RALEIGH, N.C.—WRAL-TV, channel 5, is the NBC affiliate serving the Research Triangle area in North Carolina and is locally owned and operated by Capitol Broadcasting Company. Our station produces about 12.5 hours of live news every day, offering viewers a mix of breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and educational content. 

The volume of content we manage is growing rapidly, driving us to optimize our news archive. We wanted to upgrade our archive to enable faster access to historical content and simplify search, enabling digital news assets to be reused and monetized more effectively. 

The Key Challenge
Our existing archive consisted of a mix of spinning disk and an optical disk archive system. Given the sheer size of our archive, one of the challenges we faced during the upgrade was deciding whether to store the archive in the public cloud or on-site. Ultimately, we chose to host the new archive on-site to speed up access to content and ensure high reliability with no reliance on internet service.

Our key requirement in an archive solution was support for an S3 connector. Supporting S3 would ensure seamless integration with third-party solutions, like artificial intelligence platforms. We also wanted an archive solution with high scalability, flexibility, and a predictable cost model.

We worked with Bridge Digital, a Nashville, Tenn.-based systems integrator, to ensure a seamless implementation. After evaluating the available archive solutions, we chose Perifery’s Swarm S3 cloud-native in-facility archive for its fast access to media content, S3 compatibility, and reliability.

We installed Swarm software on a 500 TB storage platform that will continue to grow as our station’s needs evolve. Deploying Swarm has transformed our archive operations—the S3 cloud-native solution reduces complexity by offloading content from online workspaces. Once content is offloaded, Swarm keeps it online and easily accessible anywhere, anytime, providing us with a powerful web-based search tool and enhanced metadata awareness. 

At WRAL, we need to be ready to cover breaking news 24/7, and Swarm offers instant access to all of the assets in the archive whether we have an internet connection or not. Beyond speeding up the archive workflow, Swarm software provides us with flexibility, scalability, and a predictable cost model. We aren’t locked into a particular cloud vendor or piece of hardware. 

Integrated Access
Swarm software compatibility with the S3 open standard for object storage ensures that we can integrate third-party applications with the archive. Currently, Swarm is integrated with Eon Media’s Eon Archives AI product and BitCentral’s Oasis media asset management software. Integration with Eon Media’s platform to Swarm allows WRAL’s archives to serve as a highly advanced AI-powered media store, supplying hyper-local and media clients, as well as content creators across the globe with stock and archival footage.

In addition, Swarm software is scalable, allowing us to grow in capacity and throughput. We can rapidly scale up to hundreds of nodes, and dozens of clusters as needed—from a few 100 TBs to hundreds of petabytes and beyond. 

Furthermore, Swarm includes multi-layered security, encryption in-flight and at-rest, immutability, WORM, and automated replication capabilities to ensure that internal or external parties never violate the integrity of WRAL’s content. 

Our data storage requirements will continue to grow. With Perifery’s Swarm software, WRAL is ready for the foreseeable future. Swarm provides us with a flexible, scalable, and reliable S3-compatible archive solution that speeds up access to digital assets and improves content discovery. 

More information is available at www.perifery.com.

RALEIGH, N.C.—Pete Sockett, director of engineering and operations for Capitol Broadcasting Co.’s TV stations will be recognized at the NAB Show this year with the 2022 NAB Engineering Achievement Award for TV. Sockett is responsible for leading and steering the technology needs of CBC and preparing for the coming trends affecting broadcasting.

During his career, Sockett has been instrumental in a total rebuild of CBC’s HD technical plant, the launch of the first nonlinear HD newsroom, development of workflows for IP-ENG, implementation of Mobile DTV and Mobile EAS, creation of the first 4K-HDR documentary produced at a local TV station, the launch of the first commercial, simulcast TV station using the ATSC 3.0 standard and the launch of local sports channel WNGT.

Sockett sits on the board of directors for the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) and is the chair of the ATSC 3.0 Advanced Emergency Alerting Implementation Team. He has earned three Emmy Awards, Broadcasting & Cable’s Technology Leadership Award and an Edward R. Murrow award. He is a co-inventor of a patent for geolocation.

I had a chance to talk with Pete in advance of the show and anyone who knows Pete is well aware of how approachable and down to earth he is, which perhaps comes from his Canadian heritage. 

Pete grew up in the Toronto area and started out as an auto mechanic. Dissatisfied with his employment situation, he decided to take some electrical engineering courses at a local technical college and after graduating, started out his broadcasting career with CTV, Canada’s largest privately held broadcast network.

