled down on its opposition and said it found no problems with extending the transition indefinitely. 

It told the commission that the five year “sunset” for ending 1.0 coming up this summer should continue until at least 2028, and that even by then, the FCC should simply launch an inquiry into whether it should sunset.

The decision by MVPDs on when to carry 3.0 will not be guided by technology issues but rather by business decisions and a consideration of current FCC rules in place. Faced with the cessation of 1.0, cable and satellite operators are likely to negotiate with broadcasters to carry only a stripped down version of 3.0 that will still allow them to comply with must-carry rules. 

But if broadcasters can get enough viewers that want the kind of features that make NextGen TV unique, maybe adding a + paid tier on both broadcast and cable/satellite is possible. 

Will any of this have an impact on the retrans revenues that broadcasters rely on so much? Only time will tell.

3.0's Data Pipe
The consumer side of 3.0 is just one element of the multi-faceted standard. Using 3.0 as a "data pipe" has been promoted as perhaps the “killer app” that will allow broadcasters to offer enterprise-level services such as software updates for anything from gaming systems to rental cars and providing live over the air streaming to vehicles and even playing a role in the slow but steady emergence of autonomous vehicles. 

This market has been of particular interest for Sinclair, whose ONE Media subsidiary has been laser focused on such capabilities for the last several years. 

“There is a pent-up demand for affordable, robust supplements to wireless data distribution,” ONE Media President Mark Aitken told TV Tech. “Broadcasters can fill that void, but we need the government to devote the same attention to accelerating NextGen deployment as it does to support broadband availability.  

“We’ve made remarkable progress so far and need a commitment from the government that 1.0 will sunset on a date certain so that the ecosystem—broadcasters, CE manufacturers, vendors, and users—can anticipate more options,” he added.

Amid all the calls for more intervention from the FCC, one veteran who has seen enough of how Washington works vis a vis media regulations reminds us that more oversight comes with its own set of familiar risks. 

“Setting up an FCC Task Force is a good idea, but it almost guarantees a prolonged process to figure out what to do," said Gary Arlen of Arlen Communications LLC. “Maybe it will buy time so that consumers will actually purchase and use NextGen TV sets, and there will be some perceptible values (picture quality, additional services) that appeal to viewers and consumers.”

This article was updated 02/03/2023.

WASHINGTON—Representatives from the broadcast industry met with public emergency managers recently to discuss the future of emergency alerting in the new ATSC 3.0 standard (aka “NextGen TV”).

The meeting, held last week at NAB headquarters here is part of a series of roundtables sponsored by the Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN), an alliance of broadcasters, government officials and manufacturers tasked with developing the new advanced emergency alerting service for the ATSC 3.0 over the air service. 

The ability of ATSC 3.0 to combine broadcast with IP brings the promise of far more detailed and targeted information that can be relayed to the public during emergencies. This ability for broadcasters—whose transmission facilities have to meet FCC requirements for security and reliability— could make a crucial difference in a world where the kinds of cellular services consumers rely on every day are far more vulnerable and likely to fail, as evidenced by recent storms, including Hurricane Ian.

What kind of information, how it’s presented and how best to relay it to the myriad of devices was among the main topics of discussion at the meeting. Jerald Fritz, Executive Vice President for Strategic and Legal Affairs for ONE Media, a division of Sinclair Broadcast Group, emphasized the importance the broadcast community put on improved mobile reception when developing ATSC 3.0; something that could not be achieved in 1.0.

“What we've now enabled is mobility—we can put it in your tablet, on your laptop, or on your phone,” he said. “That's critical in the emergency informing field.” 

Fritz showed several screenshots showing different layouts of how and what information could be relayed on a TV or mobile device screen, from maps of escape routes to sources of additional information, weather maps, school closings, emergency updates, etc. The plethora of information and how it can be presented can be daunting, however. 

During a demonstration of its emergency alerting app that showcased such features, Kevin Wong with ONE Media discussed how the company has approached its development. 

“There's a lot of potential here to show additional information that you expect to get on the internet, including an augmented experience,” he said. “It's really just a matter of what information is available and making it accessible and organizing it. So we're still working on enhancing the experience to provide more information, making it more accessible.”

Although cord cutting has increased and the number of consumers receiving TV over the air has incrementally grown over the past decade, the vast majority of  consumers still watch via cable and/or broadband, so how do the emergency alerting capabilities of ATSC 3.0 fit into the multichannel and mobile device world of today, if they're not available on pay TV?

“[Broadcasters] are currently talking with the MVPDs (multichannel video program distributors)... to make sure that they're going to be taking the 3.0 service—not just the 1.0 service—to transmit to those folks that have cable systems,” Fritz said. “That's assuming that they have electricity and power to run their television station. Because when power goes out, the cable systems pretty much go out as well on their televisions that work. That's why we believe it's critical to have ATSC 3.0 in mobile devices and laptops and tablets and phones.” 

On that note, despite the lack of ATSC 3.0 compatibility on mobile devices, Fritz pointed to the international focus of the standard and ONE Media’s ongoing work with Saankhya Labs, its chip partner based in India and the potential offered by the world’s second most populous nation. 

“With respect to the cell phone companies, we have decided to do it ourselves, to show what the capabilities are,” Fritz said, pointing to the company’s ongoing development of its Mark One Android-based smartphone it’s developing with Saankhya. “India is conducting broadcast spectrum testing in Bangalore and Delhi right now to show what direct to mobile will look like and we believe that it will be successful, and that success will then manifest itself here in the United States.”

Sulayman Brown, Deputy Coordinator for the Dept. of Emergency Management and Security for Fairfax (Va.) County Gov’t., discussed the evolution of the region’s emergency preparedness efforts through the creation of the National Capitol Notification System that, over the past decade, has streamlined the way local governments in the DMV area alert both their internal departments as well as the general public. As communications from pagers and cellphones have evolved to the sophisticated smartphones of today, the notification system has adapted to those changes. 

Brown noted the increasing value of using social media for emergency communications. “A lot of our messaging is out on social media," he said. “Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all of that is now connected to our notification system.”

Brown sees the emergency alerting capabilities through ATSC 3.0 as an important addition to a menu of emergency communications capabilities but is also cognizant of the realities of today’s consumer choices and getting the message to where the consumers are. He also thinks there’s room for improving communication between local broadcasters and emergency officials. 

“Essentially we need better communication about who makes the decisions at the broadcast station,” he said. “Can we get you out to our location where we can walk you through a particular situation? What's our trigger for sending out messages? Is it that big of an emergency so that you feel more comfortable putting that message out? This is the message, so it's got to be trust. I don't know if you have that now.” 

“In a lot of jurisdictions in the National Capital Region, they have a public affairs manager who worked for local stations before so we have that relationship,” he added. “But what I’d like to know is, ‘what do you need from emergency managers?’”

The goal of the roundtables, which will continue in Raleigh and New York in the new year, is to not only provide a tutorial on the emergency alerting capabilities of ATSC 3.0 but to also enhance dialogue between local stations and their local emergency officials to improve coordination during emergencies, as well as use that feedback to improve the design and form of 3.0 alerts. 

The roundtables are helping to open the lines of communication as both broadcasters and government agencies adapt to the evolution of mass media, according to John Lawson, executive director of the AWARN Alliance. “We're trying to build relationships,” he said. “We talk about technology, but this is really about relationships, getting to know your counterparts and finding out the best ways to work together.”

HUNT VALLEY, Md.—Sinclair’s ONE Media 3.0 and AutoMobility Advisors, a leading connected auto industry strategist, have announced that they will hold a series of three webinars focused on how NextGen Broadcast/Multicast can improve over-the-air (OTA) data transmission to connected vehicles.  

Insider Intelligence predicts that by 2025 70% of US licensed drivers will drive a Connected Vehicle. But current cellular wireless technologies can present challenges to automotive manufacturers due to data transport costs, lack of ubiquitous coverage, and limited reliability during emergency situations, the webinar organizers said. 

This three-part webinar series will address how a new wireless broadcast/multicast network technology, powered by NextGen Broadcast (ATSC 3.0), can augment existing networks and improve the Connected Vehicle experience for consumers and manufacturers.

The first webinar will be held on Thursdays at 12 PM Eastern Time on October 27 with a panel for former auto executives and broadcasters. That discussion will feature:

• Connected Vehicle proof of concept activities and a report from CAST.ERA on NextGen Broadcast/Multicast Connected Vehicle testing over the past three years. They have quietly been making significant progress that has gone unreported in the U.S. Cast.Era is a technology development joint venture between SK Telecom, the largest mobile carrier in South Korea and Sinclair Broadcast Group. 
• A report on 5G/NextGen Broadcast/Multicast integration programs. Members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC, an international standards development organization), including Cast.Era, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and ONE Media 3.0, are working on various international initiatives involving wireless IP distribution including integration with 3GPP standards. These include activities in South Korea (integration into the automotive environment) and India (which is testing a “Direct to Mobile Broadcast” model). These technologies are moving along faster than many realize, the participants reported. 

Additional webinars will occur on November 10, and December 1. 

The organizers noted that NextGen Broadcast/Multicast is a wireless Internet Protocol (IP) multicast network technology being integrated with advanced telecom platforms (3GPP 4G/5G systems), supporting automotive functions benefiting from multicast data delivery and significant efficiency gains. This new multicast network for automotive is being readied by U.S. broadcasters.

Among the Connected Vehicle functions that could see improvement are OTA car updates (software upgrades), Real Time Kinematic (RTK) positioning (providing continuous centimeter accurate geolocation), safety and emergency alerting, and live or pre-positioned infotainment.

To address those developments the webinar series will also feature:

• A report from national NextGen Broadcast/Multicast spectrum aggregators;
• A CES 2023 Show sneak peek at the introduction of the first U.S. NextGen Broadcast/Multicast-enabled vehicles;
• Automotive Advanced Emergency Information (AEI) services and;
• An invitation to participate in NextGen Broadcast/Multicast spectrum efficiency testing and RTK geolocation testing.

“The past year has seen significant NextGen Broadcast milestones achieved including half of U.S. households in markets now able to receive a NextGen Broadcast/Multicast signal, while South Korea and Jamaica are moving forward with their related adoptions,” explained Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media 3.0 and senior vice president of advanced technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group. “India, Brazil, and many other countries are looking at these solutions and the real value added to the wireless marketplace. Now is the right time to share the automotive technology development projects we have all been working on.”

Each webinar will have one hour for speaker presentations and focused questions, followed by 30 minutes of audience Q&A.

Webinar #1: October 27, 2022: ATSC 3.0 value proposition for automakers

What is NextGen Broadcast/Multicast, which Connected Vehicles functions can it improve, and why consider it now?

The basic value proposition: Improved efficiency and adding unique value. Use cases where NextGen Broadcast/Multicast networks are being deployed to supplement 5G and LTE networks.

Webinar #2: November 10, 2022: Three Connected Vehicle functions that can be made more efficient by adding a supplemental NextGen Broadcast/Multicast network

Automotive and NextGen Broadcast/Multicast experts take a deep dive on connected OTA (mobile software updates), continuous RTK (geolocation), and live or pre-positioned in car infotainment.

Webinar #3: Dec. 1, 2022: V2X: As automotive connectivity extends to other vehicles, road infrastructure, and even smart city data, what value can an ATSC 3.0 network add?

Registration for the webinar series is available here. 

Transforming a company (much less an entire industry) to take advantage of a disruptive technology requires a robust strategic vision. With so many ongoing projects related to NextGen Broadcasting, it sometimes feels like we’re playing a reactive game of Whack-A-Mole with no apparent ties to link the varied projects surrounding these dynamic new capabilities inherent in this new standard. 

In fact, however, there is a coherent vision.  It is one that provides a path to serve our communities better and implement exciting new business opportunities. ONE Media/Sinclair has taken a holistic view to guide our efforts.  The jigsaw puzzle pieces do indeed fit together.  This is a good opportunity to step back and show how they interconnect.

Download the white paper, "NextGen Broadcasting's Strategic Jigsaw Puzzle" here. 

HUNT VALLEY, Md.—ATSC 3.0 in smartphones took a big step forward this week with delivery of the first of hundreds of production sample phones to the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a key part of the station group’s strategy to ensure that NextGen TV one day is an integral part of mobile phones and other devices.

The ONE Media Mark One phone powered by Saankhya Labs is an Android smartphone with built-in Saankhya Labs SL4000 ATSC 3.0 receiver chip providing NextGen TV reception, tuning and demodulation. The Mark One relies on an embedded antenna –not a pull-out or hang-on antenna—and is an unlocked AT&T- and T-Mobile-compatible device, says Mark Aitken, President of ONE Media 3.0 and senior vice president of technology at Sinclair.

“This is the phone that we had hoped we would have had in sample form for the NAB Show,” says Aitken, “but COVID struck—it struck hard and shut things down.”

The Mark One has been two years in the making, delayed for months because the electronics industry in China where certain components are fabricated was shut down as the virus affected the nation, he says.

By jointly developing the underlying technology with Saankhya Labs (working with BORQS, a device OEM), building the phone and deploying NextGen TV stations around the country, Sinclair in essence has eliminated the chicken-egg problem. “We are both the chicken and the egg,” says Aitken.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Sinclair is in talks with two large MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) that ride on the AT&T and T-Mobile wireless networks about offering the phone, says Aitken, who declined to identify the operators.

“There are millions of MVNO subscribers that would be ripe for the picking so to speak with a smartphone of this sort. That’s one of the reasons for pushing so hard to get this phone to a ready state,” says Aitken, adding that at the moment the Mark One is not ready for mass consumer sales but that “it’s not far away.”

With a 3.0 smartphone on the way to potentially millions of consumers, it will be easier for the station group to implement another key aspect of its NextGen TV deployment strategy: state government mandates requiring smartphones to be built with 3.0 receivers.

“We are in the process of getting legislation into multiple states, specifically state house and senate legislation in New York at the moment, for a mandate to include ATSC 3.0 receivers in smartphones because of the public safety and public service side of the standard,” he says.

In July, New York State Senator Kevin Parker and Clyde Vanel (State Assembly Chairman, Internet and New Technology Subcommittee) introduced legislation (S8797) mandating inclusion of the 3.0 receiver chip in portable electronic devices defined in the bill as “any handheld mobile telephone… personal digital assistant (PDA), or handheld device with mobile data access.” 

