WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.—SMPTE is recognizing the impact that Netflix has had on the industry by giving an honorary membership to the streamer’s founder Reed Hastings. This is just one of the many announced recipients for SMPTE 2020’s Awards Gala, which will recognize this year’s recipients during the virtual SMPTE 2020 conference.

Hastings is being given SMPTE’s highest accolade “for his momentous development and continuing leadership of Netflix,” SMPTE said. Two other individuals are being recognized this year with honorary memberships: John D. Ross, recognizing his career’s work in advancing the state of the art in television engineering, and Richard Edlund, for his work in advancing the art and science of visual effects cinematography.

As the ATSC 3.0 standard is beginning to be rolled out across the U.S., SMPTE will recognize Dr. Richard Chernock with the David Sarnoff Medal. This award recognizes outstanding contributions to the development of new techniques or equipment that have improved the engineering phases of television technology. Chernock is being honored for his contributions to the development of ATSC 3.0.

The SMPTE Progress Model, which the association calls its most prestigious award and recognizes outstanding technical contributions to the motion picture, TV and motion-imaging industries, is being posthumously presented to Natalie Kalmus, the co-founder of the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation, for her pioneering contribution to motion-picture color. Kalmus helped develop the Technicolor process and worked on more than 400 films, including “The Wizard of Oz.”

In addition, Technicolor has renamed its sponsored award this year to the Technicolor—Natalie and Herbert T. Kalmus Medal, which will be presented to Beverly Joanna Wood for her contributions to the creation and development of the Color Contrast Enhancement (CCE) and Adjustable Contrast Enhancement (ACE) motion-picture processes.

“One of the many lessons we’ve learned over the past few months is just how much we rely on the media and entertainment industry to engage, inform, educate and entertain us,” said Barbara Lange, executive director at SMPTE. “The industry luminaries and next-generation leaders we recognize during SMPTE 2020 have all played an important part in shaping this industry and enabling its future evolution and success.”

Here is a rundown of the other honorees for the SMPTE 2020 Awards Gala:

• Camera Origination and Imaging Medal - Gérard Corbasson 
• Excellence in Education Medal - Corey P. Carbonara 
• Digital Processing Medal - Katie Cornog 
• James A. Linder Archival Technology Medal - James Snyder 
• Samuel L. Warner Memorial Medal - Andrew Munro 
• Workflow Systems Medal - Bruce Leak 
• Journal Award - Julien Le Tanou & Médéric Blestel 
• Presidential Proclamation - Leon D. Silverman 
• Excellence in Standards Award - John F. Snow 
• Citation for Outstanding Service to the Society - Bob Hudelson 
• Student Paper Award - Adam C. Burke 
• Louis F. Wolf Jr. Memorial Scholarship - Nicholas Hurley 

In addition to the above mentioned awards, 18 new SMPTE Fellows will be recognized during the Awards Gala. The full list is available at 2020.smpte.org/home/fellows.

The SMPTE 2020 Awards Gala is scheduled for Nov. 11 and 12 during the SMPTE 2020 remote conference. For more information visit SMPTE 2020’s website. 

One of the final official duties of newly retired Dr. Rich Chernock, former chief science officer at Triveni Digital and former chair of ATSC’s Technical Group 3, was to travel to Columbus, Ohio, in late June for a conference put on by six Midwestern state broadcast associations about ATSC 3.0.

During a tour of the nearby Early Television Museum in Hilliard, Ohio, we had a face-to-face conversation about how he came to the television industry, his time as chair of TG3, the technical group responsible for the ATSC 3.0 standard, and his thoughts about the future of television.

Trying not to pull him away for too long from the impressive collection of early TVs and other television relics, I set up a telephone interview with Chernock so readers could get a taste of what I found to be an intriguing conversation.

The following interview, conducted on the phone, covers much of what we discussed in Ohio. Enjoy.

TVTechnology: Rich, you retired at the end of June, and a week or so before you did, we had the chance to talk at the Early Television Museum in Hilliard, Ohio.

I asked you then how you got into the television industry, and I am sure many of our readers would be interested in your story. Can you recount how you came to television?

Rich Chernock: I was at IBM, doing electron microscopy in a lab that I’d describe as last-resort failure analysis for the corporation. If something went wrong, it came to us, and we tried to figure out what happened.

I spent a lot of time in the dark room because I worked with film. Got fed up with it, got into multimedia and began learning about image capture.

At the same time, IBM was beginning to look at whether this new thing called digital television was something the company should look at. They formed a study group, and the guy I worked for urged me to join because he thought I might be interested.