From there he moved on to WWJ in Detroit and WBBM in Chicago before settling in Raleigh, N.C. in 2003 to work for the Goodmon family, owners of Capitol Broadcasting Co.    

When he arrived at CBC, he was put in charge of operations at WRAL-TV but as time has gone on, his responsibilities have expanded to cover so much more, including OTT, DTV subchannels and college sports. 

Jimmy Goodman—junior and senior—have been the driving force behind WRAL for decades and Pete says they’re always wanting to do “the next great thing.”

“And it’s basically been my job to get it done,” he said.

Pete describes himself as a “relatively average good engineer, not particularly genius by any means,” and attributes the technical success of WRAL’s expanding media services to his engineering colleagues. 

“This award is for them,” he said. 

WRAL was a pioneer in launching ATSC 1.0 in the 1990s and is on the frontlines of deploying ATSC 3.0, having launched an experimental NextGen TV service in 2016. WRAL ceased that 3.0 transmission in September 2019 as part of the FCC TV spectrum repack broadcasting. Five years later, in 2021, it launched 3.0 on WRAL, WRAZ and WARZ-CD with WUNC soon to join.

Pete is optimistic about the future of 3.0 and the opportunities it affords. While it’s still early in the process, Pete and his colleagues are dealing with a lot of moving parts and trying to figure out what the “killer apps” will be. He also hopes that the industry will widely embrace the standard. 

“I really hope that everybody keeps working at it—across the industry, not just in small pockets,” he said. “The whole industry, in general, needs to pick up and run with it.” 

Pete will be recognized along with Ashruf El-Dinary, senior vice president of Digital Platforms for Xperi, recipient of the Radio Engineering Achievement Award, by NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt during the “Hollywood’s ‘Binge Times’ OTT Battle and NAB Engineering Awards”  session,  Sunday, April 24 at 3 p.m.

WASHINGTON—Advanced Television Systems Committee members have voted to re-elect two currently serving board members and two previous board members term-limited in 2018 to three-year terms beginning in January 2020, the committee announced today.

Two other directors were appointed to the board by their respective professional associations, it said.

The current board members elected to new terms are Dr. Jong Kim, senior vice president at LG Electronics and president of Zenith R&D Labs, and Pete Sockett, director of engineering and operations at Capitol Broadcasting.

The previous board members who are returning include Richard Friedel, executive vice president of operations and technology for Fox Television Stations, and Glenn Reitmeier, former NBCU senior vice president, technology standards and policy, and now president of GlennReitmeierTV LLC.

The Society of Motion Pictures & Television Engineers (SMPTE) appointed Dave Siegler, who previously represented Cox Media Group on the ATSC Board, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) named former ATSC Board Chairman Wayne Luplow to the board, ATSC said.

Current members whose terms will continue in 2020 include:

• Lynn Claudy, SVP, technology, NAB, who is ending is term as ATSC Board Chairman at year’s end;
• Mark, Corl, SVP Emergent Technology Development, Triveni Digital;
• Jim DeChant, VP of Technology, News-Press & Gazette Company;
• Jon Fairhurst, principal standards engineer, Samsung;
• Ira Goldstone, VP Next Gen Broadcast Solutions, Cobalt Digital;
• Brian Markwalter, SVP Research & Standards, CTA;
• Anne Schelle, managing director, Pearl TV;
• Andy Scott, VP of Engineering, NCTA-The Internet and Television Association;
• Craig Todd, SVP and CTO, Dolby.

Thomas Bause Mason, director of standards development, at SMPTE; Dr. Paul Hearty, owner, Technology Advisors; and Dr. Yiyan Wu, CTO, Communications Research Centre will complete their board terms at the end of 2019. A new board chairman will be elected during the board’s first meeting after the first of the year, ATSC said.

“The strategic direction and insights of our talented board members are especially important at this critical time as ATSC supports the commercialization of Next Gen Broadcasting in the U.S. and around the world,” said ATSC President Madeleine Noland. “I recognize and appreciate the board’s expertise and support for balancing progress and stability as ATSC 3.0 standards are updated and preparing for our future continues in the months and years ahead.”

As I write this, the 2018 NAB Show and the ATSC Next Gen TV Conference have come and gone. Since my last column I also had a chance to visit WRAL-TV in Raleigh and see the demonstration of the PyeongChang Olympics broadcast over their ATSC 3.0 station, complete with interactive content.