“On and after January first, Two Thousand Twenty-Two, no manufacturer shall provide for sale in this state any portable electronic device not equipped with an ATSC 3.0 chip,” the legislation reads. 

The Advanced Emergency Alerting and Informing (AEAI) aspects of ATSC 3.0 “are not going unnoticed at the state level,” says Aitken.

CREATING LEVERAGE

While the Federal Communications Commission has expressed no interest publicly in mandating 3.0 receivers in smartphones, the AWARN Alliance and others in the television industry have spent the past several years educating local, state and federal emergency managers about ways in which NextGen TV can help inform the public and assist them in the event of a disaster.

Broadcasters and vendors of emergency alerting technology used by TV broadcasters have stepped up as well. For example, the News-Press & Gazette station group has worked with AWARN to demonstrate how the standard could have been used to alert viewers in specific neighborhoods of Santa Barbara, Calif., to the threat of mudslides. 

But until the Mark One, such alerts would only have been useful to home viewers. With a 3.0-enabled smartphone, the public can stay informed of emergencies regardless of where they are, says Aitken.

“Very soon, I am going to be sending phones to AT&T and other mobile companies, and I will ask a simple question,” he says. “What is preventing your organization, your business, from manufacturing a phone that could save lives in the event of natural disaster, a public safety situation or crime?”

The offer Aitken made a couple of years ago at the ATSC Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., to provide AT&T and other wireless companies with a million 3.0 receiver chips, each, for free stands to this day, he says.

CONSUMER INTEREST

Initially, the Mark One will be put into the hands of friends and family of Sinclair staff in markets where it delivers ATSC 3.0 to help the station group fine tune its NextGen TV service. The phones are equipped with a return channel so that data collected about reception levels at various locations can help guide the station group as it makes decisions about deploying ATSC 3.0 single frequency networks (SFNs) around the country, he says. 

However, that’s just the start. Aitken anticipates strong interest in the phone from consumers. “There’s not a person I’ve talked to over the past two years of getting to this point who hasn’t said, ‘As soon as you have it, I want one,’” he says.

The Mark One is aimed at the middle of the market. Target pricing is below $300 if the production run is in the tens of thousands, $200 if it is in the hundreds of thousands of units and even less if millions of the phones are produced, he says.

“We’re not in this for the money [from phone sales],” says Aitken. “I guess we are a little bit crazy, but we are not so crazy as to think that we want to be in the business of selling phones.”

Beyond the Mark One, Aitken envisions the SL4000 3.0 receiver chip being used in a range of other consumer devices, such as NextGen TV gateways capable of receiving 3.0 and retransmitting content via Wi-Fi to tablets and other home devices, and even into cars for a range of applications from receiving map and navigation data to enabling wireless firmware updates to onboard car systems.

“It [the SL4000] is the lowest common denominator that fills the largest number of possible use cases,” he says.

A video detailing the Mark One smartphone is available here.

COLUMBIA, Md.—LTN Global is doing its part with some of the recent deployments of the NextGen TV standard, ATSC 3.0, as the company announced its transport service was used for the Las Vegas launch of the standard. In addition, Sinclair Broadcast Group and its subsidiary ONE Media 3.0 have selected LTN Global as its preferred transport network partner, according to LTN.

The Las Vegas deployment of NextGen TV was the country’s first multistation commercial deployment of the standard, and was supported by LTN’s transport network, the company shared in a press release. The network is being used to repack channels to free up the spectrum needed to broadcast both ATSC 3.0 and the existing ATSC 1.0 standard.

The repacking of spectrum is necessary as the FCC did not grant new spectrum for ATSC 3.0. In Las Vegas, Sinclair’s KVCW station has been converted to ATSC 3.0 and is broadcasting all four station main feeds; the other three stations now, meanwhile, handle the ATSC 1.0 feeds for all four stations.

“LTN’s intelligent transport network provides us with a backbone that allows us to seamlessly and reliably reroute TV and data services to free up the spectrum that made this deployment possible,” said Mark Aitken, Sinclair vice president, Advanced Technology, and ONE Media 3.0 president. “LTN is already connected to hundreds of broadcast stations, making it easy to partner with in supporting future ATSC 3.0 rollouts across the country.”

LTN Global says that it will continue to work with Sinclair in all the markets that it launches NextGen TV.

For more information, visit www.ltnglobal.com.

WASHINGTON—One Media, which is owned by advanced TV pioneer Sinclair, said the FCC should adopt the "modest" modifications to its plan for deployment of the ATSC 3.0 advanced broadcast transmission standard, but should also look to be a little less modest, including recognizing the value of distributed transmission to localism.

That came in comments on the FCC's recent NPRM.

One Media said that the commission should also consider 1) furthering maximization of broadcast coverage areas; 2) "[r]ecognizing the importance of this proceeding, and policies supporting the advancement of Next Gen TV services, to promoting localism and the ability of broadcasters to continue serving the public interests"; and 3) streamlining the licensing process.

The FCC voted unanimously in March to adopt a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) seeking comment on a broadcaster proposal to allow broadcasters greater flexibility in using distributed transmission systems (DTS) to deliver new ATSC 3.0 signals.

The FCC said, and broadcasters agreed, that allowing that flexibility with the new advanced TV broadcast standard would get those signals to hard-to-reach viewers, improve indoor reception and be more efficient with the spectrum, a big priority for the FCC.

The FCC's proposal is responsive to a petition by the National Association of Broadcasters and America's Public Television Stations to change the current DTS rules, which were adopted during the last transmission sea change—to digital, to allow for single frequency networks (the DTS systems comprise "two or more transmission sites located around a station’s service area, each using the same RF channel").

The item sought comment on whether and how to allow signals to exceed a TV station's service area by more than the current de minimis (minimal) amount. The FCC also wants input on the possible impact of extending the signals on other uses, including low-power TV stations and whether to extend the signals of current ATSC 1.0 signals as well. Broadcasters currently use translators to boost their signals at the fringes of the service area and in other areas where terrain weakens a signal, but translators usually use a different channel, while DTS use the same channel.

Computer companies, most notably Microsoft, have argued against the rule change, saying it could be "catastrophic" to its rural broadband rollout and arguing broadcasters could get what they want through existing rules. Microsoft is using the "white spaces" between TV signals to deliver it.

The FCC had signaled concerns about the DTS expansion to areas that could not be reached with a single antenna because it could undermine localism.

One Media begs to differ.

"[A]s the deployment of ATSC 3.0, and adoption of the proposed rules in the NPRM, together promote localism by allowing stations to provide better over-the-air coverage throughout the contour and the delivery of tailored local content to more viewers. Moreover, the recommended interference contour will prevent DTS stations from encroaching on the service of stations in adjacent markets."

It also said DTS will allow for "hyper" localization.

WASHINGTON—ONE Media LLC has asked the FCC to consider the impact that the use of white space devices in the broadcast band could have on the deployment of ATSC 3.0 (aka “NextGen TV”). 

The company—a division of Sinclair Broadcast Group focused on NextGen TV—reminded the commission in comments this week that terrestrial over-the-air broadcasting is still a critical asset to the nation’s communications infrastructure. The commission is seeking public comment on the viability of expanding the use of unlicensed devices in unused parts of the broadcast spectrum (aka “white space devices” or WSD).

“Terrestrial broadcast deployment is not frozen in time to the existing licensed stations; the platform is rapidly evolving,” the company said. “To that end, the commission must ensure that broadcasters can use their spectrum to realize the benefits inherent in the transition to ATSC 3.0 fully, while continuing to meet their public interest responsibilities.

“Broadcasters provide significant public interest benefits with their use of licensed channels,” ONE Media added. “The deployment of NextGen TV services promises compelling increases to those public services. The commission should further ensure that all parties—broadcasters, WSD providers and the commission itself—have the practical tools necessary to calculate interference theoretically and in the field.”

As NextGen TV rolls out across the U.S. this year, a number of broadcasters are considering using signal frequency networks (aka “distributed transmission systems”) to expand and improve signal coverage in their markets. As opposed to traditional transmission setups that employ a single transmission site and repeaters to enhance coverage, SFNs use multiple transmitters on the same frequency. 

ONE Media asked the FCC to ensure that WSDs don’t take priority over existing licensed operations, and if they do interfere, the WSDs should cease operations, adding that NextGen TV signals may be especially vulnerable to interference while stations are transitioning to ATSC 3.0 because multiple stations in a market will be cooperating in “co-hosting” local OTA signals. 

“In the ATSC 3.0 transition, some host stations may not be able to handle all signals, which in turn may require these stations to shift to a less robust (but permissible) modulation scheme,” the company wrote. “Under these circumstances, the modified modulation scheme could leave the coverage area more susceptible to interference from WSDs. It is critical that the commission again make clear that even under such circumstances, WSDs remain obligated to prevent harmful interference and cease operations where necessary to do so.”

ONE Media suggested that “at a minimum” the FCC’s TVStudy should be modified to account for WSD registration information available in the TV White Space Database.

“Broadcasters could better predict potential interference if the commission also defines an extension to TVStudy showing benchmark desired-to-undesired ratios (“D/U ratios”),” the company said. 

The FCC also has a separate proceeding seeking public comment on the use of SFNs for terrestrial broadcasting. 

For more information on ATSC 3.0, visit TVT’s hub page on NextGen TV.

HUNT VALLEY, Md.—Sinclair Broadcast Group’s ONE Media 3.0 subsidiary has announced the completion of a series of ATSC 3.0 tests in August that validate the broadcast group’s “mobile first” strategy that leverages advanced compression, modulation and HDR technology to broadcast robust OTA signals to mobile devices and simultaneously deliver 4K UHD with HDR with enhancement data delivered via the internet.

Conducted Aug. 19-22 in the Baltimore area, the tests relied on Technicolor SL-HDR1, Scalable High Efficiency Video Compression (SHVC) and Layer Division Multiplexing (LDM) to maximize the efficient use of available OTA bits and guarantee the highest quality delivery of content by taking advantage of the internet.

The testing, done in partnership with Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), InterDigital and Technicolor, underscored “that we have both the technologies and business objectives that can realize and sustain substantial future value for video services,” said Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media 3.0.

SHVC compression enables delivery of a base layer of bits, used during the tests to deliver 540p and 740p over the air. The same layer also delivered a standard dynamic range (SDR) base layer with Rec. 709 color space via SL-HDR1.

The tests relied on an LTE broadband network to deliver the SHVC enhancement layer, including SL-HDR1 high dynamic range with Rec. 2020 color space.

This base-plus-enhancement layer approach offers a number advantages, including making it possible for broadcasters to make the fullest use of their over-the-air bits while continuing to provide partners, such as MVPDs, with the highest quality service to deliver to their customers, said Aitken.

“It’s no secret that wireless bits are more valuable than wired bits,” Aitken said in a phone interview with TVTechnology.

He pointed to the difference in retail pricing wireless carriers charge for data plans versus the price of broadband to the home charged by cable operators and others as an example.

Various configurations were used in the testing. One delivered four independent SHVC video services carried by two LDM PLPs (physical layer pipes) on one 6MHz channel, which were successfully received by various devices moving in a vehicle. Other mobile and fixed devices received both LDM PLPs and displayed four services at 1080p HD HDR.

Live content for the tests came from TBD Network and Stadium Sports Network and other challenging sports, movie and entertainment content chosen to stress the SHVC compression used.

For all experiments, equipment from Cobalt Digital leveraging Technicolor Intelligent Tone Management technology was used to convert source content from SDR to HDR.

Another test delivered 540p video via 3.0 delivered and 1080p HD HDR via the enhancement layer carried on an LTE link. The test demonstrated the ability to switch seamlessly between 3.0 broadcast and broadband. Other experiments focused on combining 720p mobile and 4K UHD fixed reception.

During his interview, Aitken emphasized that the technology used in the tests is commercially available, and not simply a “science project.”

Sung-Ik Park, project leader for ETRI expressed pleasure over the successful tests. “Among the many unique capabilities of the Next Gen standard is the mechanism to converge broadcast and broadband seamlessly, which will be an excellent enhancement in the 5G era," he said.

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

BALTIMORE—Sinclair Broadcast Group has announced that it has promoted Michael Bouchard to the position of vice president of Technology Strategy for ONE Media 3.0. Part of Bouchard’s responsibility in this role will be to help drive Sinclair’s development and deployment of ATSC 3.0.

Bouchard has spent the last six years with Sinclair as the director of Digital Platform and then as the senior director of Technology. During his more than 25 years of experience, Bouchard has also been the chief technology officer at Firejack Technologies and as a consultant for FINRA and the FCC, as well as a managing director for a technology consulting firm.

“Michael has been a critical team member in helping to launch our leading digital and technical products,” said Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media. “He has proven himself to be an effective leader and creative innovator. We believe his expertise in driving technology forward will translate perfectly into his new role on the ONE Media team.”

Bouchard will report directly to Aitken in his new position, which he took over on Aug. 26.

BALTIMORE—A group of broadcast industry players and technology providers spearheaded by ONE Media and Sinclair Broadcast Group will demonstrate how the public safety community can leverage ATSC 3.0 to improve secure transmission of encrypted IP data and video during the APCO 2019 Annual Conference & Exposition, Aug. 11-15 at the Baltimore Convention Center.

The group, which also includes SpectraRep, Sonim and Saankhya Labs, will demonstrate how broadcast spectrum can be shared across a nationwide network to offer emergency control centers a means to distribute live video and rich media in the same way broadcasters transmit video and data via Next Gen TV.

“We will be demonstrating ATSC 3.0 through various devices with Saankhya [Labs] dongles,” said ONE Media President Mark Aitken.

The demonstrations, which will take place at the SpectraRep booth (No. 676) at the conference, will rely on ATSC 3.0 signals transmitted by Sinclair.

The demos will show attendees real-world applications for 3.0 in emergency communications, including:

• A means to connect to instant Skype-to-broadcast television distribution, enabling community leaders to have immediate access to local broadcast TV transmission in the event of an emergency;
• The ability to transform cell phones into a satellite video phone via a Saankhya Labs attachment;
• A way to receive high-power TV transmissions from an emergency ops center or local TV station via a mobile phone using a small Saankhya Labs dongle; and
• The means to control a 3.0 network remotely via a DigiCAP gateway to manage the TV signal from the ONE Media lab in Hunts Valley, Md.