The end result was IBM decided digital television was a real thing, and there was business to be had. It formed a new division, and I ended up jumping ship and going over and starting a new ship.

So I moved from lab work doing digital microscopy to digital television. Part of it, I was getting bored. I had done it for a long time, and this new stuff sounded kind of interesting, and my brain was wired for understanding MPEG.

TVT: I’m sure at the time you could never have envisioned heading up the technical group that would be responsible for a whole new television standard.

RC: Nope. That was not something I thought of.

[Read: Chernock To Chair ATSC 3.0 Group]

TVT: Tell be about the time right after the DTV transition was complete. I think you were already working on ATSC 2.0 and pushing data sets to be stored and accessed to emulate interactivity. But at some point it must have become clear that for TV to move forward it would have to jettison the MPEG Transport Stream and backwards compatibility. How did all of that happen and the decision that the industry needed an IP-based television standard?

RC: I came into digital television partly through the notion of data broadcasting — being able to carry things in MPEG besides live television.

So data broadcasting has always been an interest of mine. The problem was a number of years ago, the technology was great, but people were into a certain way of watching television. They’d sit down and watch TV. TVs didn’t have storage, and the idea of pushing things that you watched later wasn’t there.

Over time, the internet grew up. All of these devices popped up. People actually began interacting with their entertainment.

ATSC 2 noticed this and the thought was maybe it was time to do more than just live TV with broadcasters’ big data pipelines.

So, we started working on adding things to what we now call ATSC 1 that could make television a more engaging experience. ATSC 2.0 was supposed to be completely backwards-compatible — something you could add on the original ATSC broadcast.

And all of the equipment that didn’t know what to do with it would happily perform the way it did before, and new equipment could take advantage and offer new features.

Some work had started up in a planning committee that asked the question, “If we pushed technology as far as we could, how far could we go? And if we dropped the idea of everything having to be backwards compatible, could we move things far enough ahead that such a transition was worthwhile?” In other words, would the pain of the transition be worth it. That was ATSC 3.

If you try to keep things backwards compatible, there is a limit to what you can do. You can advance things 10, 15, maybe 20%.

If you drop the idea of backwards-compatibility, you can now get improvements that are three times or four times whatever you had before. You can make a major jump.

So, when people looked at this and looked at the possibilities and realized what the limitations were of today’s television, it became apparent to a lot of them that even though the transition to a new system would be painful, there wasn’t an awful lot further to take the existing system.

So, the pain of making a transition to a new system presented so many more opportunities and business areas, that it was felt it made sense to make a transition.

During this time, ATSC 2.0 matured, was finalized and published. And when people looked at it, they realized it just didn’t go far enough. And the new system coming along had so many more advantages, that it was felt it would be more worthwhile to pursue a new system than to confuse things with an interim change.

TVT: I think Jim Kutzner from PBS was initially chairing TG3, but shortly after he became chair he decided to retire from the industry. How did you get chosen to be TG3 chair?

RC: Jim Kutzner was actually the chair of the planning committee that did all of the background work for ATSC 3.0.

Then when the planning committee was done and had come up with the requirements for a new TV system, the ATSC board approved the work to create ATSC 3, voted to create TG3 and Jim was the chair.

So Jim Kutzner was the chair of TG3 for a bit over a year. Then he decided to retire. The stars aligned, everything worked out, and he could go pursue what he wanted to pursue.

At about the same time, I was chair of TG1, which was doing all the work on ATSC 1 and 2. And I was term-limited. TG chairs had a three year term. While I was reaching the end of that, Jim was about to retire. The board looked at various people and decided I would be a good person to chair TG3.

So, I basically got a one-month vacation from being the chair of TG1; Jim retired; and I became the chair of TG3.

TVT: Given the suite of standards that make up ATSC 3.0, what was it like chairing TG3? I know I would call you for interviews, and you always seemed to just be getting off a 3.0 committee call or getting ready to get on one.

RC: I think maybe it consumed 80 to 90% of my time. My expertise up until that point was really at the bit level. My knowledge of the physical layer was really rather weak. I sort of had an idea, but it wasn’t really something I focused on, because my attention was elsewhere.

The first time I went to an S32 [the committee that did the physical layer] meeting after a couple of hours I turned to the guy next to me and said, “What just happened?”

Basically, I didn’t know what was going on, and I leaned on Luke Fay [Sony] and Yiyan Wu [CRC] and other experts. They explained it to me. I am still not an expert, but at least now I can understand what goes on there.

