LAS VEGAS—Rohde & Schwarz will unveil the new R&S®TE1 liquid-cooled transmitter during the 2024 NAB Show at its booth SU4039 in the Las Vegas Convention Center between April 14 to 17. 

Rohde & Schwarz is billing the new R&S®TE1 as ushering in a new era of transmission. It is the first liquid-cooled transmitter design post Repack. As an ATSC 3.0 native transmitter, it is made for sustainable broadcasting in the connected world, turning critical challenges into opportunities for broadcasters to unlock new and engaging revenue-rich digital services. Further refined, it is a true peace-of-mind solution that reduces operational costs, minimizes the carbon footprint of transmission, and creates new business opportunities. 

“With ATSC 3.0 now reaching 75% of all US households, broadcasters are faced with three critical challenges and opportunities. They must reduce energy costs and carbon footprint to become more sustainable; cut operational costs through higher resilience and decrease reliance on the industry's limited supply of engineers; and they need to explore new business opportunities and revenue sources,” said Manfred Reitmeier, vice president broadcast and amplifier systems at Rohde & Schwarz.  “The R&S®TE1 builds on our proven skills and experience in transmitter design, and delivers against these three key requirements.”

“Our transmitter solutions deliver functionality, reliability and quality; by adding RMTX to the service level agreement, it maximizes risk mitigation for the operator, and it provides an affordable and predictable cost of ownership over a typical lifetime of 10 years or more,” said Claudia Goerig, service product manager for broadcast and amplifier systems at Rohde & Schwarz.

The company said that the transmitter at least 15% more energy efficient than even the best current designs, and 40% more efficient than the average installed base. 

The proven Rohde & Schwarz liquid-cooled transmitter technology ensures heat from the amplifiers is efficiently dissipated outside, eliminating the need for power-intensive air conditioning. The design eliminates single points of failures, and the intelligent software control layer ensures that over the lifetime of the transmitter the optimal efficiency is maintained throughout self-adaptation.

Through its unique architecture, the R&S®TE1 also simplifies maintenance and operation significantly. It combines high reliability with easy troubleshooting and remote support capabilities, increasing efficiency for network operators. All parameters can be monitored and controlled remotely, reducing the need for transmitter staff to be on site, the company reported. 

Rohde & Schwarz is also introducing a unique service: RMTX (Remote Transmitter Monitoring). Through this service, customers can rely on Rohde & Schwarz expert support to have their transmitter systems continuously monitored. This allows rapid responses in case of serious issues, remote technical support and guidance, fast shipment of spare parts, and routine preventative maintenance actions to be scheduled most efficiently. 

The transmitter will be launched at an event on Sunday, 14 April at 2 p.m. at the Rohde & Schwarz NAB Show booth SU4039. 

More information is available at www.rohde-schwarz.com. 

QUINCY, Ill.—KHQA-TV, the Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned dual CBS/ABC affiliate in Quincy has selected the Rohde & Schwarz R&S THU9evo transmitter to modernize broadcast operations and position itself for a future NextGen TV transition.

KHQA-TV, which serves the Tri-State area of northeastern Missouri, western Illinois and extreme southeastern Iowa, is the latest Sinclair station to choose the transmitter.

“The R&S THU9evo product line of transmitters has been a solid base of the Sinclair transmitter projects with 100 repack transitions, 20 IOT replacements, 11 power increases as well as six VHF-to-UHF conversion projects completed,” said Dale Scherbring, senior director of RF transmission at the broadcast group.

“It’s been a great product for our 1.0 and 3.0 transmission standards, and we love the efficiency over the old IOT transmitters.” 

More information is available on the company’s website. 

See Rohde & Schwarz at NAB Show booth SU4039. 

With ATSC 3.0 (aka “NextGen TV) now reaching approximately 75% of U.S. households, emphasis at the 2024 NAB Show will be on refinements and new applications for the advanced broadcast format—the most visible being HDR (high dynamic range).

“We’re expecting broadcasters to begin ‘taking the new car for a drive,’ with the expansion of high dynamic range programming to show viewers one of the key advantages of the new service—exceptional video that is matched with the Dolby audio system,” said ATSC President Madeleine Noland.

“We’re calling this ‘the year of HDR’ because a lot of stations have received, or will receive, permission to scale services into High Dynamic Range,” added Dave Folsom, Pearl TV group’s engineering lead. “At least two encoder manufacturers can now do this scaling, and that will make the service better. In most locations it will be provided as a 1080p service.”

Mark Aitken, senior vice president of advanced technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group, also weighed on the addition of high dynamic range.

“HDR is very significant, and one of the promises of the ATSC 3.0 standard is better television for America’s living rooms,” said Aitken. “It was the focus of the ATSC at this year’s CES. CBS’s delivery of the February Super Bowl LVIII in HDR should spur others to add this enhancement to their ATSC 3.0 transmissions and I expect to see announcements from other networks,” said Aitken, noting that HDR is nothing new at Sinclair. “We’ve been broadcasting HDR 24/7 at all of our stations with ATSC 3.0. Some 40 Sinclair stations are on the air with Advanced HDR by Technicolor.”