Aitken sees the APCO exhibit and demonstrations as another chance to raise an important question: Why aren’t 3.0 receivers being built into wireless phones?

“We continue to have people scratching their heads on the Hill, in state houses and governors’ associations, asking, ‘You can demonstrate this capability. So why isn’t it in wireless telephones today?’” he says. “I don’t know that there is an exact answer to that yet, but we are going to get to that answer.”

ATSC 3.0 was designed with features giving the public access to advanced emergency alerts and information. They include the ability to geotarget warnings to those in the path of danger; a way to “wake up” Next Gen TV sets to display emergency information; the conveyance of rich multimedia to supplement warnings with added information, such as evacuation maps; and the ability to rely on the resiliency of broadcast infrastructure in broadcast markets, which repeatedly has proven its ability to endure natural disasters, such as hurricanes and earthquakes.

Founded in 1935, APCO, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials-International, is the oldest and largest organization of public safety communications professionals.

More information about the annual gathering is available on the APCO website.

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

BALTIMORE & BENGALURU, INDIA—ONE Media 3.0, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group, has announced an agreement with Saankhya Labs, an Indian-based developer of wireless systems and cognitive Software Defined Radio (SDR) solutions, to develop networking technology to combine 5G cellular networks with the ATSC 3.0 (aka “Next Gen TV”) broadcast standard.

The 5G Next Generation Broadcast Offload Platform, which ONE Media 3.0 President Mark Aitken discussed with TV Technology at CES, will enable 4G and 5G wireless operators to offload streamed and live content dynamically on to an over-the-air "one-to-many" broadcast digital terrestrial network such as ATSC 3.0. Under the agreement, Saankhya Labs is developing an end-to-end cooperative network platform including radio nodes and mobile end user devices.

“This platform sits at the center of 5G convergence,” the companies said in their announcement, adding that the hybrid network would constitute numerous “firsts” for the broadcast industry by:

• "Cellularizing" broadcast architecture to enable indoor reception of DTT with mobile and portable devices
• Dramatically improving DTT spectrum utilization, providing more bits/higher robustness through spectrum reuse
• Introducing artificial intelligence (AI)-based analytic engines to provision and directly offload traffic from congested 4G/5G networks
• Providing content delivery networks (CDN) with significant improvement in the streaming experience by moving OTT traffic to the broadcast platform
• Enabling hyper-localization of broadcast content (video/audio services, datacasting, advertising, emergency alerts)

Demonstrations of the 5G-related components of this new cooperative network have been exhibited at CES2019, Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2019 and NAB Show 2019. The first phase of product and system development will establish real-world proof-of-concept (PoC) deployments in India and the United States.

"Broadcasters have a critical seat at the 5G table. This work and product development will provide a 'level set' against expectations for broadcast services that are embraced by the 3GPP 5G standard," said Aitken. "These first deployments will elevate understanding of the cooperative role NextGen (ATSC 3.0) broadcast can play to make 5G networks highly efficient Broadcast/Broadband convergent networks. The 'Direct to Mobile' focus of this activity will leverage the one-to-many efficiencies of broadcast in a new topology that can provide high-reliability and large bandwidth solutions and make them available to the competitive marketplace."

"Saankhya is excited to expand its partnership with ONE Media and Sinclair to build an end-to-end solution that transforms the delivery and consumption of both linear and non-linear video,” said Parag Naik, CEO of Saankhya Labs. “Broadcast video networks are essentially 'constant quality' networks compared to the current 'best effort' unicast mobile networks, especially for video delivery. Our Direct-to-Mobile solution provides a new tool combining broadcast and OTT content over a new video distribution platform. We are convinced that OTT content players and mobile network operators will take full advantage of this unique video delivery solution." 

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

LAS VEGAS—ONE Media 3.0, a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group has selected ENENSYS to help the broadcaster build and roll out ATSC 3.0 for 10 Sinclair stations.

Located at the broadcast playout center or studio side, ENENSYS’s ATSC 3.0 solution is composed of two core applications: MediaCast (ROUTE/MMTP and Signaling server) and SmartGate (ATSC 3.0 Broadcast Gateway). MediaCast enables the delivery of linear services, the NRT content and their related Signaling, in the ROUTE or MMTP formats. SmartGate ATSC ensures the allocation of the RF resources by scheduling the delivery of the IP streams in the different Physical Layer Pipes (PLPs). Thanks to STLTP generation, SmartGate also enables network synchronization for the Single Frequency Network (SFN) architecture.

The platform ensures effective and error-free packaging, delivery and signaling of linear services as well as Non-Real Time (NRT) content; from SD and 4K HDR services, to ESG and interactive applications. Flexibility and highly specialized features allow for the management of advanced use cases like targeted advertising, broadcast and broadband delivery and push content services. The software-based solution can be deployed on a dedicated server or run in a pure cloud environment.

“ENENSYS has worked hard to earn our trust, and we have worked hard together to define solutions that can evolve as we advance 5G Broadcast business opportunities,” said Mark Aitken, President of ONE Media 3.0. “Their strong roots in OFDM systems, broadcast and unicast, add unique insight as we begin to use the new tools we have in NextGEN applications.”

“We are very proud of supporting ONEMedia for ten of its first DMA ATSC 3.0 roll-outs in US” said Eric Pinson, Terrestrial Market Director at ENENSYS. This comes as a result of more than 5 years of active collaboration between the two companies and development of cutting-edge technologies at ENENSYS. With this project, we are entering a new Terrestrial DTV Broadcasting era utilizing a completely reconsidered network architecture that can be totally virtualized and bringing key advantages, such as maximum scalability, future proof, and rapid to deployment capabilities.”

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

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND–A delegation from the U.S. has asked the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) that it adopt the ATSC 3.0 digital broadcast standard for use by all countries in the world. The proposal is the first major step in the evaluation process for worldwide acceptance of the standard, the association said.

The U.S. delegation proposed ATSC 3.0—the world’s first Internet-Protocol-based television broadcast standard—to a Working Party of Study Group 6 of ITU’s Radio communications Sector, which develops and maintains worldwide recommendations, reports and handbooks on the broadcasting service. The U.S. effort was actively supported by the South Korean government delegation with significant assistance from the Korean Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute.

Developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee, the ATSC 3.0 standard has been adopted in both the United States and the Republic of Korea. The suite of voluntary technical standards and recommended practices represents very significant enhancements from the original ATSC 1.0 standard adopted in 1996. It will provide an alternative to other digital terrestrial television standards including the European DVB-T, Japanese/Brazilian ISDB-T, and Chinese DTMB platforms.

“We’re delighted to begin this process and look forward to an expedited consideration so that other nations can confidently implement this remarkable new standard,” said U.S. delegation spokesman Larry Olson, Assistant Chief of the Global Strategy and Negotiation Division in the International Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission.

In offering the new standard as part of an existing recommendation for second-generation digital platforms, the United States noted that the ATSC 3.0 standard is designed to deliver improvements in performance, functionality and efficiency so substantial to warrant implementation of a non-backwards-compatible system. The IP-based standard, with its higher throughput capacity, can deliver:

• Enhanced quality for audio and video services,
• Robust mobile reception on a wide range of devices,
• Improved spectrum efficiency,
• Advanced emergency information,
• Personalization features, and
• Interactive capabilities.

Jerald Fritz, Executive Vice President of ONE Media 3.0, presented the proposal on behalf of the U.S. delegation. “The Next Gen transmission standard will provide consumers with a host of new services and expand opportunities for broadcasters and service providers around the world,” he said, urging rapid adoption by the ITU. “By integrating broadcast and broadband services, ATSC 3.0 also can be part of the 5G transmission ecosystem for non-television data transmission services,” Fritz said.

In support of the new standard, the United States presented the ATSC’s Advanced Emergency Information Implementation Guide. This document describes methods and examples for implementing the standard’s critical emergency-related capabilities—life-saving services that are expected to be of particular interest both to countries upgrading their digital systems and those still migrating from analog to digital broadcasting.

The ATSC’s 2019 Board Chairman Lynn Claudy of the National Association of Broadcasters called international acceptance ATSC 3.0 “quite appropriate given the extensive work of engineers from around the world to craft this state-of-the-art standard with built-in capabilities to evolve as the markets warrant.”

Several additional ITU Reports and Recommendations were identified to be modified, reflecting the new ATSC 3.0 standard. Accelerated action on the U.S. proposal is expected at the next ITU working party meetings in July.

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

DALLAS—Construction and connectivity work on the ATSC 3.0 Single Frequency Network (SFN) being installed in the Dallas-Fort Worth Designated Market Area, American Tower announced in January.

The SFN, a collaboration of American Tower, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Univision Local Media, Nexstar and Spectrum Co., consists of four existing American Tower sites located around market in both metro and suburban sites to maximize signal strength across the DMA.

“The construction phase went quite smoothly,” said Ed Tiongson, Director, Product Innovation for American Tower. “With these ATSC 3.0 deployments, it’s critical to draw on expertise to synchronize SFN towers effectively, including integrating the network components, such as antennas, transmitters, and radios for optimum signal delivery.”

[Read: Dallas ATSC 3.0 SFN Buildout Nears Completion]

The towers, electrical power, fiber network and transmitter buildings at sites in Fort Worth, Denton and Garland, Texas, were upgraded for TV. A pre-fab building was also added in Garland, and a point-to-point microwave link between the Denton and Fort Worth sites was also installed, the company said.

The work included upgrades to networking, internet exchange, fiber and data center connectivity as well as three-phase power. Comark transmitters and exciters also were added at each site, the company said.

The main transmission tower site in Cedar Hill, Texas –currently the main 1.0 transmission site—received an upgrade of ATSC 3.0 transmission equipment, rounding out the four-site SFN, American Tower said.

With the 3.0 SFN infrastructure in place, validation testing of RF design and link budget will begin. Evaluating operational workflows is also on tap. “Once the RF measurements are validated, we will be able to scale for additional sites in the future as business needs dictate,” said Jim Leifer, Senior Manager, Broadcast Operations at American Tower.

March 1 is targeted as the date the SFN will light up, said Mark Aitken, Sinclair vice president of Advanced Technology and President of ONE Media LLC, in a recent Q&A with TVTechnology.

“The holdup on this one is the MVPD notification process, and the FCC is a stickler on making sure we run out the 120 days,” said Aitken.

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

Part 2

While the International CES 2019 was top of mind for Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media LLC and vice president of Advanced Technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group (as discussed in part 1 of this Q&A), far more is happening with regards to broadcast standards and ATSC 3.0.

In part two of this interview, Aitken reveals Sinclair’s plan to rollout ATSC 3.0 in 26 markets in 2019, where Sinclair’s Dallas SFN rollout stands, why 3.0 naysayers will soon see they are off target, the effect multistandard TV exciters and receivers may have on the future of standards and his thoughts on the announcement that ATSC President Mark Richer will soon retire.

(An edited transcript.)

TV TECHNOLOGY:ENENSYS/TeamCast and Comark recently announced they were showing a DTV exciter with support for both 3.0 and DVB-T2 waveforms at BES Expo 2019, India.

At CES, ONE Media rolled out its new multi-standard DTV tuner chipsets with support for at least a dozen standards, including 3.0.

It seems to me that multistandard TV exciters and receivers may usher in a new era in which TV standards become something different than they traditionally have been. In other words, it’s hard to see how TV standards in the future will serve as mechanisms to protect markets, regions, economic interests and even competing political systems. What do you think?

MARK AITKEN: I am sure that I have said Broadcast Market Exchange, BMX, to you on more than one occasion.

We started seven or eight years ago –before we even entered the ATSC process for this standard. We started putting out some white papers and articles about the notion of a Broadcast Market Exchange.

Part of that was looking at what was going on in the spectrum sharing worldview and a lot of that came out of the foundational work even before there was CBRS (citizens band radio service).

CBRS is different spectrum, but it’s all about spectrum sharing and providing spectrum access. So, the Broadcast Market Exchange we envisioned tied together broadcast stations on a virtual basis to create a national network.

That in fact to a large degree was the reason we worked with Nexstar to start Spectrum Co. And Spectrum Co is involved in a lot of conversations right now based on our own commitment to build out [ATSC 3.0] in 26 markets this year and finding other partners in those markets.

That’s all backdrop. The point is we had this thing called the Broadcast Market Exchange that envisioned this world of virtualization. The very same world that is at the heart of 5G –not a bunch of hardware, but in fact cloud-based, virtualized functions.

Well on the other side of the world in India, one of the things that attracted me to Saankhya is that they shared a very, very similar view and about four years ago wrote a series of white papers–and there will be another one coming out shortly—on something called a cognitive radio access network.

Cognitive is now being morphed into AI because everybody believes they know what AI means.

To your point, imagine a network where you have software-defined radios, software-defined receivers. You have a network that when you apply AI has a cognitive ability to determine based upon a set of requirements of how best to deliver a wireless set of packets.

If you can describe the attributes of various technologies, you suddenly have a network that can on its own define unique waveforms to deliver [data] in the most effective and efficient way.

The short word for this is AI-RAN [AI Radio Access Network] where you deploy a network with the ability to shape waveforms and radios that can conform to those waveforms. You can begin to envision a world in 10 years, perhaps less, where you don’t even have a standard per se of a fixed set of waveforms. But in fact you have a network that is capable of producing its own waveforms on a flexible, desirable basis.

I would add that I think that becomes almost essential in a future world where you are looking for security at all levels.

Imagine the ability on a data-frame-by-data-frame basis to convey that data with a slightly different waveform based on a 128-bit or 256-bit encoding scheme.

Suddenly not only are you encoding data, but you are effectively encoding waveforms and obviating the need for a fixed standard.

TVT:So this would be a whole new level of security.

MA: Exactly. You could define your own unique waveform. You are not going to hard code that into a chip because it’s your unique waveform. It’s your own modulation, your own coding scheme. The only thing that is common is this bootstrap.

TVT:Probably from its inception, there have been 3.0 naysayers. Some, given the dearth of 3.0 TVs at this year’s CES, say the Next-Gen TV standard is 'DOA.' Clearly, you don’t see it that way. How would you respond to the naysayers?

MA: I’ve not gone to two CES shows in a row where the theme and the thrust of the show on the outward side wasn’t about something new.