These events gave me a glimpse of the future of over-the-air TV broadcasting from the perspective of broadcasters, manufacturers and the engineers who created it and are now building that future.

ATSC 3.0 MATURES

Thanks to Pete Sockett and Capitol Broadcasting for inviting me to see the Next Gen TV demonstration in Raleigh at the State Club at North Carolina State University, and allowing me to help with the setup. It was great to see how ATSC 3.0 works in the real world.

WRAL-TV’s ATSC 3.0 transmitter has an ERP of only 40 kW, well below what most broadcasters will eventually use for ATSC 3.0, but even at this power we were able to receive the Olympics UHD programming with a Mohu Leaf antenna attached to a curtain behind the TV.

The more robust stream with WRAL-TV’s HD programming was received reliably around the room on prototype ATSC 3.0 dongles and a standard Windows 10 tablet. For more information and pictures, see www.wraltechwire.com/tag/next-gen-tv/.

The opportunity to see how ATSC 3.0 worked over-the-air in Raleigh and see the options available gave me more confidence broadcasters will be able to successfully roll out this complex standard.

[Read: Verifying TV Facility Coverage]

For a successful rollout, it will be important that station engineers have a chance to play with the technology, try different transmission parameters and explore the options the standard offers for delivering content and emergency information in different ways before the number of viewers increase and business needs limit station engineers’ opportunity to experiment.

At the NAB Show broadcasters were able to see ATSC 3.0 content over low-power transmitters in the exhibit hall and from a transmitter on Black Mountain.

Overall, this year’s demonstrations were similar to those from last year, but more polished, with extended features. For me, it was a sign the ATSC 3.0 landscape is maturing, getting ready for rollout.

One exhibit in the LVCC lobby highlighted all the stations currently on the air with ATSC 3.0 broadcasts — Sinclair’s single frequency network in Baltimore and Washington, the NAB test station in Cleveland, WRAL-TV’s station in Raleigh and new test stations in Phoenix and Dallas. For more on the Phoenix project, see www.pearltv.com/model-market.

Another sign that ATSC 3.0 is maturing was the number of companies showing products for ATSC 3.0 at the NAB Show. Two years ago most transmitter manufacturers promised some upgrade path to ATSC 3.0. Last year, all the ATSC 1.0 transmitter manufacturers I’m aware of offered an ATSC 3.0 exciter option of some sort.

For ATSC 3.0 to succeed, we need to get more ATSC 3.0 stations on the air, even if the number of viewers may be limited.

What was new this year was an increased number of products for receiving and decoding the ATSC 3.0 signals from those transmitters. Other manufacturers offered standalone receiver/decoder solutions.

The price of these receivers — approaching $20,000 or higher depending on the options — seemed high until I thought about what we paid for analog TV monitoring. A proper monitoring setup for an analog TV station around 1990 consisted of a Tektronix 1450 television demodulator (with the TDC downconverter), a VM-700 analyzer and a BTSC audio modulation monitor. It would be tough to put together an ATSC 3.0 monitoring package that cost as much as that setup!

I know many readers are looking for a less expensive way of viewing ATSC 3.0. I had the opportunity to test the Airwavz dongle at the NAB Show. I plugged the dongle into my laptop and was able to view the characteristics of the Black Mountain ATSC 3.0 signal I received in my hotel room. This used an early version of the software that did not allow viewing content on the laptop.

Airwavz said they had tried routing the IP output from the program to the network input of a Sony ATSC 3.0 TV set in the same booth and it was able to decode and display the stream. I’ll have more on this product when I have a chance to upgrade to the latest software and test it in a location with an ATSC 3.0 signal.

In discussions with some manufacturers at the show, it looks like there may be some other ATSC 3.0 dongles appearing at some point in the future. Don’t expect the price to match that of an ATSC 1.0 dongle, but pricing around $250 or less may be possible. Final price and timing for ATSC 3.0 dongles and “converter boxes” (which will likely stream content over an IP connection to a smart TV, tablet or PC running an ATSC 3.0 application) will depend on the availability of lower-cost demodulator chips as well as IP (intellectual property licensing) costs.

WHAT’S NEXT?

At the ATSC Next Gen TV Conference in Washington in May it was clear ATSC 3.0 had the support of broadcasters, consumer electronics manufacturers and even government. Unlike the previous conference, which focused primarily on the technology and the potential of the standard, this year’s conference highlighted real-world applications, some of which are being rolled out now in limited form with ATSC 1.0.