Seeing is Believing
West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center will host most of the 3.0 exhibitors and perhaps the best first stop for attendees interested in 3.0 is the ATSC booth (W3056).

“We plan to showcase both the NextGen TV sets and also upgrade accessory receivers at the NAB Show to make sure broadcasters are aware of the variety of set-top devices coming for consumers,” said Noland. “Already, consumers have their choice of NextGen TV-certified and security-verified receiving devices from ADTH and Zinwell.”

“There are a lot of standalone devices now available to enable NextGen TV reception with legacy receivers,” added Pearl’s Folsom. “All modern TV sets have HDMI input capability, so when a conversion device is added the user can painlessly switch between ATSC 1.0 and 3.0. This should go a long way to greasing the skids to full adoption.”

Aitken says Sinclair will also have an exhibits-area presence at the show with ATSC, and both an “on-floor suite” not far from  the ATSC booth, and a Wynn suite, both demonstrating ATSC 3.0 datacasting. He also promised some surprise announcements at the show on recent major datacasting developments.

Additional Space for 3.0
Aitken says he hopes there is news from the NAB Show on a date for sunsetting 1.0, giving broadcasters more bandwidth to roll out the full inventory of audio, video and data enhancements that are part of 3.0.

“I believe there’s good progress being made in the Future of Television Initiative [dealing with ATSC 1.0 switch-off and other 3.0 transition issues] within the industry, with the NAB playing a key role and the FCC and other regulatory bodies coming to an understanding of the nature of what has to happen in order to jettison the first stage of this rocket, ignite the second stage, and be securely in orbit,” Aitken added.

Anne Schelle, Pearl TV’s managing director, spotlighted another big NextGen TV development — “Run3 TV—that will be featured at the NAB Show.

“Run 3 is a powerful middleware solution that acts as an abstraction layer, simplifying the complex process of developing and deploying NextGen TV applications across varying operating systems and devices,” said Schelle, adding that it will allow broadcasters to reach wider audiences with more efficiency and less technical overhead.

“At the 2024 NAB show, developers such as Velope, Playanywhere, Gameloop, and Roxi will showcase the innovative applications and capabilities enabled by Run3TV, highlighting the platform’s role in driving the future of interactive TV,” Schelle added.

New NextGen TV Hardware
Along with the new and updated 3.0 applications, manufacturers have been busy developing new products to show on the exhibit floor.

Heading the lineup of new transmitters for ATSC 3.0 is the new E-Compact EC600HP-BB3 series from Hitachi-Comark, optimized for LPTV/MPTV replacements and ATSC 3.0 SFN deployments, according to Joe Turbolski, Hitachi-Comark’s vice president of sales and marketing. 

GatesAir will launch its Maxiva VLXTE-OP, “which essentially rounds out the top end of the Maxiva family for ATSC 3.0 transmission,” said Steve Rossiter, GatesAir TV systems applications engineer.

Although details weren’t fully available at press time, Rohde & Schwarz is also promising a new transmitter launch. “Rhode & Schwarz has developed a new and next-generation ATSC 3.0-native transmitter that embraces the liquid-cooled design and legacy while enabling operators to maximize their efficiency at minimized operational cost,” said Manfred Reitmeier, R&S’s vice president of broadcast and amplifier systems.“

Dielectric President Keith Pelletier says the company will show their latest antenna offerings, including the Powerlite TFU-WB-LP series. “Dielectric has spent the last several years building out its portfolio of ATSC 3.0 solutions,” he said. “We are 95% there in terms of filling out the entire product line, which will essentially allow us to serve any ATSC 3.0 requirements. Dielectric expects to fill in some final gaps with new models at NAB 2024.”

Attendees will also want to check out Harmonic’s XOS media processor and cloud-based VOS 360 Media SaaS offerings. “These feature a unique cloud-native common software foundation and next-gen media processing technology,” said Jing Zhou, Harmonic’s director of broadcast solutions. “They enable broadcasters to deliver ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 services simultaneously and efficiently, with feature enhancements including AI-powered video compression and quality optimization, simplified SDR/HDR conversions, and more.”

Also, look for Sencore’s new AG 2700 for monitoring of both ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 OTA signals. It provides ASI and IP outputs signals, and includes SNMP functionality.

These new product offerings only represent a small sampling of NextGen TV technologies that will be on display at the 2024 NAB Show. 

NextGen TV Educational Opportunities
In addition to tire-kicking and networking opportunities at exhibitor’s booths, you’ll also want to take advantage of the large number of presentations being offered on ATSC 3.0 television. These are part of the BEIT (Broadcast Engineering and IT) sessions featured Saturday through Tuesday at the 2024 NAB Show.

Presentations will cover advanced emergency alerting, ATSC 3.0 television translators, use of ATSC 3.0 transmissions for positioning systems, converging ATSC 3.0 and 5G technologies, offloading of video streaming content via NextGen TV and more.