CES is always about something new, and this year, surprisingly or not, it wasn’t just one thing. On the surface, you certainly had 5G, 8K and autonomous vehicles. But all of those things, if you think about it, come back to a flexible means to convey any and all of that.

And so, while there was not a big stage for ATSC 3 television devices, ATSC 3 fits into all of those devices.

And I think if you talked to the manufacturers there are a couple of reasons they haven’t launched new ATSC 3 product lines. One of them is technical, and one of them is market.

On the technical side, it is the issue of content protection. You know the ability to ensure that content [remains safe], creating a high enough bar that you haven’t got easy theft, easy access and therefore easy distribution of an all-IP piece of content.

We are a long ways down that road, and I think in a couple of months there will be an announcement of industry alignment and cohesion around a content protection solution.

And I would venture and say it will be supported by the consumer electronics industry, broadcasters and the MVPDs. If you don’t have that, you’re not going to sell ATSC 3 sets into a marketplace.

Probably the more important piece–and I fully understand this from a product manufacturer’s perspective—where are the 3.0 signals? Where is the content?

We are answering that with an absolute public commitment to launch 26 markets by the end of this year.

When we start launching those markets and there is a clear set of objectives for where those markets are and how the content is going to be protected–when all those things come together—the problem is not a technical problem, it’s the realities of a new market, making sure the new market is alive.

TVT:Have you announced Sinclair’s 26 ATSC 3.0 rollout markets for this year?

MA: We have not publicly stated those yet. We have internally as of today, and we will externally two weeks hence.

We know the 26 markets in which we need nobody to participate to create channel shares and offload channels from one to another to clear a channel for 3.0.

But we have also engaged ourselves in discussions through Spectrum Co. We actually have more than 26 markets. I can tell you that we have commitments from a number of broadcasters to participate in a large number of markets. We have one broadcaster that will be working with us in five markets –somebody outside of Spectrum Co.

I think you will see a public announcement of those markets in a couple of weeks.

TVT:Where does the Sinclair SFN deployment in Dallas stand?

MA: It will light up March 1 at all sites. Actually, I just reminded myself I have to check with legal on this one. The holdup on this one is the MVPD notification process, and the FCC is a stickler on making sure we run out the 120 days. That is why it is March.

But I am saying that with a smile because I don’t know how this partial government shutdown impacts that. I am certainly hopeful that the government will be back to being as dysfunctional as it can be by then.

TVT:Sinclair has announced its STIRR OTT service. It seems like this might be a good learning experience and springboard for launching many aspects of an over-the-air IP-based broadcast service like ATSC 3.0. Is that the case?

MA: There is nothing that we are doing that is not focused on the 3.0 future. So, there is a whole lot of learning that comes out of these things.

So, yeah, STIRR is local-advertiser-supported. It has a lot of the moving pieces that end up being connected to 3.0.

When you think of 3.0, you think of broadcast and broadband. OTT sits right alongside of OTA, and while the ad tech might be slightly different between OTT and OTA because OTT is unicast, a one-to-one relationship with folks, there is a lot of technical convergence between the two.

TVT:Finally, the Advanced Television Systems Committee announced that its president, Mark Richer, would soon be retiring. I know you and Mark have a long history–I believe going back to the early DTV days at Comark. What are your thoughts?

MA: I could almost say I love Mark like a brother, and it’s not as though we haven’t had our differences. We have.

When we are together we have this little routine that we go through that we are the “Co-Marks.” Mark ran the Comark Digital Services Group. That is what he was hired in to do at Comark. It was me and the president at the time who brought him in.

We’ve remained very close. We’ve always had the utmost respect for each other, and very recently I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time together with him in India. We went to the Taj Mahal together.

The industry will miss him. The industry will come to understand that leading an organization that demands consensus is a very trying job. It takes a lot of skill and a lot of talent to try to maintain congeniality in the face of confrontation. It takes a lot of effort to intercede and provide a calming effect and bring aggrieved parties together.

A lot of this is finding the common ground as opposed to highlighting the differences. Mark has affected a lot of people in a very positive way, and he made it look really easy, but I can assure you it was a most difficult job that he was a champion of.

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

HUNT VALLEY, MD.--Fresh off the rollout of a multistandard DTV receiver chipset with support for ATSC 3.0 at the International CES 2019 in Las Vegas, Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media LLC and VP of Advanced Technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group is greatly encouraged about the prospects for ATSC 3.0.

Taking center stage for ONE Media at the annual consumer electronics extravaganza was the rollout of a receiver chipset capable of receiving 12 different digital television standards, including 3.0.

But Aitken’s enthusiasm extends well beyond the favorable reception the receiver chipset received at the show. The exhibit also featured a new broadcast radio head designed to integrate the inherent efficiencies and effectiveness of one-to-many OTA broadcasting into 4G and 5G wireless data networks.

Aitken–a long-time proponent of offloading the one-to-many portion of wireless network operators’ traffic to broadcast—says the broadcast radio head was favorably received by representatives of wireless networks and their suppliers in Las Vegas.

In this, the first of a two-part interview, Aitken talks about the multistandard DTV receiver chipset, the new broadcast radio head, LTE Broadcast and 5G and how 5G standards development envision integration of multiple wireless networks. He also provides an update on his offer to give away 1 million of new receiver chips to any vendor that promises to build them into mobile and portable devices.

(An edited transcript.)

TVTechnology:How would you characterize the reaction coming out of CES 2019 to ONE Media’s rollout of two multistandard DTV receiver chips with support for ATSC 3.0?

Mark Aitken: I would say I was startled by the level of activity and positive feedback.

What I mean by that is we had various meetings set up with Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese, Indian and U.S. companies—makers of dongles, set-top boxes, TV sets and gateways.

The discussions were not just about the chip. The other thing that was in the room as a backdrop for the chip was Saankhya had almost a dozen different applications of software-defined receivers. They ran the gamut from USB dongles and tablets to satellite radios and modulators.

Alongside of that was a product we are in the process of developing as a direct result of our conversations on the convergence of broadcast and broadband. We showed a prototype broadcast radio head.

TVT:What’s that?

MA: A broadcast radio head is a small, outdoor-mount utility device, not at all unlike an LTE radio head, except supporting broadcast.

We were involved in designing that for a customer deployment. The idea is pretty simple–a box that can sit on a tower alongside LTE and 5G that is designed to tie into the data network, the intelligent network of a telecom operator. In the 4G world, it’s the “EPC” [Evolved Packet Core]. In 5G, it’s the new 5G Core architecture.

The point is we are headlong into defining the interconnect of Next-Gen Broadcast to the world of telcom as a supplemental download or auxiliary download or however you want to view it—but a broadcast spectrum-enabled device that allows the conveyance of telcom data across an ATSC 3 waveform.

By the way, I almost hate to say ATSC 3 because with the implementation that is being prototyped and coming into a proof of concept we are supporting parts of the ATSC 3 standard that are extensions that will be enabled and signaled via the bootstrap. So, we are already evolving the standard.

TVT:So, from a wireless operator’s point of view, does this broadcast radio head fulfill what you have talked about for a long time: a technology that enables an operator to offload its one-to-many data traffic to broadcast, thus preserving a significant portion of its wireless network?

MA: Absolutely. It is being designed as a replacement to the very poorly conceived, very poorly implemented multicast mode in the LTE environment.

It’s known to the consumer as LTE Broadcast. It’s eMBMS [Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service].

But eMBMS is a unicast-enabled multicast mode of operation, and it is unicast-enabled because it can’t stand on its own as a broadcast waveform. It lives in the unicast environment and demands the ability to do lost packet replacement knowing there is going to be lost packets replaced versus a designed broadcast standard that is meant to stand on its own.

We are doing all of the plumbing. We are involved in India, not just with the chip development, but we are also a member of the telecom standards organization in India, TSDSI [Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India].

They are working at defining the standard that would allow anybody to a take a non-3GPP [Third Generation Partnership Project] broadcast radio—and I call it a radio because that’s how the telcom guys like to think of it—and tie it into a 3GPP access network. We are defining all the attributes that allow this non-3GPP radio to be integrated into that network.

TVT:What about 5G? It seems like you will be going head to head against what operators plan for 5G broadcast.

MA: Well, these go hand-in-hand. What we are doing is providing an invaluable supplemental feed that is actually aligned with the 5G standard.

TVT:Let me clarify what I was asking. I guess it’s a matter of perspective because I know some broadcasters—and you specifically—have talked about 3.0 being an integral part of a future 5G network. But I don’t know if the wireless industry has shown it is receptive to that and will let broadcasters play in their sandbox.

MA: Look, part of this is a matter of who owns the spectrum. Part of this is a matter of who controls the network.

So, the 3GPP spectrum I am talking about is “TS22.261, Release 16.” http://www.3gpp.org/news-events/3gpp-news/1831-sa1_5g. There are all kinds of pieces to this puzzle, but it [broadcast spectrum] is one of the many.

TS22.261 is the 3GPP technical standard and system aspects that define service requirements for 5G systems. It’s known as Release 16, and it’s not finished yet. But from its inception, Release 16 has continued to address the requirements to work in conjunction with 3GPP and non-3GPP systems.

There is an absolute recognition that 3GPP doesn’t live in the world by itself. There are other standards, and the true nature of 5G has nothing to do with specific spectrum.

You say 5G, and there are some people who think it is 20 GHz, or it is millimeter wave or it’s 60 GHz. People jump to the spectrum side of it, and there is some spectrum that is being opened up for advanced radios.

But at its heart, 5G is about convergence. 5G is about multi-radios. 5G is about how do we assemble all of the available radio assets into a unified environment? How does a telco fully utilize WiFi, how does it fully utilize all the efforts that are going on in CBRS [Citizens Broadband Radio Service].

How do all of these things get pulled together in one place? That is what this 5G spec is all about. It’s about convergence. It’s about heterogeneous networks—that’s the fancy term. Hybrid networks is an easier one to think about. And we have talked for so long about this convergence of broadcast and broadband—I don’t know how many different ways I have tried to describe it, but it goes much deeper than simply it’s [3.0 is] IP-enabled.

But I can tell you that if it weren’t IP-enabled, there would be no discussion on the table.

Great, it’s IP-enabled. That means the same stuff that flows across the carrier’s [spectrum] can flow across our spectrum. Check that box off. Well, how do you control that? How do you put that as an active, living mechanism under the control of a network operator? We are doing that work.

And I say all of that because if you walked into the room [at CES] and you could have the big screen TVs and the very same 3.0 chip doing ATSC 3 on one screen and ATSC 1 on another screen. If you wanted, it could have been DVB-T, DVB-T2 or ISDB-T. It could have been some of the advanced DVB satellite [standards]. It could be any of those.

But the point is in the background of that was this whole vibrant discussion of what if broadcasters were doing something more than television. There’s a shock.

I always have to draw people’s attention to the fact that ATSC was building a television standard. We were engaged in ATSC because we wanted a broadcast standard.

What you have in ATSC 3 is a broadcast standard, a broadcast television standard, but by nature of elements that were foundational—and by the way ours, I mean down to the IPR [intellectual property rights]—we ensured that we were not precluded from doing the other things we knew were possible with a newly baked, green field broadcast standard. Now we are beginning to explore those areas.

TVT:What sort of things?

MA: A very simple example, if you want high-speed mobility, an 8K FFT [fast Fourier transform] is not good enough. 8K gets you up to 100-plus mph. But what if you want a broadcast standard that can operate at Autobahn speeds or will support bullet trains? What if you have a broadcast standard that is more than just automobiles?

Well, you need a 2K or 4K FFT—neither of which are in the ATSC 3 standard, but are fully possible if you want to create a modulator that will do a 4K FFT for example—and a receiver that will process a 4K FFT.

Guess what. We have a software-defined radio. So, we can literally create a waveform on the front end and demodulate that waveform on the backend because both ends of that are software-defined.

We are doing simple stuff first, but it will advance to different coding techniques, different modulation schemes. We are crawling. We are just starting down the road.

So, in the background in this room [at CES], there was this radio head on a big tripod and an antenna attached to it that was demonstrating to people that there are products being envisioned and prototyped and that are going to be deployed that fit directly into the mobile network operator environment.

I choose those words carefully because it wasn’t until we were having discussions with one of the major providers to the telco industry, as we are describing this, that they said you are describing an architectural element.

We said, you are absolutely right. This is building a mobile network operation a bit differently. It’s just the primary architectural element is broadcast, not unicast. It’s not to the exclusion of unicast.

TVT:A couple of years ago at the ATSC annual meeting, you made an offer to provide 1 million ATSC 3.0 mobile receiver chips for free to mobile or portable device makers. Did your CES chipset rollout get you any takers?

MA: We had a couple of conversations with dongle manufacturers who wanted to know how they would take advantage of our offer. So, we’ve now got two vendors with whom we’ve had that first level of discussion. We are getting down to how we make that happen.

I can’t give you all the details of that, but the criteria for that was simply that it’s a party that commits to putting a million of these chips into mobile and portable devices, and that is a fairly broad range of products. And they may not all be ATSC 3.

In Part II,  Mark will discuss his concept of a "broadcast market exchange," content security within ATSC 3.0 and Sinclair's plans for Next Gen TV deployment in 2019. 

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

LAS VEGAS—ATSC 3.0 reception in devices ranging from televisions, home gateways and set-top boxes to mobile consumer devices and automobiles today took a major step forward with the launch of two new digital television demodulator chips supporting Next-Gen TV.

The Sinclair Broadcast Group’s subsidiary ONE Media 3.0 LLC and Saankhya Labs in collaboration with VeriSilicon and Samsung Foundry announced the multi-standard System-on-a-Chip demodulators at the 2019 International CES in Las Vegas.

"These mobile 3.0 chips validate the 'sea change' in over-the-air distribution of, not only television, but all digital data,” said Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media 3.0. “Broadcasters are doing their part by deploying the NextGen transmission facilities, and now there will be devices enabled to receive that data – personalized and in mobile form. This chip is the key to that disruptive future in a 5G world."

Based on Saankhya’s software defined radio platform, the demodulator chips support 12 DTV standards, including ATSC 3.0, DVB-T2, ISDB-T and satellite and cable standards for TVs, home gateways, set-top boxes, automotive applications and mobile use.