So, there was a whole lot of learning. There are a whole bunch of areas that I knew stuff about but wasn’t an expert in.

At the beginning, I tried to participate in virtually all of the calls, partly to learn, partly to see what was going on, and over time, I cut back doing that with some groups because they seemed to be doing a great job by themselves. They weren’t going off the rails. And there wasn’t enough time in the day. So, I focused on groups that needed me.

That took up most of my time. It was a ton of travel, and a huge number of phone calls.

TVT: One time at an IBC in Amsterdam, I asked you what was going on with the Future of Broadcast Television (FoBTV) effort. You told me at the time that FoBTV was basically on hold because the effort going into ATSC 3.0 was the focus of the smartest minds in television from around the world. How were you able to attract the smartest minds to the ATSC 3.0 development effort?

RC: I think it was actually pretty simple. We made it open to everybody. Anybody with ideas who wanted to contribute had a seat at the table, and their contributions would be considered.

In a way, the ATSC 3 work was really the only activity in the world to try to create a new, next-generation TV system — completely. I think that attracted a lot of people because there was an opportunity to start from scratch and come up with the best possible approach — the best technology people knew — and remember a lot of the people were researchers, so this was an opportunity for them pursue their research at their universities.

TVT: Given the number of people working on the standard, each with specific knowledge and priorities, I’m am sure building a consensus was challenging at times. How did you go about that? And what did you do when you came to impasses?

RC: Building consensus was difficult. In some areas, there were simulations that one could run to actually judge which technologies were the best. Engineers with hard numbers in front of them quite often can make compromises and choices.

Probably the most difficult area was the physical layer. It wasn’t the case that people contributed ideas and technology. People contributed complete systems.

But in choosing a system, and going with that, has a whole lot of implications. It means you may lose out on good ideas an organization didn’t think of. So, instead of choosing one, it was sort of built in pieces. Different pieces of the physical layer use pieces of technology from different places — whatever was the best.

And as it turns out, most of the contributors had part of their technology included in the system, which made reaching consensus quite a bit easier.

TVT: I remember when the first announcements were made public about the physical layer. The first announcement was about the bootstrap. Is the bootstrap an example of selecting one piece from one source rather than taking the whole system? And, isn’t the bootstrap especially important so the broadcast industry does not have to face obsoleting TVs in the future?

RC: The bootstrap, I believe, bits and pieces came from different places, but the basic concept came from one source. There were definitely tweaks in what was originally suggested.

The idea of the bootstrap was actually very good. It does help a lot with the extensibility. It is the core of the physical layer — the starting place for everything.

By having the bootstrap — very simple, very robust and essentially unchanging — one can then put a signal in there that allows everything else in the system to be evolved.

Really, it is one of the core pieces that allows ATSC 3 to be different than everything we’ve done in the past, meaning you don’t do it, sit on it forever, and when everything changes in the world you say, “I guess we have to throw it away and start over.”

Now with the bootstrap, you can keep it as is and as technologies change, you can do things to the system, and old receivers can see there is new stuff, but old stuff, too.

It knows what the old stuff is, it knows when it is going to come, and the new receivers can work with what’s new. So you can slowly evolve things over time and get away from the problem of abrupt changes that obsoletes old equipment.

TVT: As you look back on the standardization of ATSC 3.0, were there any areas of difference that stand out as being harder to overcome than others?

RC: There were a number that were kind of difficult. One was the choice of IP transport over MPEG transport. There are some things where there are tangible measurements you can take and know if you do it this way you can get 3 dB of improvement or 20% better.

In the case of transport, if you look at it purely in terms of efficiency, IP and transport stream are pretty close. The difference is what happens in the future. How far can you extend it? Can you take advantage of what’s happening in other arenas like the internet?

These are sort of intangibles that you can’t put a number like 10% on, but you can get a feeling that if I do it this way, I will probably be a lot better off in the future. So that was one of the issues that was a bit more difficult because it was not a pure engineering thing.

Another one of the difficult decisions was between the ROUTE transport and MMT transport. They are both very good. They do things well. They just do them differently. It was impossible to get consensus on one over the other. And the end result was we allowed both.

TVT: Same thing with audio, right? MPEG-H vs. AC-4?

RC: Same sort of thing. They are both superb technologies. In some ways, it’s easier to have a system with no options. You do it this way.

But getting to that point can be very, very difficult. If you don’t have a good technical reason for one over another, it can be very difficult. So there were a number of places where options were allowed.