Emergency alerting, with the ability to provide detailed information in the form of maps, videos and text with an ease that would be impossible using cellular messaging is a key feature for governments.

More precise measurement of TV viewing is of interest to advertisers and broadcasters competing with on-line advertising. Both are available now.

The transition to ATSC 3.0 will be complicated, not only for broadcasters but cable companies as well. Cable carriage of ATSC 3.0 content is going to require cooperation between broadcasters and cable companies. I was pleased to hear about the progress made towards this in ATSC TG3/S37, the Specialist Group on Conversion and Redistribution of ATSC 3.0 Service.

For ATSC 3.0 to succeed, we need to get more ATSC 3.0 stations on the air, even if the number of viewers may be limited. In the early days of ATSC 1.0, station engineers had a one-to-one relationship with early adopters of HDTV, sometimes changing settings to help them get reception when one manufacturer’s receiver had a problem with their transport stream.

While all indications are the first-generation ATSC 3.0 receivers are working much better, I expect there will still be a lot of broadcaster-viewer interaction. That’s a key focus of the Phoenix test and essential for a transition to ATSC 3.0 to succeed.

Until full-power stations are willing to put their ATSC 1.0 programming on another station’s signal and switch to ATSC 3.0, finding transition spectrum is going to be difficult. Class A and LPTV stations have a role to play. While the lower ERP (about 4.3 dB less than the WRAL-TV ATSC 3.0 station) may make indoor reception more difficult at higher bit rates, the early adopters of ATSC 3.0 may be willing to make an extra effort to get a decent signal. Setting expectations will be important.

I’m looking forward to seeing more ATSC 3.0 stations on the air, using the Airwavz dongle to see how they work in the real world, and hearing the experiences of engineers putting ATSC 3.0 on the air!

As always, your comments and questions are welcome. Email me atdlung@transmitter.com.

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WRAL’s new antenna for broadcasting
in ATSC 3.0 on Channel 39.RALEIGH, N.C.—WRAL, the NBC affiliate in Raleigh-Durham owned by TV pioneer Capitol Broadcasting Co., started transmitting high dynamic range 4K content over an ATSC 3.0 signal in late June. ATSC 3.0 is the broadcast TV transmission standard now in development at the Advanced Television Systems Committee that promises the type of features and functionality available via broadband, as well as handling 4K and other advanced video and audio features.

Here, Pete Sockett, director of engineering and operations for WRAL, answers some crowd-sourced questions about the 3.0 broadcast and how the station intends to transition to the format. He opened by giving a shout-out to WRAL’s equipment suppliers, including ERI, GatesAir, Harmonic, Keepixo, LG Electronics, Meintel, Sgrignoli & Wallace, Monroe Electronics and Triveni Digital.

Sockett:I’d like to start by thanking all of our vendor partners that have held our hand through all of this, and the ATSC TG-3 membership as a whole. All we’ve done here in Raleigh is pull together the sum of everyone’s work. Thank you to all.

TV Technology: What have you learned so far?
Sockett: That this is still truly a science fair experiment. There are so many moving parts that are still up in the air, and that there are so many people in the ATSC that are far smarter than I will ever be! Also, it’s been pleasantly surprising to me how many of “IP-based” tools that we’ve been using for years are useful in 3.0 (i.e. Wireshark, VLC etc.).

WRAL’s “Channel 39 Club,” the team that helped
light up the ATSC 3.0 broadcast on Channel 39.
TV Technology: Will you continue to broadcast this signal full time?
Sockett: Absolutely.

TV Technology: How does the coverage area of the experimental signal compare to the station’s primary signal coverage area?
Sockett: Not sure yet… we don’t have a portable demodulator to be able to perform any tests. We are currently working on a plan to get one, but that’s a few weeks out. For what it’s worth, the RF waveform on a spectrum analyzer looks very promising so far!

TV Technology: Describe the physical system configuration and how it's laid out in your facility. What did you have to add?

WRAL’s circa 1996 encoder/decoder.
Sockett: We had to add most everything. Currently it’s all located at the transmitter site.
We convert WRAL to 1080p (Teranex)
HVEC encoder (Harmonic)
Route Encoder (Keepixo)
Signaling and Announcement and Route Encoding (Triveni)
Exciter and transmitter (Gates Air)
Mask filter and Antenna – (Electronics Research Inc), and…
We borrowed a TV with the ATSC 3.0 Receiver from LG

TV Technology: Will you do native SDR and convert or HDR and down convert to SDR? Using what method?