The new SL3000 demod-only chip is designed for linear TV applications in TVs and other home devices. The SL4000 supports mobile and portable applications. It is intended to accelerate adoption of 3.0 in direct-to-mobile TV applications as well as broadcast-broadband converged uses.

Saankhya Labs designed and developed the demodulator SoC with ASIC design and manufacturing services from VeriSilicon and using Samsung Foundry’s 28FDS (Fully Depleted SOI process technology).

"We are excited to bring disruptive changes to the broadcasting industry with the launch of our most advanced mobile and terrestrial TV demodulator SoC,” said Parag Naik, CEO of Saankhya Labs Pvt Ltd.

“This mobile TV SoC is an essential component of our patented broadcast offload convergence solution. This will help broadcasters and telecom service providers enable their vision to bring unmatched video viewing experience anywhere, anytime, to the consumer,” he said.

More information is available on the ONE Media 3.0 website.

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

LAS VEGAS—Just before the 2019 CES begins Jan. 8, the Consumer Technology Association will reveal its annual electronics sales forecast, and for the first time 8K ultra high definition TV sets will be included in the forecast.

“8K is getting real,” says Steve Koenig, CTA’s vice president of market research. “We’ve seen 8K in previous years, but now I expect every manufacturer will show 8K equipment, and there will be big announcements about plans to begin shipping 8K sets later in the year.”

Koenig’s forecast will also confirm the strength of the television receiver market, showing that 55-inch 4K UHD displays are “now the industry standard,” a dramatic jump from the 42-inch screen which had been the mainstay of the flat-panel industry for several years. Koenig also expects that 65-inch sets will be heavily promoted at CES.

[Read: Is 8K Gaining Traction?]

Although Koenig admits he has “no idea” about the pricing for 8K equipment, he expects the sets will be just one aspect of the renewed focus on TV devices. Advanced TV display technology, including rollable screens, micro LEDs from Samsung and Sony’s short-throw laser projection are among products Koenig expects to see at next year’s CES.

THE RISE OF ‘C-SPACE’

CTA’s Karen Chupka, senior vice president, CES & Corporate Business Strategy, affirmed the staying power of television sets despite the boom in alternative viewing devices.

“At one point, everyone thought the TV set would become a dumb device, yet TVs have become smarter,” Chupka said. “TVs are still a huge part of our everyday lives. While we have all these great technologies being built into things we never thought of, at the end of the day, people are still using TVs, albeit interfacing with them in different ways.”

Citing the rapid adoption of streaming video, as well as user-created content, Chupka characterized as “incredibly important” the growing reality that “content resides on all our devices.” Focusing on the growth of “C Space,”—a conference and exhibit area at CES aimed at content producers, marketers and distributors—she focused on the growing role of analytics and other tools that help marketers and programmers evaluate new opportunities.

“We created C Space with the intent to bring branding, content and marketing people under one roof,” Chupka told TV Technology. “There is so much knowledge about who’s watching what and the ability to create diverse programming. All this data and analytics are becoming more and more important to understanding audiences.”

This year, “Sports Zone,” a popular component of the CES in recent years, has been moved to C Space, because it’s “such an important tie-in,” Chupka explained. The combination means that 2019’s C Space will be twice the size of last year’s event, which drew 22,000 attendees. Chupka expects a larger crowd this year.

Other technologies such as ATSC 3.0 will be less visible—but not absent—from the halls and suites at CES. Koenig does not expect manufacturers to demonstrate 3.0 devices on the show floor, although such products may be on display at the 2020 CES.

WELCOME TO ‘THE DATA AGE’

Along with 8K introductions, Koenig expects other video developments.

“What matters is picture quality,” he said. Technically advanced consumers will be looking for advanced features, such as high dynamic range. Koenig’s research also indicates that 4K sets will dominate U.S. TV sales in the coming year. Nearly half of all new receivers will have 4K displays in 2019, and that figure will rise to 55 percent by 2020, Koenig said.

Television sets are the number one most-owned technology in America, in 96 percent of U.S. homes, according to CTA’s research, with smartphones (86 percent) coming in second place.

“Even in this mobile-driven era, the TV remains the centerpiece of technology in U.S. homes,” Koenig added. “TV is still a major attraction at CES.” He expects that one major issue next month will be the intense global competitive market, especially as more TV brands from China offer innovations, just as Japanese and Korean companies have done in recent years.

At their presentation at the “CES Unveiled” preview in New York last month, Koenig’s CTA research colleagues predicted an upbeat holiday sales season, predicting that 164 million adults (about two-thirds of American adults) will purchase technology gifts, spending an average of $464. TV receivers remain the most popular item on the holiday wish list, similar to 2017, with notebook/laptop computers and smartphones/tablets filling the next two spots.

In their presentation, Ben Arnold, CTA’s senior director-innovation and trends, and Lesley Rohrbaugh, director-market research, introduced a new strategic perspective, calling 2020 the start of the “Data Age,” following the “Digital Age” (2000) and “Connected Age” (2010). They singled out the growing use of artificial intelligence—where IoT, which usually stands for “Internet of Things”—has been updated to the “new” IoT: “Intelligence of Things,” in which digital assistants become more specialized and a range of home products are integrated into a “whole home view.”

READY FOR ATSC 3.0

Pearl TV, the alliance of eight broadcast companies promoting Next Gen TV, will be active during CES in anticipation of its 2020 service launch, according to Anne Schelle, managing director.

“Our entire focus is on the commercialization of the very flexible ATSC 3.0 standard,” of Pearl TV, Schelle said. The organization’s leaders and its Phoenix model market partners will be at CES “meeting with various ecosystem partners, reaching out to consumer device manufacturers, automotive manufacturers, and other players to share our service requirements and plans resulting from the Phoenix tests,” she said.

Schelle contrasted the 3.0 rollout to the high-definition transmission and reception launch 20 years ago, which “took several CES and NAB Shows to accomplish.”

“It’s moving much faster in today’s digital environment,” she said. “While we don’t anticipate seeing much in the way of ATSC 3.0 receivers on the show floor itself in 2019, we know that ‘behind the scenes’ discussions will be about new partnerships and new capabilities of future television products—just like conversations in past years.

“CES will be another opportunity to explain how this transition is different than the last one, and how broadcasters are embracing the Internet Protocol capabilities of the new standard,” Schelle added.

Separately, ONE Media, the Sinclair Broadcasting technology unit that is developing Next Gen TV services, will privately demonstrate three configurations of its chip for ATSC 3.0 devices. There will be a simple demodulator package, a demodulator with analog/digital conversion capability and a demodulator with analog/digital conversion plus an embedded turner, according to Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media and Sinclair’s vice president of advanced technology.

First versions of the chip, which was developed by Saankhya Labs, an Indian firm in which Sinclair holds a major stake, were due to be delivered during the past month from a Samsung foundry. The single-chip receivers feature a low-power embedded antenna and were also designed for use in moving vehicles. The chips include a closely coupled antenna array to insure reception in a high-speed mobile environment, according to Aitken. “We’re going after the largest possible markets, including the global market for set top boxes,” Aitken told TV Technology. The new multistandard SDR (software defined radio) chip will support 23 broadcast standards, he added. ONE Media will demonstrate the technology privately in a hotel suite during CES and expects “we’ll have more to show” (possibly on the exhibit floor) at the 2019 NAB Show, Aitken said, adding that he also plans to demonstrate the chip’s capabilities at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in late February.

Aitken declined to discuss pricing, but said that even in low quantities, the price point will be “a fraction” of what other companies are charging for SDR chips.

SENSORY OVERLOAD

Beyond the renewed vigor within the video category, CES continues to expand its reach into countless digital realms—thereby attracting an ever more diverse array of exhibitors and attendees. For example, the Eureka Park exhibit area—where start-ups and young companies can display their innovations—will have 1,200 small booths next month, up from 1,000 in 2018 and six-fold the size of the first Eureka Park five years ago.

Overall, more than 4,500 exhibitors have signed up to show their wares in the 2.75 million square feet of space at CES’s three major venues in Las Vegas (Tech East, Tech West and Tech South, all of which include multiple buildings), CTA’s Chupka said. Floor space and the expected attendee roster of more than 180,000 people are “tracking ahead of last year,” Chupka added. About one-third of attendees are based outside the United States, and CTA’s tally shows that 65,000 people carry a “senior-level executive” title.

In addition to the Prince of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom’s Minister of Trade, 10 other overseas Ministers will take part in the programs.

Chupka is particularly enthusiastic about the growth of C Space, with its larger-than-ever presence by Hulu, NBCUniversal, Turner, Google and other old and new media companies. CES has expanded its “Marketplace” clusters of technologies—each focused on purveyors in categories such as robotics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, smart cities and travel.

Koenig pointed out the continuing explosion of new programming, including material created for streaming, subscription video-on-demand and other platforms.

“There is so much content out there,” he said, speculating that the “mosaic of sources can be a ‘Frankenstein monster’ of content that consumers have trouble wrangling.” He said he’ll look for ways that artificial intelligence can better help consumers curate their choices. Koenig cited the predictive algorithms (recommendation engines) of Netflix and Amazon Prime which steer viewers to shows they like.

“As algorithms get better and better and train the AIs,” Koenig said he expects that the services will bridge to other digital assistants that will help consumers make viewing decisions. He cited a service, which will be on display at CES, in which LG uses Google Assistant to enable viewers to control the TV.

“It will be interesting to see what is the next level of integration beyond command and control, getting into curation,” Koenig said.

Among other features that he expects to emerge at CES is more audio for home theater, such as a new Dolby Atmos technology that provides “an enormously rich, immersive sound field to go with 4K or 8K.”

WHERE CONTENT AND TECHNOLOGY MEET

The CES conference program—spread over the four days of CES, Jan. 8–12—encompasses more than 250 sessions on dozens of topics. The keynote speaker line-up includes a first-time appearance by LG Electronics President/CTO Dr. I.P. Park, who will appear at a Monday night pre-show event to discuss how artificial intelligence has become the company’s main growth engine. Park is also expected to describe how AI will affect nearly every major industry from technology to healthcare, agriculture, transportation and engineering.

Other keynoters include IBM Chairman/President/CEO Ginni Rometty, who will also discuss AI and quantum in the context of trust and transparency, and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg, who will (according to CTA) “take a deep dive into the impact of 5G,” especially for use in building smart cities infrastructure. AMD President/CEO Dr. Lisa Su will examine next-generation of computing, especially in terms of gaming and virtual entertainment.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is scheduled to sit down with CTA President/CEO Gary Shapiro for a half-hour on-stage chat about regulatory issues on the first day of CES. Other members of the FCC and Federal Trade Commission are expected to join various public policy sessions, which had not yet been confirmed at press time. International trade issues will also be on the agenda, Chupka promised.

Even after more than 20 years of overseeing CES, Chupka seemed awed at the velocity of changes now infusing the technology industry.

“One thing I think that will be surprising is how many advances there will be apparent in just one year.”

For more information, visitces.tech.

WASHINGTON—Representatives from One Media met with FCC Commissioner Michael O’Reilly and two staff lawyers Oct. 25 to present how Next-Gen TV can be used to carry more than simply video and audio data and play a vital role in delivering wireless IP data packets as part of a future 5G wireless network.

ONE Media, which recounted details of the meeting in an ex parte notice submitted to the agency Oct. 29, was represented by Mark Aitken, President of ONE Media 3.0 and Jerry Fritz, the company’s executive vice president for Strategic and Legal Affairs.

ATSC 3.0 can be used “as the baseline for terrestrial broadcasters to provide a new, combined broadcast and broadband, cloud-native network system architecture” to deliver TV and non-TV services to new devices, the filing said.

Describing the cloud-native system architecture as “novel,” the ONE Media representatives explained that this broadcast-broadband convergence it will be built upon the physical layer of 3.0 and “a new, virtualized, shared IP Core.” This system can enable several new broadcast applications, such as offloading large data files, including video data files that wireless carriers currently must unicast to subscribers. Delivering data to autonomous vehicles and serving the data requirements of IoT (internet of things) devices and telemedicine are two other uses.

The ONE Media team also explained how 3.0 broadcasting based on tall towers and single frequency networks can be used to overcome the limitations of 5G wireless networks, such as their use of shorter wavelengths and their dependence on “vast networks” of small-cell sites.

The Next-Gen TV standard was designed to be part of the 5G ecosystem, and broadcasters will provide services needed “as part of a robust 5G distribution chain,” ONE Media explained.

Using 3.0 to help converge broadcast and broadband services is already a topic of discussion in South Korean and India, and the Next-Gen broadcast standard should be considered as regulators in this country ponder steps to accelerate deployment of 5G services, ONE Media said.

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

LAS VEGAS—Next-Gen television rose to the forefront as both subject and object of the 2018 NAB Show, April 9–12. No matter where one turned, there were constant reminders of the ascendency of ultra high-definition, extended color gamuts, high dynamic range, and immersive audio, along with their enabler, the newly-minted ATSC 3.0 digital television transmission standard. Beginning in the Central Hall concourse of the Las Vegas Convention Center and extending into the exhibit halls and beyond, there were constant reminders of what lies ahead in terms of a greatly enhanced television experience. Technical experts laid bare the inner workings of ATSC 3.0 in all-day Saturday and Sunday sessions, as other presenters explained how to best make use of the standard, as well as how to profit from it.

ATSC 3.0 SPREADS ITS WINGS

“The momentum for ATSC 3.0 is evident with the interest we received from broadcasters throughout the world during the NAB Show,” said ATSC president Mark Richer, in reflecting on the rollout of the new standard during the event. “There was high interest in the potential for television transmitted to moving vehicles like the autonomous shuttle that was in our exhibit, and for the potential for next-generation television to reshape how broadcasters relate to their audience. People are carefully watching the deployments, with an eye on taking advantage of various new services made possible by ATSC 3.0 such as hybrid broadcast broadband applications, targeted advertising, and mobile reception.”

That mobile reception aspect of ATSC 3.0 was graphically demonstrated via a receiving installation in a small driverless “bus” that maneuvered in the open area outside Central Hall during exhibit hours. In addition to the completely hands-off driving experience, passengers witnessed rock-steady video despite vehicle motion, signal shadowing from buildings, and multiple reflections from surrounding structures.