TVT: In the future, do you think a standards body like the Advanced Television Systems Committee can keep up with the accelerating rate of technological developments? Or, eventually, will the rate at which the marketplace brings about change surpass what can be accommodated by a standards body?

RC: I think it is possible to keep up. Look at the internet. The internet is built on standards. It’s changing very rapidly, but the things that are not standardized and are proprietary tend to disappear. So, using the internet as a model, it is possible to keep up.

Some of the work in ATSC 3, like interactivity, there is a lot of work there recognizing that we are following the internet, following what W3C [the World Wide Web Consortium] does.

The way of managing that and standardizing that has to be a bit different than we’ve done in the past. Using the way it works in the internet world is the model that is being used right now to try to keep up. I think it is possible.

The good thing about standards is that when consumers buy a TV and bring it home, they know it is going to work. That’s something you don’t want to get rid of.

TVT: Looking back on your time as TG3 chair, do you have any advice for Madeleine Noland who now fills that seat?

RC: I think the advice I gave to Madeleine was practice herding cats. But I think she knew that already.

I think Madeleine will be an excellent replacement. She will do really well. She is focused on some different areas. A lot of my focus was get it done, and I think now the focus has to be get it implemented, get it up and running.

Part of the advice is spend more time listening than talking. Try to figure out some way — I think the best way to say it is — that annoys everyone equally.

That is part of managing an organization. You can’t make everyone happy, but you can make everyone equally unhappy. That’s a pretty good place to be.

TVT: How about to the industry at large? Any parting piece of advice as relates to 3.0?

RC: A lot of people have said this, but the new functionality and the new kinds of businesses enabled by ATSC 3 are really necessary.

Without doing that, broadcasting is probably going to disappear and be overtaken by all of the other options people have for getting information and entertainment.

So, if broadcast doesn’t get nimble and take advantage of the things ATSC 3 offers, there’s a problem.

But I think there are a lot of tools now, and there is a lot of upside to broadcasting. Broadcasters should implement, take advantage of it and take full advantage of the unique future they have.

The notion of broadcasting — delivering the same stuff to lots of people very efficiently, there’s nothing that beats that.

TVT: Finally, it’s only been about a month, but how are you enjoying retirement and what are your plans?

RC: I’m liking it. Less stress. That’s one big thing. One of the things with ATSC 3 and all of the travel, I had all kinds of things I had to put aside and didn’t have time for.

I can pick them back up again. So, playing music, doing electronics and all of the projects I put aside are coming up to the forefront.

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

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COLUMBUS, OHIO—When ATSC president Mark Richer launched the organization’s “Road To ATSC 3.0” campaign earlier this year, he observed that the television industry would be “embarking on the road trip of a lifetime.”

One of the stops on that “road” took place in a big way here June 27-28 with the arrival of the “Midwest Next-Gen TV Summit,” an event designed to bring information about the new DTV transmission standard to broadcasters who might not have had an opportunity to participate in the numerous ATSC 3.0 launch events at the NAB Show and elsewhere.

With the assistance of broadcasting associations from six states—Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin—the ATSC brought together some of the top names in a program tailored for both station management and engineering contingents, with an agenda split between the nuts and bolts aspects of ATSC 3.0 and new business models that it could fuel.

The technical side was first, and after welcoming remarks by the executive director of the Indiana Broadcasters Association, Dave Arland, the day-and-a-half conference got down to business with a tag team presentation by the former chair of the ATSC technology group that developed the standard, Richard Chernock, and Skip Pizzi, NAB’s vice president of technology education and outreach. The duo described the genesis of the ATSC 3.0 standard, its inner workings, how it will allow broadcasters to offer a much wider range of services, what it will take to put 3.0 on the air, and even how adoption of the standard can fit in with the ongoing U.S. television spectrum repack.

TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT ATSC 3.0

As well as describing technical aspects of ATSC 3.0, Chernock urged broadcasters to embrace the new standard and commit themselves to adopting it as soon as possible.

“Technology is continuing to accelerate and grow,” he said. “It’s almost an exponential curve and it’s going to keep on going [and] we’re used to television technologies that sit still for a long time.

“How many decades was NTSC pretty much unchanged? And then along came ATSC 1.0, and now, in much less time, 3.0 has come along, and parts of 3.0 are not going to sit still but will keep evolving,” Chernock added. “So, I think we’re entering a phase where we all have to learn that things are not going to be completely stable. They’ll keep on changing. They’ll get better. And if you take advantage of it, there are a lot more opportunities. The key thing is to recognize that it’s going to happen and how to work with it, rather than stick your head in the sand and complain.”