WRAL camera operator Terry Cantrell doing a live shot
with anchor Brian Shrader on the ground-breaking broadcast.Sockett: It’s too early to tell for sure, there is still a lot to learn in this arena. My gut tells me that we will ultimately produce everything in HDR and create the best pictures possible.

TV Technology: Which HDR format did you use and why?
Sockett: HDR-10. Two summers ago, when we shot the “Take Me Out to the Bulls Game” documentary, we recorded in Sony RAW / S-LOG3 (before you ask, it was shot on a Sony F55). So to prepare for airing this time, we graded it to 1,000 nits. The Harmonic encoder could signal the HDR 10 in the SEI metadata. We got lucky on that part.

TV Technology: What audio format are you using, AC-4 or MPEG-H AA?
Sockett: We started with AC-4, but realized the LG set needed AAC, so we switched modes. Long term, we will follow the ATSC recommendation for AC-4.

Jim Goodmon, Jr., vice president and general manager
of Capitol Broadcasting Co.
TV Technology: What encoder is being used?
Sockett: Harmonic Vibe 4k

TV Technology: What was the transmitted bit rate, did the WRAL test/demo involve LDM?
Sockett: Approximately 25Mbps. We did not do any LDM testing.

TV Technology: Is there any part of the ATSC 3.0 standard that is not finished that is affecting how you conduct the experimental broadcasts?
Sockett: No yet, we are still crawling before we run, so we haven’t hit any limits so far.

Members of WRAL’s Channel 39 Club, l to r: Dave Catapano of Triveni,
Nick Paulin of ERI, Joe Seccia of GatesAir and Matt Brandes of WRAL.
TV Technology: WRAL is using an experimental license to broadcast this signal on Ch. 39. Will you be able to learn anything that will help create the framework for simulcasting?
Sockett: We expect to learn a lot! Of course our friends at Sinclair are blazing that trail for all of us as we speak!

TV Technology: Are you intending to do live production and what camera would you use?

More members of WRAL’s Channel 39 Club, l to r: Mark Voorhees of
GatesAir, Mike Mory of WRAL, Joe Seccia of GatesAir, Dave Catapao
of Triveni, Sean Devine of Triveni and Matt Brandes (in the back), WRALSockett: I assume you mean in UHD? If so, yes, but not sure when...

TV Technology: What is WRAL’s plan for procuring additional receivers?
Sockett: We are currently working with a couple of vendors on that. In reality, time will take care of it.

TV Technology: Does the station have any other 4K content that it intends to broadcast? Can it do a 4K news broadcast or other station-generated content?
Sockett: We plan on airing the NBC 4K content from the Olympics… We’re very excited about that!
Long term, we have been producing a local show, “Out and About,” in 4K-SDR since January of this year, and will be producing all new WRAL documentaries in 4K HDR going forward.

TV Technology: Does WRAL expect any visits from the FCC or congress to see how the system works?
Sockett: No plans currently, but they are always more than welcome to come visit. We’d love to show them this great new technology!

TV Technology: How and when do you plan to make the transition from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0? Is WRAL exploring channel-sharing as a transition option?
Sockett: We will begin the transition as soon as it makes sense to do so. Of course will evaluate all options to make sure it goes as smooth as possible.

For more, check our ATSC 3.0 silo.

Also see…
July 26, 2016
“Transmitter Sites: Things to Consider for ATSC 3.0”
Many stations will replace transmitters, RF systems, line and antennas as part of the channel repack after the incentive auction and it makes sense to select gear that will work for ATSC 3.0.

July 20, 2016
“20 Years Later, WRAL Is Still a Broadcast Pioneer”
The year 1996 was a landmark one for broadcasters in the United States. In that year, the federal government revamped the rules governing the industry with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It was also the year that the HDTV era was launched in the United States when WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C. commenced HDTV broadcasts in July; and it concluded with the FCC’s approval of the ATSC DTV standard at the end of the year.

July 13, 2016
“ATSC 3.0 Document Status”
ATSC 3.0 will be a suite of about 20 separate standards

June 29, 2016
“WRAL Lights Up ATSC 3.0 4K Signal”
WRAL-TV plans to use it to provide a deep offering of on-demand content, access to multiple sources of video to enhance linear viewing, and a number of other 24/7 streams of TV and radio programming, representing the marriage of broadcasting and broadband.