Incoming ATSC Technology Group chair, Madeleine Noland, also expressed her satisfaction with the “buy-in” for the new TV standard at the show.

“I am amazed by the progress of next-gen TV from year to year, and momentum showed no signs of slowing at NAB 2018,” said Noland. “This year showed a clear shift from demos to deployments. The ‘Road to ATSC 3.0’ exhibit highlighted deployments across the U.S. and South Korea, and the Saturday IEEE BTS panel discussion offered an in-depth look at three field deployments projects, along with info on Advanced Emergency Alerting. As incoming ATSC TG chair, I’m excited about the year ahead and can’t wait to see what NAB 2019 will bring.”

UHD/HDR/ECG/HFR ALSO IN THE LIMELIGHT

Noland, who’s also with LGE Electronics’ office of the CTO, was one of 15 presenters at the day-long Saturday “Global UHD Conference” that explored topics including use of higher frame rates, advanced television rollout regulatory issues, and compression technologies for accommodating greater line counts, extended color gamuts, increased dynamic range and other components in UHD signals. The presenters included a Korean contingent that addressed the deployment of advanced TV in their country, and “lessons learned” in that rollout.

The accomplishments of the Koreans were acknowledged by NAB president and CEO, Gordon Smith, in his closing remarks at the Global UHD Conference.

“I want to congratulate Korea’s broadcasters, who, using the occasion of the Winter Olympics, were able to make this transition [to ATSC 3.0] in a way such that anyone could experience the dramatic difference made by this new technology,” said Smith. “The Olympics gave the Korean broadcasters an opportunity to shine, and they truly did. And they brought that great event to audiences all over for everybody to enjoy and get a glimpse of the future. U.S. broadcasters look forward to [soon] joining you in rolling out next-gen TV commercially.”

Examples of ATSC 3.0 technology were liberally scattered across the convention center’s exhibit halls, ranging from ATSC 3.0-capable transmitters, to consumer products including set-top boxes to allow older TVs to work with the new signals, “dongles” for converting tablets into ATSC 3.0 receivers, and even a master antenna television (MATV) unit for distributing 3.0 signals throughout an apartment building or hotel.

In addition to its ATSC 3.0-ready TV transmitter line, Hitachi-Comark also featured a complete “end-to-end” 3.0 demo.

“Visitors were able to see a “glass-to-glass” (camera-to-TV) ATSC 3.0 demo showing 1080p60 HDR along with up to 12 SD programs in a single 6 MHz RF channel,” said Joe Turbolski, marketing chief for the Southwick, Mass.-based company. “They expressed a keen interest in our transmitters for repack [as well as] ATSC 3.0.”

Turbolski added that Comark Digital Services (CDS) had recently been relaunched to assist broadcasters’ migration from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0.

AD TARGETING COMES OF AGE

ATSC 3.0 even extended to an upper floor of Las Vegas’s Wynn Hotel where the standard’s targeted advertising capabilities were demonstrated. Kevin Gage, executive vice president of strategic development at ONE Media, participated in the demos and said response was “overwhelmingly positive.”

“We hosted a broad range of global industry members in our suite,” he said. “Along with our partner SK Telecom, we demonstrated how MMT [MPEG Media Transport] enables broadcasters to provide client-side targeted dynamic ad insertion and geotargeted graphical overlays.”

The show also served as the backdrop for the Monday afternoon signing of a memorandum of understanding addressing the emergency alerting capabilities that ATSC 3.0 brings to the table. Representatives from AWARN (Advanced Warning and Response Network) Alliance, the NAB, and Korea’s RAPA (Korea Radio Promotion Association) agreed to “actively promote next-generation television using the ATSC 3.0 standard,” giving special emphasis to its emergency alerting capabilities.

IP CONTINUES TO MAKE INROADS

Although Next Gen TV got the lion’s share of attention, there were plenty of reminders of other churn and evolution going on within broadcasting, including the increasing movement to the cloud, virtualization, and most assuredly, the transition to IP connectivity. Many equipment manufacturers featured IP-enabled technology, and the industry-sponsored IP Showcase returned for its second NAB appearance and first since the SMPTE 2110 video transport over IP standard was approved last fall.

“The interest in real-time IP conductivity changed since last the NAB when the IP Showcase’s focus was interoperability,” said Stan Moote, IABM CTO. “This year’s hands-on demos, complete with a SMPTE ST 2110 studio producing videos and live streaming of the presentations at the IP Showcase IABM Theater, drew crowds. The ‘standing-room-only’ theater sessions [included] IP use cases and deep dives into the specifics of existing IP facilities, configurations and standards specifics.”

THE CLOUD GROWS

Companies that in the past have not been directly associated with broadcasting such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Verizon were at the show, with larger booths and increased staffing to accommodate interest in their wares.

Mary Kay Evans, chief marketing officer at Verizon Digital Media Services, spoke about her company’s offerings, noting the increased level of interest in live streaming and other new content delivery modalities.

“We debuted our Live Event Operations managed service which allows broadcasters to quickly ramp up operations capacity to optimize live event streaming,” she said. “It was perfect timing, as monetizing and scaling live event streams were big concerns for many of the visitors who stopped by our booth.”

Amazon Web Services (AWS) chief product officer Asiam Khader also noted an uptick in interest in what his company is offering.

“Cloud migration is definitely accelerating,” said Khader. Increased agility and innovation, along with lower costs, are the drivers.” 

He observed that another tool offered by Amazon is gaining traction. “We also are seeing more providers building intelligent video workflows with AWS machine learning services to improve engagement.”

No matter where you looked, it was evident at this year’s NAB Show that a paradigm shift was underway in the way both broadcasting and content production are done. The 2018 event seems destined to be remembered as the one where next-generation television arrived in full force and reminders of ATSC 3.0 extended throughout the entire show.

The 2018 NAB Show featured exhibits from 1,718 companies that occupied more than one million square feet of floor space. Approximately 93,000 attended, a 10 percent drop from 2017. Of those, 25,550 were international.

The 2019 NAB Show is scheduled for April 6-11 in Las Vegas.

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

LAS VEGAS—South Korean wireless telecom company SK Telecom, Sinclair Broadcast Group and its subsidiary ONE Media this week signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at the 2018 CES in Las Vegas to create an overarching wireless network architecture based on ATSC 3.0 and deploy a proof of concept before July.

“Working with Sinclair, SK Telecom’s media technology is now aiming to bring innovation to the global broadcast industry and create new growth engine,” Park Jung-ho, CEO and president of SK Telecom said.

Called the NG TV platform—NG for Next Generation—the network architecture will play a critical role in enabling a hybrid wireless environment that taps broadcast and wireless broadband resources to “drive richness, interactivity and total synchronicity” of content across consumer devices, said Mark Aitken, Sinclair VP of Advanced Technology.

NG TV will deliver UHD-quality content, customized IP-based interactive services, personalized and location-based advertising, fixed and mobile broadcast service and emergency alerting, according to an SK Telecom press release announcing the MoU.

While SK Telecom was attracted to Sinclair and ONE Media for the role they have played in developing the ATSC 3.0 standard and associated, new broadcast business models, Sinclair was attracted to SK Telecom because of the experience it has gained developing MPEG Media Transport (MMT) technology, said Aitken.

“We are going to tie stations together as a combined [spectrum] asset and orchestrate across them,” said Aitken. “That requires a network-based solution like MMT.” MMT can unlock the potential of next-generation television by enabling dynamic ad insertion to mobile and fixed devices, he added.

“They have deployed MMT commercially. They have built devices that consume MMT and provide a rich consumer experience,” said Aitken, adding the telecom’s experience with MMT is so sweeping that it has even developed a mobile addendum to the digital container standard.

While initially targeted for the U.S. television industry, SK Telecom envisions expanding use of the platform to India, according to the press release. SK Telecom ultimately expects to be able to help in expanding the global ecosystem for next-generation broadcasting using its mobile IPTV and media technologies, the press release said.

“The company will share its core infrastructure with global companies to come up with convergent business models that will create new business platforms,” said Park.

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

AMSTERDAM—The trio of Sinclair Broadcast Group, One Media and TeamCast were singled out during the Innovation Awards Ceremony during IBC 2017 to honor the work the three had done on the Next Generation of Broadcast Platform project. The project received the Highly Commended award in the Content Distribution category.

Kevin Cage, One Media (far left), Mark Aitken, SBG (center right) and Eric Pinson (far right) receive the award for the Next Generation of Broadcast Platform project.

Conducted by Sinclair, with the support of One Media and TeamCast, this project reconsiders the traditional way of deploying and operating a Terrestrial Broadcast Network. Some differences include the “small cell” network topology approach and the implementation of a standard agnostic and centralized transmitting technology, as implemented by TeamCast.

The concept was put to the test with an ATSC 3.0 Single Frequency Network experiment in Baltimore, which began in March 2016. A first deployment began during the second quarter of 2017 with the addition of a third transmitter to help refine the field experiment and acquire the experience for a nationwide deployment.

IBC awarded the trio the award on Sept. 17.

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

WASHINGTON—Retransmission consent is emerging as a particular bugaboo in the Federal Communications Commission’s ATSC 3.0 proceeding. The commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to allow voluntary deployment of the advanced TV transmission standard would keep must-carry in place for signals in the current ATSC 1.0 format, but leave carriage of 3.0 signals up for retrans negotiation.

In a nutshell, “no way,” say pay TV operators, claiming they are already strong-armed into carrying unwanted signals.

“Way,” say broadcasters. “It’s free market. If you don’t like it, pick up your marbles and go home.

Size matters in the retrans debate. Small pay TV operators are outgunned by the larger programming providers, both cable- and broadcast-based. Small broadcast shops, on the other hand—those with just two or three stations in small to medium markets, have nowhere near the negotiating firepower of a Comcast with operations covering a third of the U.S. population.

Even Sinclair, which has 173 TV stations and deals for 60 more, says it’s dwarfed by the large carriers.

“The four largest MVPDs together account for more than four out of five MVPD households. The smallest of these is more than five times as large as Sinclair, measured by both market capitalization and revenue,” Sinclair said in reply comments, which were due on the docket Thursday.

SINCLAIR vs. ATVA
Sinclair focused on comments by the American Television Alliance, a lobby formed by a number of pay providers to battle retrans. Members range from the American Cable Association representing 850 small and mid-sized operations serving a 7 million households, to Charter Communications, the second largest U.S. cabler with nearly 25 million subscribers.

The ATVA said it supported the notion of “permissionless innovation” for broadcasters, but objected to the application of retrans to 3.0, using Tennis Channel as an example.

“Sinclair did not obtain expanded Tennis Channel coverage from ATVA members by offering something of value in exchange. Rather, ATVA members report that Sinclair presented carriage of the Tennis Channel as a fait accompli at the start of retransmission consent negotiations. …We have every reason to believe that broadcasters would negotiate for carriage of their ATSC 3.0 signals in exactly the manner that Sinclair negotiates for carriage of the Tennis Channel.”

To which Sinclair replied that the ATVA “bizarrely alleges that Sinclair has coerced various MVPDs to carry the Tennis Channel against their will and without ‘offering something of value in exchange.’ …We doubt any of the management of the MVPDs backing ATVA would report to their shareholders—or state in their public filings—that they had entered into a significant commercial agreement without getting anything of value in exchange.”

The ATVA further asked the commission to prohibit broadcaster degradation of the ATSC 1.0 signals now carried by its members. Sinclair said it’s the pay carriers, not the broadcasters, who “consistently demand rights to further compress it.”

ATVA said 3.0 would impose inordinate costs on multichannel video programming distributors, including potential royalty fees for HEVC, the standard’s video codec. Sinclair said ATVA’s cost estimates were overstated. ATVA also urged the FCC to “adjust” the 5 percent ancillary fee on revenue-generating secondary broadcast services. Sinclair said, sure, go ahead: “The commission should take this opportunity to reduce this requirement substantially and ensure that it truly does not dissuade innovation.”

LG: A/322 IS ‘CRITICAL TO NEXT-GEN TV’
The commission’s ATSC 3.0 proposal would codify just one of 20-plus individual standards that comprise the 3.0 suite. That would be A/321, the “bootstrap,” which provides a doorway for the TV signal to get into the RF waveform. (The rest of the 3.0 standard offers a variety of technologies designed to allow individual broadcasters to tailor their service types. Watch “25 More Things to Know About ATSC 3.0,” a TV Technology webinar presented June 6, for more.)

The NPRM also asked if A/322, the “Physical Layer Protocol,” which configures the various bitrate conduits within a 6 MHz channel, should be ratified. Yes, says LG Electronics. “A/322 is necessary to ensure a stable RF environment.”

On this point, Sinclair’s ONE Media split the sheet: “Doing so would limit the usefulness of the transmission standard and hamper broadcasters’ ability to exploit the standard’s potential fully without adding anything not already protected by the rules currently in force.”

“Manifestly untrue,” LG replied. “The waveform and coding choices available with A/322 result in more than 10,000 different emission parameters…. A/322 is the component of ATSC 3.0 that ensures that receivers in televisions and other consumer reception devices are able to demodulate an ATSC 3.0 signal.”

Seattle-based engineering consultant Benjamin Dawson also favors the inclusion of A/322, “since A/321, by itself, is insufficient to define the waveform and interference criteria.”

ATSC: 3.0 IS LOCKED AND LOADED
The Advanced Television Systems Committee, the organization that developed the 3.0 standard, also filed a reply comment on the docket to the effect that both A/321 and A/322 are ready to roll.

“These standards are finalized, along with a majority of the other standards and recommended practices that make up ATSC 3.0. Therefore, there is no reason to delay its adoption.”

ATSC also noted that it requires disclosure of any patented technology within the standard to be made available on “reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.”

AT&T STANDS WITH MVPDs
AT&T also weighed in on the docket in the MVPD camp.

“The commission should heed the unified voice of MVPDs in this proceeding and adopt rules that ensure that the ATSC 3.0 transition will be voluntary for all stakeholders, not just broadcasters.”

AT&T also urged the commission to be adamant about requiring 1.0 simulcasting as a condition for transmitting 3.0. (See “ATSC 3.0 Local Simulcasting Approach Debated,” May 9, 2017.) ONE Media requested “flexibility for simulcasting” and the use of vacant channels for launching 3.0 or transmitting 1.0. Low-power broadcasters outright oppose simulcasting because of the cost involved.