Pizzi observed that while ATSC 3.0 was a “faith-based initiative” and not mandated, broadcasters and consumers alike would benefit from its implementation.

“The main thing is better audio and video,” said Pizzi. “There’s also the ability to do a quantitative increase as well as a qualitative one—to put more in the same channel.”

“There are plenty of more tweaks and adjustments that broadcasters and consumers can add if they want to,” said Pizzi, observing that with the hybrid nature of 3.0, broadcasters would be in a class by themselves.

“They [will be] the only ones who can do both over-the-air and Internet broadcasting,” he said.

Pizzi admitted that implementation of ATSC 3.0 would not exactly be child’s play for a number of reasons, including lack of backwardly compatibility with 1.0, and especially, the absence of a “loaner” channel for phasing in the new service as had been done in the analog-to digital TV transition.

“It will require extensive broadcaster collaboration,” he said. “It’s going to be different in each market.”

Pizzi also noted that the current lack of 3.0-capable television receivers will have to be addressed.

[Read: ATSC 3.0: The Time To Deploy Is Now]

“We assume that new TVs starting to come out [around] 2020 and beyond will be dual system—1.0 and 3.0” he said. “This is just voluntary. There’s no mandate that they will be that way. It’s to the television manufacturers’ advantage to do this. The folks who make the TVs—most of them—have all been involved in developing the standard and they each have, we think, a good bit of intellectual property in the system. So it behooves them [to equip the sets with 3.0 capability].

“We don’t think that lack of a mandate is going to be a problem in terms of having receivers on the market soon,” he said.

A VISIT FROM THE COMMISSION

The summit’s program included a special appearance by FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly who noted that the commission was “very positive” about the DTV standard and that it has been trying to speed the deployment as much as possible; however, the successful adoption of ATSC 3.0 also depended on other factors.

“The commission set the stage for deployment of the new standard through a Report and Order and Further Notice in November,” said O’Rielly. “At the time I made clear that the success or failure of a new technology is dependent on two things. First, it requires significant interest by broadcasters willing to make a bet on the future of television and the capabilities this standard may allow. Second, it will require great interest by consumers to adapt and adopt new features and functions that may soon be available.

“Both of these are achievable, but not without tremendous effort,” he said.

O’Rielly acknowledged that while broadcasters had their plates full with the repack and other issues, their rollout of ATSC 3.0 couldn’t be relegated to the “I’ll get around to it someday” category.

“Unfortunately, television broadcasters are under enormous pressures right now,” he said. “The hi-tech companies, who broadcasters compete with daily for advertising and consumer attention are not going to stop and wait for ATSC 3.0 to be fully deployed. They are going to continue to eat market and advertising share.

“So, time is not necessarily a luxury you all have,” O’Rielly continued. “If you are a broadcaster sitting on the fence on whether to implement ATSC 3.0, you should be worried that the fence may no longer exist if you take too long to decide.”

COUNTERING WIRELESS BROADBAND

ATSC 3.0—with its greatly enhanced capabilities over those of present-day ATSC 1.0—is viewed by some as a means for shifting consumers away from streaming of content via wireless broadband to a one-to-many over-the-air delivery paradigm. This surfaced in several presentations, including Jerald Fritz’s “Building New Revenue with Next-Gen TV and SFN Deployment.”

“[With ATSC 3.0], you are no longer in the entertainment video business; you are now in the data business,” said Fritz, explaining that with the feature set provided by the new transmission standard, consumers will have a way to bypass congested and poorly performing cellphone networks when viewing live events, such as a football game, while at the sports venue.

Fritz, executive vice president for strategic and legal affairs for ONE Media, also praised the selection of the OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplex) modulation used in 3.0 as an enabler in this respect.

“[Another] major advantage that ATSC 3.0 brings, among many, is the movement to a different modulation scheme—from 8-VSB to OFDM. This means that there’s no multipath distortion, there’s no ghosting, there’s no fading. That means that we finally have the ability after 20 years to have mobile television. All those millennials are watching television on their mobile devices, streaming and paying AT&T and Verizon.

“We abandoned mobile television to the phone company because we didn’t adopt OFDM 20 years ago,” Fritz said.

[Read: ATSC Meeting Explores 3.0 Deployments]

Regarding the availability of a return channel with ATSC 3.0, Fritz remarked “If…there’s a return channel for broadcasters, you have to ask yourself ‘what is it that broadcasters can’t do that the telephone companies can do now that we have a return channel?’”