The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition said, “The new regulatory burden of a local simulcast, would literally make it financially infeasible for a large majority of stations to convert in a timely manner…. Our Coalition recommends that Class-A and LPTV stations be allowed to ‘flash-cut’ to a 3.0 service without any legacy ATSC 1.0 legacy simulcast.”

Likewise,  Keith Leitch, president of One Ministries, Inc., a Class A and LPTV station owner in Santa Rosa, Calif., said, “Allowing us to freely move to ATSC 3.0 whenever we like will help ensure our survival.”

ATSC 3.0 WEEK AT THE FCC
The commission set aside time later this month specifically to discuss the ATSC 3.0 comments and replies with the various players “given the interest in this proceeding,” the Media Bureau’s Public Notice stated. Tuesday, June 27 through Friday, June 30, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. has been blocked out for 3.0 meetings between “interested parties” and commission staff.

RANDOM SELECTION OF OTHER COMMENTS
“I do not think it a good idea for the government to authorize official use of airwave spectrum for this purpose,” wrote Prof. John Woods of the Department of ECSE Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Woods recommended “staying with ATSC 1.0 in the authorized spectral bands and fully expect its use to die off in the coming five to 10 years,” because “there is a new TV emerging, one that will be delivered by the wired Internet and wireless cellular networks.”

Lokita Solutions of Radnor, Pa. a 3.0 app developer, countered that “one-to-many broadband Internet over-the-air will revolutionize the wireless broadband marketplace for the age of the Internet of Things.”

“The FCC should confirm that voluntary adoption of ATSC 3.0 will be the FCC’s permanent policy. — ION Media

“Commissioner O’Rielly’s goal of having the initial rules to authorize voluntary use of the “Next Generation” broadcast standard, with no unnecessary mandates, in place by October is the correct one. Rapid approval of this NPRM promises to again revolutionize broadband media as we know it.” — Chet Dagit, founder and CEO of Lokita Solutions, a Radnor, Pa., app maker.

The commission should not permit broadcasters to use vacant channels preserved for unlicensed operations or require TVWS devices to protect multiple ATSC 3.0 transmissions.” — the Wi-Fi Alliance (Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, LG, T-Mobile, Samsung, Nokia, etc.)

“The commission should expressly prohibit the tying of ATSC 3.0 carriage to retransmission consent negotiations. The commission should also require local broadcast stations to disclose their plans to transition to ATSC 3.0 and local simulcasting during retransmission consent negotiations that are scheduled to take place at the end of 2017.” — WTA-Advocates for Rural Broadband

“MVPDs should continue to enjoy the full benefits of the retransmission consent agreements for which they bargained, but should not be effectively coerced into carrying ATSC 3.0 signals when negotiating new retransmission consent agreements or the renewal of existing ones.” — The Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance

“Meredith encourages the FCC to adopt ATSC 3.0 as a new, optional additive standard, while allowing simulcasting for a voluntary transition and implementing necessary clean-up rule changes to be clear ATSC 3.0 counts as ‘television broadcasting’ under the FCC's rules.” — Meredith Corp.

“NPR urges the commission to ensure the interference protection of NCE radio stations operating on the reserved portion of the FM band as a result of the DTV transition to the ATSC 3.0 standard.”— NPR

“Although LG agrees that the Physical Layer [A/321] is the only layer of ATSC 3.0 that is relevant for purposes of authorizing broadcasters to provide Next Gen TV service, LG urges the commission to also incorporate by reference into its rules A/322, which is the critical component of the Physical Layer for interference-free delivery of IP signals to both fixed receivers and mobile devices, including new automotive applications.” — LG Electronics

“AWARN will enable distribution of geo-targeted, rich media alerts simultaneously to an unlimited number of enabled fixed, mobile, and hand-held devices, indoors and outdoors, across an entire television broadcast contour…. AWARN capabilities will far exceed those available to the American public today.” — AWARN Alliance

The Saankhya Labs software-defined universal baseband demodulator IC. HUNT VALLEY, MD. and BANGALORE, INDIA—Sinclair subsidiary ONE Media struck an agreement to develop ATSC 3.0 chipsets with Bangalore-based Saankyha Labs, a developer of cognitive software-defined radio chips.

Under the agreement, Saankhya Labs will begin the development of a global standards supporting ATSC 3.0 chipset that will enable consumer devices to decode the emerging television transmission standard, including TVs, cellphones, tablets, dongles, gateways and automotive units.

According to ONE (which now self-identifies as ONE Media “3.0”) : The intent is to accelerate and stimulate the activities associated with the incubation of the ATSC 3.0 chipset development as a pre-cursor to a full-fledged development program. During the project incubation stage, key team members of Saankhya Labs will engage in chip architecture definition and algorithm identification in collaboration with Sinclair and ONE Media 3.0 technical leads.

The complete ATSC 3.0 standard is on track for final approval by the standard-setting body in the coming months and governmental approval for use in the U.S. is expected by year-end. This new standard supports mobile reception, convergence with broadband Internet platforms, addressability, conditional access, increased capacity and advanced audio and video features such as immersive sound, 4K and high dynamic range. Early development of the chipsets anticipating final approval is expected accelerate adoption of the new capabilities enabled by the standard as broadcasters begin deployment.

“We are pleased to begin working with Saankhya Labs to fast-track development of a global ATSC 3.0 device ecosystem that is focused on mobility, and provides support for all global broadcast transmission standards,” said Mark Aitken, Sinclair’s vice president for Advanced Technology. “ONE Media 3.0 and Sinclair, as digital innovators and the largest U.S. broadcaster, are committed to ‘mobile-first’ services, advanced data delivery as well as emergency and educational connectivity. Saankhya Labs’ software-defined technology will allow us to exploit the underlying flexibility of the next-generation standard in evolving beyond ‘3.0’ in support of the unique needs of large markets like the United States and India.”

And from Parag Naik, CEO of Saankhya Labs: “We are excited to partner with One Media 3.0 and Sinclair to develop an ATSC 3.0 chipset that is set to revolutionize the mobility broadcast and data delivery services industry. Based on ‘Pruthvi,’ Saankhya’s award-winning Software Defined Radio platform, the next-generation ATSC 3.0 chipset will enable true convergence of networks and devices. The new age chipset bears testimony to Sinclair and Saankhya’s commitment to innovate and Make in India.”

For more on this subject, visit our ATSC 3.0 silo.

BALTIMORE—Sinclair Broadcast Group and its subsidiary, ONE Media, are focusing on ATSC 3.0 receiver design and cross-platform user data collection.

The emerging ATSC 3.0 broadcast transmission format enables video content and data across the landscape of smart devices. Sinclair and ONE are developing technology and data-gathering methodologies to react and respond to user interaction, and to “capture significant and meaningful information relating to the consumer’s actual viewing and consumption behaviors.”

The idea is to take charge of audience measurement versus farming it out to third-party metric providers.

Sinclair and ONE note that the value of this captured data can be monetized several ways. For advertisers, it will provide a greater efficiency in spending with addressability and personalization. Broadcasters, in turn, are afforded a greater efficiency in reaching and capitalizing on a larger advertising market. Sinclair and ONE also said they expect that the data will provide a means to significantly reduce or eliminate rating measurement expenses.

“This is about knowing the truth regarding who is watching, what they’re watching and when they’re watching,” said David Smith, president and CEO of Sinclair. “Data gathering, measurement and behavior is too important for us not to have a reliable system and there is an immediacy to have this in place to coincide with the rollout of ATSC 3.0. Sinclair and ONE Media 3.0 intend to build it and make it available to the industry. We are currently working with device manufacturers and will shortly identify a test market in which to conduct live field trials.”

For more TV Technology coverage, see our ATSC 3.0 silo.

WASHINGTON—ONE Media wants ATSC 3.0, the next-generation TV standard, and it wants it now. In comments filed on the FCC's petition to authorize ATSC 3.0, the company—which is a spinoff of Sinclair Broadcast Group devoted to the new standard—urged the commission to “approve the Next Generation transmission standard that permits innovation, service improvement and spectrum efficiency,” and that it should do so by Oct. 1.

The proposal that the comments were filed to calls for the commission to allow broadcasters to roll out ATSC 3.0 as soon as possible and at the same time as TV stations are being repacked after the FCC spectrum auction. In addition, since current TVs are incompatible with the new standard, broadcasters have agreed to simulcast during the roll out.

In its comments, ONE Media also addresses areas of concern that were raised by previous commenters, most notably deployment issues and what it calls unrelated agendas.

While some commenters have highlighted potential issues in relation to the cost of carriage and the impact on retransmission consent agreements, ONE Media says that such concerns are “misplaced.” “Broadcasters who chose to deploy ATSC 3.0-enabled transmission facilities will continue to transmit their programming using the existing ATSC 1.0 standard at the same time,” the company said in its comments. “No MVPD will be obligated to carry the Next Generation signal.” ONE Media states the FCC currently allows for broadcasters to carry multiple programming streams, and that this new petition only calls for simultaneous carriage of a station’s ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 signals.

ONE Media also addresses Dish’s proposition that the commission should wait to approve the entire ATSC 3.0 standard rather than reviewing the Discovery and Signaling portion of the Physical Layer of the standard. “This action would be wholly inconsistent with the Commission’s actions with respect to other spectrum licensees,” wrote ONE Media. “The Discovery and Signaling portion of the ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer is the only necessary piece of the Standard requiring Commission review.

Then there are what ONE Media describes as attempts to expand the scope of the proceeding to unrelated issues. Some of these examples include Dish proposing broadcasters be required to serve their entire DMAs—“apparently ignoring the laws of physics and nature of Nielsen-defined DMAs,” wrote ONE Media—and comments from Public Knowledge, Common Cause and New America on the broadcaster’s public interest obligations. “The Commission should reject these transparent attempts to expand this proceeding,” ONE Media told the FCC.

In urging an Oct. 1 approval date, the company noted that quick approval will help promote the development of new technology for the standard.

“The potential benefits of Next Generation television are here now,” ONE Media concluded. “The Petition reflects a relatively simple request: permit voluntary/optional and simultaneous use of two transmission standards… The FCC should expedite this proceeding to better facilitate the earliest possible availability of ATSC 3.0 equipment and the launch of Next Generation broadcast television service to the public. We encourage the Commission to follow its commitment to act expeditiously and release a technology-focused NPRM on Next Generation TV no later than Oct. 1 of this year.”

BALTIMORE—A consortium of broadcast technology developers reported doing field tests of ATSC 3.0 concepts over a single frequency network on the East Coast on Monday this week. (See “ONE Media Conducts ATSC 3.0 ‘Concept’ SFN Trials.”) One Media, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Teamcast, Acrodyne, Comark, Dielectric, GatesAir and LG contributed technology and elbow grease to the effort.

Sinclair has been at the forefront of supporting the deployment of ATSC 3.0, an advanced broadcast TV transmission standard said to support features such as interactivity, personalized content delivery and mobile reception, among others. Mark Aitken, vice president of advanced technology for Sinclair, is the company’s ATSC 3.0 evangelist. He fielded questions from TV Technology about the 3.0 SFN tests, which took place with transmitters in Sinclair’s home turf of Baltimore, and neighboring Washington, D.C.

TV Technology: What is the chief benefit of using a single frequency network versus the traditional big stick, big power method?
Aitken: An SFN allows a broadcaster to provide a higher signal level where he or she wishes to do so. It also allows for a more uniform signal level to be spread across an area to provide for service. This is not to be confused with coverage, which is the out-lived and of-little-relevance term used today.
As well, when fully understood, it is possible to define a QoS (quality of service) for specific reception modes—fixed, portable, mobile, indoor, etc.
Also, higher signal saturation allows the delivery of more bits, and with geographically disperse transmission sites, leveraging tools within the ATSC 3.0 standard makes it is possible to provide hyper-local services within the contours of the individual sites. SFNs are supplemental, but open new business opportunities.

TV Technology:In what way will single frequency networks impact a broadcaster’s post-incentive auction coverage area?
Aitken: Positively!? Kidding, actually it is the service area that is positively impacted. If we are to be good stewards’ of our resources, we will work with the Federal Communications Commission to allow minor coverage modifications that would allow shared siting (co-siting) of SFN facilities, providing better uniform services as a result of minimizing interference that results from multiple sites.

TV Technology:What is the duration of the STA, and what further does this coalition hope to achieve under this STA?
Aitken: STAs are typically six months in duration, with reauthorizations allowed. 

TV Technology:The ONE Media press release said this was “the first of hundreds of SFNs Sinclair Broadcast Group and other broadcasters will roll out in adoption of the next-gen technology.” Whom else, and why?
Aitken: Speaking for SBG, we see opportunities in NextGen services: Ease of reception, including inside the home? Who would not want that? What new businesses can be driven with an ‘all-IP’ wireless pipeline? CDNs? Prepositioning ‘most-consumed’ entertainment?
Mobile rules the roost. We should be part of it, either independently or in conjunction with other service providers.

TV Technology:Why specifically is Sinclair adopting SFNs?
Aitken: 1) More consistency of an easy to receive OTA service. 2) Larger potential audience reach. 3) Higher signal saturation allows the delivery of more bits. (Bits/Hz is Shannon limit defined and vary as a function of signal-to-noise ratio).

TV Technology:The tests were conducted on Ch. 43, which may no longer be part of the TV band after the auction. What are the implications for SFNs in lower frequencies, particularly in the high and low VHF bands?
Aitken: UHF will survive post-auction, so the specific UHF channel is somewhat irrelevant. Also, SFNs provide the same impact on all frequencies, but physics dictate the usefulness within constraints of power. Additionally, high-VHF may be a great place to provide for hybrid vehicular mobile services.

TV Technology:  The field-tested SFN used two transmitters—an Acrodyne 60 kW IOT in Baltimore and a GatesAir solid-state Maxiva ULXT-12 in D.C. What was the EIRP of each transmitter?
Aitken: Baltimore = 800 kW EIRP. Washington = 120 kW EIRP

TV Technology:Why only two transmitters? Does this technically constitute an SFN?
Aitken: Yes. Got to start somewhere; more to follow.We are working towards an understanding of matching SFN emulation model (theoretical) with real-world results. We are partnering on developing a state-of-the-art synchronization and distribution method. We are developing an understanding of the impact of all issues that impact the broadcast transmission topologies that are possible (i.e., optimization of service).