Other summit presentations included a report by the NAB’s Lynn Claudy on field testing of ATSC 3.0 performed at the Cleveland transmission testing facility, a presentation by AWARN’s Fiona James on the potential of ATSC 3.0 to enhance emergency warning information, a look at the Phoenix test market and the need for cooperation among broadcasters in rolling out 3.0 from Scripps Media’s Ray Thurber, and a panel discussion on considerations and planning in connection with ATSC 3.0 adoption, and another on the monetization opportunities possible with ATSC 3.0’s personalized advertising and viewership data attributes.

Summit activities included a Wednesday evening reception at the Early Television Museum, located in nearby Hilliard, Ohio. There attendees viewed and received demonstrations of numerous television-related artifacts that traced the technical history of the television from its “mechanical” 30-line resolution roots into the electronic and color eras.

Museum founder Steve McVoy was on hand to greet the delegation, and observed that at more than 90 persons, the group was largest ever to tour museum since its inception in 2001.

“It went better than I had expected for a group this large,” said McVoy. “And I’m glad to have hosted a crowd like this with such an appreciation of television’s long history.”

SUMMING IT ALL UP

Asked about how the Midwest Summit came into being, Dave Arland responded that while midwestern television broadcasters were aware of the introduction of the ATSC 3.0 standard, it was felt that it was necessary to provide some in-depth information about 3.0 and the advantages that it offers television station operators.

“While many of our midwestern stations have heard from their corporate engineering teams about the emerging next-gen TV standard, we wanted to offer a detailed overview of what’s in the actual standard and how the first implementations are being put together,” said Arland. “And we knew that our general managers would be interested in the new revenue potential made possible by IP capability. It will be interesting to revisit the landscape in a year or two to see how the new ATSC 3.0 standard is being harnessed to strengthen the business of broadcasting and delivery of digital information.”

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

BETHESDA, Md.—At a presentation to automotive executives near Detroit in late 2016, Advanced Television Systems Committee officials demonstrated how — in addition to traditional over-the-air broadcasting — ATSC 3.0 could also be used for telematics, infotainment and other services involving connected cars and autonomous vehicles.

The idea of using a broadcast standard for such uses is revolutionary but it’s anticipated that the emerging 5G wireless standard will be the dominant method for communicating with autonomous vehicles. On the other hand, the vastly increased bandwidth of 5G will give wireless carriers the ability to greatly expand their video offerings.

So could these two standards be headed for a “technology smackdown?” Not according to most broadcast executives.

The ever-upbeat Mark Aitken, vice president of advanced technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group, emphasized the ability of the technologies to work together.

“The new [ATSC 3.0] broadcast standard was designed with 5G convergence in mind,” he said at the event, emphasizing the internet protocol foundations of both technologies.

COLLABORATIVE POTENTIAL

In a follow-up discussion with TV Technology, Aitken expanded his thoughts: “5G is about heterogeneous networks and hybrid services,” he said, adding that the emerging technologies will give companies “the ability to align the data framing of 3.0 with LTE [Long-Term Evolution, the current 4G format] and 5G.”

Aitken and others have stressed the collaborative potential as both ATSC 3.0 and 5G technologies race to market on parallel courses in the coming months. Although there is competitive potential l— such as 5G’s broadband capability to deliver on-demand video services and 3.0’s prospect for transmitting voice messages over IP — broadcasters and suppliers are confident that the two technologies will both evolve into the market strongly. They emphasize that 3.0 is optimized for broadcast while 5G is tailored for unicast streaming and fixed wireless access.

“ATSC 3.0 and 5G address different use cases and scenarios,” acknowledged Mauricio Aracena, Media Standardization Manager at Ericsson. “Neither technology will interfere with the other. On the contrary, hybrid capabilities of ATSC — such as support for broadcast and broadband delivery — allows broadcasters to combine both 3.0 and 5G technologies for more personalized content.”

It’s still too early to determine just exactly what 5G will entail, according to Richard Chernock, chief science officer at Triveni Digital.

“We know exactly what 3.0 is, but don’t yet know what 5G is because it’s in the early part of its cycle,” he said. “5G is a collection of technologies that may work with each other.

“It has enormous bandwidth; its low latency [and other attributes] may work well together,” but other features are mutually exclusive, said Chernock, who until recently headed ATSC’s Technology Group 3, which guided the Next Gen TV standard to completion.

Chernock acknowledges that there are many “things you could do” to integrate 5G and 3.0 capabilities.

“There is flexibility in the 3.0 physical layer that you could include 5G,” he explained. He pointed out that the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project, a mobile industry technology standards group) is examining how 5G could move the wireless telecom business from its legacy one-to-one communications focus into a “one to more” role.

“We have different models,” Chernock added. “3.0 could do on-demand as a hybrid. Broadcast can cover it by parking content in the receiver, or you can go from broadcast to broadband and it can complement really well.”

FACING REALITIES

Technical optimism about the interplay between 5G and 3.0 is tempered by market realities. In particular, the ability for future 5G handsets, tablets and other customer equipment to receive over-the-air 3.0 signals is likely to be limited since the wireless carriers and handset makers are expected to continue their longstanding policy of not integrating OTA broadcast receivers into mobile devices. But ATSC 3.0’s strength in mobile reception could help get over that hurdle.

“You’re increasingly going to see the efficacy of 3.0 aligned with mobile, especially 5G,” Aitken said. “ATSC 3.0 is compatible with 5 MHz spectrum. We have demonstrated the ability of 3.0 in relationship to CDMA [Code-Division Multiple Access, the cellular technology used by Verizon and Sprint in the U.S.]. If you take that wide swath from the lowest frequencies and look across the spectrum, you have everything from 600 MHz spectrum to AWS4, where 3.0 can fit in.”

EQUIPMENT AVAILABLE, MARKET PRESENCE

Telecom and broadcast technology suppliers are evaluating when and how to plunge into both the 3.0 and 5G markets. Aitken says that prior to the NAB show, about 40 vendors offered 3.0 products. Now, he says, triple that number of suppliers are “talking about their product paths.”

“Vendors who have been diverted to other markets are coming back to broadcasting," Aitken said, “bringing with them lessons learned from their experiences in the telecom market.”

Triveni Digital’s Chernock agrees. “Encoder makers and others are agnostic,” he said.

Ericsson is one company with feet in both camps. The company is in the process of spinning off their business targeting broadcasters, TV operators and content owners into a new company, Ericsson Media Solutions, according to Matthew Goldman, senior vice president of technology for EMS.

“This was done at least in part to allow for more focused investments in media technologies independent from the networking business,” he said. “ATSC 3.0 is a new market in which Ericsson Media Solutions fully intends to provide solutions to broadcasters, and indeed initial solutions already are available.”

The next reality check will be with consumers who confront both technologies. Verizon has already started field testing of 5G in selected markets, and AT&T intends to do the same this year — even before final 5G standards are adopted, scheduled for 2019. Since 3.0 tests will be underway soon in Phoenix, Cleveland, Dallas and other cities, it is likely that some early adopters may encounter both technologies soon — albeit structured for different purposes.

In announcing the recipients of its annual Engineering Achievement Awards, the National Association of Broadcasters notes that the awards go to “individuals who are nominated by their peers for significant contributions to advancing the state of the art in broadcast engineering.” But for Dr. Richard Chernock, the recipient of this year’s Television award, one could also surmise that recognition is being given for what will be done in the future, as well.

Dr. Richard Chernock For those of us in the broadcast technology community, Chernock, chief science officer for Triveni Digital, has been a familiar face in the development of the next generation television broadcast standard, ATSC 3.0. He currently serves as chairman of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) Technology Group on ATSC 3.0, a prominent position, especially in light of the fact that, unlike many of his predecessors, Dr. Chernock is a relative newcomer to the broadcast community, having come onboard in the late 90’s after a career in materials engineering with IBM.

“IBM had formed a group to study this new thing called ‘digital television’ to see if it might be an interesting business to go into,” Chernock said, adding that he found the technology behind MPEG “very very interesting.”

Although IBM did not follow through in its plans for digital TV, Chernock had caught the bug and transitioned to Triveni Digital about a dozen years ago.

Along the way, he came in contact with numerous individuals who helped him better understand and implement the technology and get involved in standards development. Top of the list early on was Pete Schirling, a former senior program manager for IBM who represented the company on the international MPEG Committee in the 1990s and someone Chernock characterized as an “MPEG police purist.” Another big influence was Bernie Lechner; “Bernie helped me quite a bit to understand what the standards activities were all about,” Chernock said, adding that ATSC President Mark Richer “has always been very helpful.”

What has surprised him most about the broadcast business? “Some of it was getting rid of the naivete,” Chernock said. “Early on, not having worked in standards, I had this sort of naïve idea that the best idea always wins or is going to win. I came to understand that there’s a lot of other pressures, there’s compromises that are made.”

Three months in, 2016 has already been a significant year for the emerging ATSC 3.0 standard, with signal testing in South Korea and last month’s approval of the physical layer. What does Chernock believe it’s going to take for the standard to exceed?