TV Technology:Did this test use the full ATSC 3.0 transmission format, or some flavor of it?
Aitken: A fully compliant ATSC operating mode (similar to Korea’s Mode 4 parameters, modified for transmitter spacing (impact-to-GI and other timing-related parameters). This is truly a first; a start to the required learning.

TV Technology:What is meant by “specific coverage” field tests?
Aitken: First, confirmation of synchronization and ability of receivers to receive. More to come.

TV Technology:What part of the ATSC 3.0 STL standard will this trial attempt to define and finalize?
Aitken: There is not yet a standard, we will continue to co-development. Nowhere near final…

TV Technology:Were both audio and video transmitted in sync?
Aitken: Nope, not required. Soon to follow.

TV Technology:LGE as in LG Electronics, correct? This group has previously worked with Samsung
Aitken: Yes, LGE…we have worked with all parties, and have flourishing relationships with them and many others.

TV Technology: Is there a specific requirement beyond ATSC 3.0 reception for this receiver type?
Aitken: ATSC 3.0 compliance at this time.

TV Technology:Were any of the receivers for this test mobile-enabled?
Aitken: Mobile capable? Yes, but not yet tested…we just turned it on!

Also see…
Feb. 1, 2015
Sinclair Taps Swedish Firm to Implement ATSC 3.0
Sinclair Broadcasting Group has chosen to use Progira Plan, a software-based networking planning tool from Sweden-Based Progira, to help implement the new standard across the SGB TV network.

December 3, 2015
Sinclair Demos HDR 4KTV Over ATSC 3.0 in Vegas
Sinclair Broadcast Group, along with subsidiary One Media and Technicolor, report they have successfully transmitted high-dynamic range 4KTV over the air using the proposed ATSC 3.0 standard and a prototype reception device. 

May 15, 2015
“Samsung and ONE Media Drive ATSC 3.0 Candidate Standard“ 
Samsung and ONE Media proposed a hierarchical framework comprised of the ‘bootstrap,’ preamble and data framing to meet broadcasters unique requirements.

April 9, 2015
“Technicolor and Sinclair Demo HDR UHD Live Over-the-Air Broadcast”
Technicolor and Sinclair Broadcast Group have announced a successful demonstration of UltraHD with high dynamic range live broadcast based on proposed ATSC 3.0 technologies.

October 8, 2014
“Sinclair and Technicolor Do ATSC 3.0 4K Over-the-Air Broadcast”
Sinclair Broadcast Group and Technicolor delivered an industry first by successfully deploying Technicolor’s ATSC 3.0 4K UltraHD testbed platform and receiving an over-the-air signal.

 Personnel from Teamcast, Acrodyne and LG during the field-testing. 

BALTIMORE—The ONE Media team reports field-testing ATSC 3.0 “concepts” over single frequency networks on the East Coast. The testing is taking place under a Special Temporary Authority license covering Baltimore and Washington, D.C., granted by the Federal Communications Commission.

ONE Media said it and TeamCast “jointly developed, built and deployed the experimental SFN to demonstrate a higher quality of service to a broadcaster’s community of license.”

The benefit of a single frequency network, or SFN, comes into play when there are gaps in a coverage area due to terrain or building profiles. An SFN is a type of distributed transmission system that uses more, but smaller, transmitters than a traditional big-stick TV broadcast operation.

“An SFN transmitter can utilize the same frequency as the big stick and improve coverage. Unlike a translator/LPTV-repeater, the SFN is designed to work on the same channel with a slight—unnoticeable—offset that lets you ‘tune’ to the same channel as the main, original [channel],” an industry source said.

The Baltimore site. The first deployment of an SFN operation for television transmission was in 2003, at Penn State’s public station, WPSU-TV, broadcasting on Ch. 3 in State College, Penn. The State College SFN was designed and installed by S. Merrill Weiss, who holds a key SFN patent and was also consulted on an SFN project with the Manhattan Television Alliance in 2007. (See “ION Pursues NYC Signal Alternative.”) WMBC-TV in West Caldwell, N.J., deployed an SFN in 2011 using Thomson transmitters.

According to ONE Media, its SFN “validates, in a real-world environment, the operation and performance of new and innovative concepts relative to an ATSC 3.0 SFN deployment, such as deploying a full range of next-generation services including fixed, portable and mobile capabilities.”

ONE Media, a joint venture of Sinclair Broadcast Group and Coherent Logix, said the field trial SFN represented “the first of hundreds of SFNs Sinclair Broadcast Group and other broadcasters will roll out in adoption of the next-gen technology.”

The field-tested SFN consisted of two transmitters—one in Washington, D.C. and one in Baltimore—both transmitting on Ch. 43. Each used the latest TeamCast ATSC 3.0 exciter, integrated for U.S. applications by Comark. Sinclair provided the transmitter in Baltimore, an Acrodyne 60 kW IOT. The D.C. transmitter, a GatesAir solid-state Maxiva ULXT-12, was provided by the vendor. Dielectric provided filters, feed lines and antennas. American Tower Corp. provided the Washington, D.C. transmitter site. Signal Above LLC provided access to Channel 43 in D.C.; and LG Electronics provided the ATSC 3.0 receivers.

Dielectric and GatesAir gear in the D.C. facility.
ONE Media said these specific coverage field tests would be used to “support the finalization of the ATSC 3.0 Studio Transmitter Link document, defining the stream interface regimens to feed ATSC 3.0 SFN transmitters.”

The testing was done under ONE Media’s direction and Acrodyne Services project management. It was “designed to illustrate future opportunities such as addressing services and content to zones, i.e., geographically smaller areas of service; for verifying SFN timing and distribution methodology for standardization; impacting of SFN deployment on over-the-air services to mobile, portable and indoor reception environments; and confirming various modeling techniques,” ONE Media said.

SEOUL and WASHINGTON—(LG statement added 5:31 p.m. ET) Samsung and LG are among the companies that contributed technologies to the broadcast transmission scheme elevated this morning to Candidate Standard status by the Advanced Television Systems Committee for ATSC 3.0, its advanced TV distribution methodology. The “Physical Layer”—the foundation of the full ATSC 3.0 standard now in development—was announced as a Candidate Standard today.

According to The Korea Times, Samsung contributed“ low density parity check (LDPC) and non-uniform check (NUC)” technology. LDPC is said to restore video data lost during transmission, and NUC “optimizes high-quality video to fit different transmission environments,” the news outlet said.

“Based on the adoption of our technologies as candidate standards, we pledge to lead the development of generic technologies required for next-generation UHD broadcasting by pushing for cooperation with broadcasters in Korea and the United States,” Kim Chang-yong, head of the Samsung DMC Research and Development Center, told The Korea Times.

In a statement issued after the initial publication of this article, LG Electronics senior vice president and president of Zenith R&D Labs, Dr. Jong Kim, said LG contributed a “majority” of the technology to the Physical Layer Candidate Standard.

“LG technology is behind the majority of the elements of the Physical Layer transmission system. In fact, our technology is part of at least 10 of the 15 building blocks of the new Candidate Standard,” he said.

LG said its contributions cover the scrambler, forward error correction, bit interlever, mapper, MIMO, time interleaver, OFDM framer, frequency interleaver, pilot and tone reserve and guard interval.

For its part, Samsung also was integral in the development of the so-called “bootstrap signal” portion of the standard that was elevated to Candidate Standard status last May. ( See “ATSC 3.0 Bootstrap Signal Becomes Candidate Standard.”) Sinclair Broadcasting Group and the members of the Pearl TV station consortium were also involved in the development and testing of the bootstrap technology that is now part of the physical layer Candidate Standard, according to ONE Media, Sinclair’s venture partner.

“The features of the approved Physical Layer include many of those developed by ONE Media and supported by other broadcasters and equipment manufacturers including notably the Pearl TV consortium of broadcast companies and the largest global television manufacturer, Samsung,” Arlington, Va.-based ONE Media said in a statement.

“This is a significant milestone in the adoption of a revolutionary advancement in broadcast technology,” stated Mark Aitken, Vice President for Advanced Technology with Sinclair Broadcast Group, ONE Media’s venture partner, in the same statement. “By voting to send all aspects of the Physical Layer to Candidate Standard, the ATSC has validated our long-held vision of an IP-based, robust, mobile, dynamic and adaptable transmission standard, allowing us to thrive in the vast ocean of the Internet. We congratulate the ATSC for remarkably quick progress in moving us forward.”

ONE Media described the Physical Layer technology as follows:
“The Physical Layer is the essential core of the new ATSC 3.0 standard and serves as the universal entry point that allows all receiver devices to process and decode information. Using the new standard, broadcasters will now be able to provide robust, mobile, ultra-high definition video and enhanced, immersive audio with geo-targeted programming and advertising, advanced emergency alert functions and single frequency networks to help preserve repeater and translator service. Importantly, it also allows broadcasters to innovate with new non-programming opportunities including everything from distance learning, industry-specific mass data distribution and the backbone of the Internet of Things.”

ONE Media said that with the elevation of the Physical Layer technology to ATSC Candidate Standard, manufacturers can now start designing to the 3.0 standard.

“This includes portable tablets, home gateway devices and new transmitters.”

TV Technology has a pending inquiry with ATSC for further information on the Candidate Standard and the continuing process.

Also see...
September 21, 2015
“ATSC 3.0 Tested With 4K, Mobile in Korea by LG, SBS”
Korean broadcaster SBS partnered with LG Electronics for the country's first live over-the-air broadcast of 4K Ultra HD signals using technologies behind the ATSC 3.0 TV broadcast standard.

September 2, 2015
“Voting on ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer Standard Begins“
Ballots were sent out on Aug. 31 and over the next four weeks members of the TG3 Technology Group will vote on whether to approve or not approve the Physical Layer to Candidate Standard status.

May 15, 2015
“Samsung and ONE Media Drive ATSC 3.0 Candidate Standard“
Samsung and ONE Media proposed a hierarchical framework comprised of the ‘bootstrap,’ preamble and data framing to meet broadcasters unique requirements.

May 7, 2015
“ATSC 3.0 Bootstrap Signal Becomes Candidate Standard“
The first of five components in the Physical Layer transmission standard for ATSC 3.0 has been elevated to “Candidate Standard” status.

August 27, 2013
“TV Tomorrow: ATSC 3.0 Advances”
The ATSC announced that 10 proposals have been submitted for the foundation of 3.0 known as the “physical layer.” This physical layer includes the modulation scheme, which defines how the signal information is carried by a radio frequency—in this case, the TV channel.

March 28, 2013
“ATSC Seeks Next-Gen TV Physical Layer Proposals”
It appears some of the requirements could be a bit of a stretch, but that may not be such a bad idea, considering that ATSC 3.0 will be replacing a terrestrial DTV standard that’s survived for 15 years.

March 27, 2013
“ATSC Seeks Proposals for ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer”
Glenn Reitmeier, ATSC chairman, noted that, “the ATSC 3.0 effort is a crucial time for broadcasters, professional equipment manufacturers, consumer device manufacturers and all stakeholders to collaborate and create the future capabilities of over-the-air broadcasting.”

February 22, 2013
“HPA 2013: ATSC 3.0 Update”
The current standard was developed 20 years ago and implemented around 15 years ago. The Internet was on baby legs, processor speeds were measured in megahertz, storage in megabytes, and networks in kilobytes.

January 22, 2013
“New ATSC Implementation Teams to Focus on Commercialization of ATSC 2.0 and M-EAS”
The Advanced Television Systems Committee has formed new Implementation Teams for two new emerging standards -- ATSC 2.0 and the Mobile Emergency Alert System.

February 15, 2012,
“HPA Tech Retreat: The State of ATSC 2.0”
ATSC 2.0 will provide a variety of interactive capabilities to broadcasters not now available.

September 6, 2011
“New ATSC 3.0 Technology Group Formed To Anticipate TV of the Future
ATSC 3.0 is anticipated to be a series of voluntary technical standards and recommended practices for the next digital terrestrial television broadcast system.

ARLINGTON, VA.—ONE Media, a joint investment between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Coherent Logix, tasked with developing a next generation broadcast platform, has been granted Special Temporary Authority by the Federal Communications Commission to operate an experimental facility in the Washington D.C. and Baltimore markets to implement a single frequency network using the base elements of the new ATSC 3.0 transmission standard. The full-power, multi-site test platform using channel 43 in both markets will deploy a full range of 'Next Gen' services that include fixed, portable and mobile capabilities.

The test is designed to provide real-time assessments of quality of service using the new Internet Protocol-based standard currently being reviewed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee. The permittee for channel 43 in Washington has granted its consent for the test in support of the entire broadcast industry. 

"With the build-out of a first-of-its-kind SFN platform, ONE Media's ATSC 3.0 technology will be used to drive an understanding of the value new tools bring to broadcasting," stated Kevin Gage, EVP of Strategic Development and CTO of ONE Media. "We intend this new platform to be a place where the broadcast industry can unite to launch new and exciting consumer and B2B products and services." The SFN facilities are designed to prove-out the highly anticipated capabilities of the new broadcast transmission standard including demonstrating the transmission of separate program elements using the same channel in two adjacent markets. Among other things, the SFN will permit broadcasters to "zone" programming and advertising to discrete parts of a station's market using the same channel.

"We now have a place to innovate, and together with our Memorandum of Understanding partners, Samsung and Pearl TV, we can bring powerful business ideas into practical demonstrations of opportunities to monetize all of our core assets,” said Mark Aitken, vice president of Advanced Technology for Sinclair Broadcast Group. We have started to assemble a team that understands the benefits a multi-site SFN brings to all of the stakeholders." The congested East Coast demonstration sites will permit broadcasters, equipment suppliers, and regulators to test the broadcast platform in real world situations.

"The Next Gen broadcast platform is designed to permit the broadcast industry to evolve after the upcoming incentive auction and allow us to compete with other technologies," said Jerald Fritz, ONE Media's Executive Vice President for Strategic and Legal Affairs. "The dynamic advances in this IP-based platform promise to make broadcasting the new platform of choice for video distribution and beyond. It is precisely the innovation that Congress and the FCC have encouraged and that we are fulfilling. Our demonstration should provide regulators the evidence they need to expedite these dramatic and competitive service improvements."