“Broadcasters need to start using it and take advantage of the new capabilities that go beyond the old business model,” Chernock said. “I think embracing it is an important thing. Another important thing is to actually educate the viewers of what kinds of services are possible.”

A few pieces of the standards puzzle remain to be resolved, including audio and interactivity, but much of the heavy lifting has been completed on ATSC 3.0, which remains on track for completion in 2017. Will the transition to 1.0 to 3.0 and the fact the new standard is not backwards-compatible be a help or hindrance to consumer acceptance? “I think it’s going to help,” Chernock said. “The amount that you can go as far as taking advantages of new technologies and moving forward is seriously limited because of backward-compatiblity. So by choosing to drop it as a requirement, you can make huge steps forward into new technologies.”

With folks like Chernock at the helm of ATSC 3.0 development, this year’s award not only honors past performance, but recognizes the important role that ATSC 3.0 will have in the future potential success of broadcasting.

Chernock will receive his award at the NAB Show Television Luncheon on Monday, April 18.

WASHINGTON—The National Association of Broadcasters has announced the trio of recipients for its TV and Radio Engineering Achievement Awards and Digital Leadership Award. Dr. Richard Chernock, chief science officer at Triveni Digital, has earned the 2016 NAB Television Engineering Achievement Award, while Andrew Laird, former vice president and chief technology officer at Journal Broadcast Group, will receive the 2016 NAB Radio Engineering Achievement Award. Adam Symson, senior vice president and chief digital officer at The E.W. Scripps Company has been named the recipient of the 2016 Digital Leadership Award.

Dr. Richard Chernock

Chernock currently serves as chairman of the Advanced Television Systems Committee Technology Group on ATSC 3.0. He has published papers and made a number of presentations on the new standard at conferences. He also previously oversaw the development of DTV standard enhancements, including ATSC Mobile and ATSC 2.0.

Laird is recently retired, but had worked in the radio industry since the 1960s. Laird helped evaluate and standardize digital AM and FM broadcasting through his work with the National Radio Systems Committee.

Symson oversees strategy and execution of Scripp’s portfolio of Web, mobile and OTT business. He reportedly helped launch a membership-based service on a local TV station website, and Scripp’s acquisitions of podcasting company Midroll Media and OTT video news service Newsy.

The trio will receive their awards at the annual NAB Technology Luncheon on April 20 during the 2016 NAB Show in Las Vegas.

Dr. Richard Chernock

America’s TV viewers will be the ultimate beneficiaries of ATSC 3.0, as broadcast television moves to integrate new capabilities and features into the receivers of the future. The new standard will be configurable, scalable, efficient, interoperable, and adaptable. That flexibility is critical as technology continues to evolve. As the chairman of the ATSC’s Technology Group 3, which is assembling the elements of ATSC 3.0, I can see five key advantages for this evolution in technology.

5. Advanced Emergency Alerting

People depend on local broadcasters to keep them informed as emergencies develop – particularly with fast-moving weather events. Advanced Emergency Alerting through ATSC 3.0 will allow broadcasters to target alerts, and possibly even “wake” sleeping devices to make sure the public is kept informed of dangerous conditions.

4. IP Transport 

Internet Protocol is the language of the worldwide web, and the move to ATSC 3.0 will allow us to introduce new ways of broadcasting such as hybrid approaches that merge broadcast and broadband. The viewer gets more choices and more diverse content.

3. Immersive Audio

While we can accommodate up to six channels with ATSC 1.0, the move to “immersive” audio with ATSC 3.0 means that movie viewing and even sports can be more realistic and lifelike. We aren’t limited to stereo left and right speakers. Instead, new systems will deliver a new way of listening to favorite content.

2. Ultra High-Definition TV

Ultra HDTV is here, although there is precious little source content. Ultra HD, and related technologies such as high dynamic range, high frame rate, and wide color gamut, will allow terrestrial broadcasters to continue sending the highest quality signals to viewers. Americans are expected to buy more than 4 million Ultra HDTV sets this year and Hollywood is producing content with millions of pixels. ATSC 3.0 will insure that the highest quality signal is reaching viewers.

1. Robust Mobile Reception

We’ve had mobile digital TV as an “add-on” capability to 20-year old ATSC 1.0 technology, but it wasn’t baked into the standard from the beginning. People’s viewing habits have changed. Mobile is king. Broadcasters know that they have to be at people’s fingertips in order to be relevant – not just on the big screen in the living room.