Of particular interest to broadcasters is the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society’s Saturday afternoon presentation, “ATSC 3.0 Business Case and Monetization,” focusing on creating additional revenue streams for stations. According to the session organizers, such topics as the delivery of audio (radio) services via ATSC 3.0, targeted advertising, use of geo-localized datacasting, and delivery of ATSC 3.0 enhancements through the use of virtual (Internet-delivered) channels will all be included.

Paul Shulins, IEEE BTS president and president of the Shulins Solutions consulting firm, terms this session a “must-attend” event. 

“Broadcasters today have many different options to generate revenue besides the traditional advertising dollars,” said Shulins. “Thanks to ATSC 3.0 this session will showcase several new creative concepts for monetizing your data capacity.”

Another session explores a relatively new ATSC 3.0 technology, “core networks,” which will provide delivery of television services and data across multiple TV transmission facilities in multiple markets.

“The ATSC 3.0 Broadcast Core Networks: Serving diverse use-cases across a heterogeneous broadcast and supplier ecosystem,” Tuesday afternoon panel discussion will be moderated by Spectra Rep COO y the chief operating officer at Spectra Rep, John McCoskey.

“Broadcast core networks connect broadcasters, end-user service providers, and virtualized network infrastructure providers and enable data-centric businesses using ATSC 3.0,” McCoskey. “Don’t miss this session if you are interested in learning about the role, value, and importance of broadcast core networks as a critical part of the ATSC 3.0 broadcast ecosystem.”

For a complete listing of BEIT ATSC 3.0-related sessions and times, visit https://nabshow.com/2024/learn/conferences/broadcast-engineering

MUNICH—Rohde & Schwarz will demonstrate how network operators and content providers can leverage 5G Broadcast technology and show its media solutions for today’s complex environments where speed, security and scalability are necessary during IBC 2023 at the RAI Amsterdam, Sept. 15-18.

“Over the past years we have proven that 5G Broadcast is ideal to transmit any kind of data to large audiences, complementing existing terrestrial and mobile network distribution. Various application scenarios have been validated in field tests using our equipment,” said Manfred Reitmeier, vice president broadcast and amplifier systems at Rohde & Schwarz. “Now it is time to enter the next phase, developing business cases and preparing network plannings.”  

The company will show its R&S TH1 software-defined transmitter. Offering agile support across a wide range of formats, including 5G Broadcast, the transmitter is engineered with performance, sustainability, resilience and efficiency in mind, it said.

"The media industry is confronted with significant challenges in audience behavior and technological transformation," said Thorsten Sauer, vice president media solutions at Rohde & Schwarz. "This is why our portfolio is focused on flexible solutions providing the highest degree of operational resilience and security.”  

The company will also exhibit its entire product line addressing the business and technical challenges facing the media industry.

“From our Gallium StreamMaster Playout solutions which power the most complex workflows of national broadcasters to the award-winning R&S SpycerNode2 media storage solution, leveraging HPC (High Performance Computing) technology and VSA (Virtual Storage Access), the most demanding and leading broadcasters and studios rely on the performance and reliability of our media solutions,” said Sauer.

See Rohde & Schwarz at IBC 2023 Stand 7.B21.

More information is available on the company’s website.

Part 2 of 2

In my last column I focused on ATSC 3.0 measurement gear at the 2022 NAB Show. This month I’ll review some of the other items I found interesting at the show and look at the Broadcast Engineering Conference’s discussion on using drones for tower inspections. 

Transmitting—5G for Broadcast?
I wasn’t expecting any breakthrough technology in high-power UHF transmitters in Las Vegas but I did find time to visit three manufacturer’s exhibits and saw some interesting products. Rohde and Schwarz (R&S), which has been promoting the use of 5G for broadcast in the United States, featured its 5G transmitters for broadcasting. I wanted more details as I really didn’t understand how U.S. broadcasters would use 5G transmitters.

Since the ATSC 3.0 standard allows signaling different types of waveforms in the bootstrap signal, I thought R&S might be looking at using 3GPP 5G standards in the UHF TV band. It turned out R&S envisioned using these on existing UHF 5G wireless bands licensed to wireless operators in the U.S. One idea was that broadcasters—with their high-power, high tower sites—could provide low-cost, wide-area coverage. 

A more likely scenario is wireless carriers will roll out their own 5G broadcast system and compete with broadcasters for content delivery. It will be interesting to see how this develops. For an example of how 5G and ATSC 3.0 could co-exist, Google the HP Enterprise business white paper “The Convergence of 5G and ATSC 3.0 Opens a New Era of Communications.”

Hitachi-Comark had a new compact, all-in-one transmitter built on their successful Parallax series. The transmitter uses liquid cooling with dual pumps for both the amplifiers and in-cabinet mask filter. Maximum power output for the EC700HP-BB3 is 13.2 kW. Installation is simple as it only requires hooking up power and running hoses to the outdoor heat exchangers. If that’s too much work, an air-cooled E-Compact transmitter line does not require an outdoor heat exchanger, but obviously sufficient air flow (and perhaps cooling) is required.  

The simple installation of these transmitters could make them ideal for disaster recovery or backup, although the mask filter would have to be tuned to the desired channel if shared between stations.  

Anywave also had more powerful UHF amplifiers, with a 4.5 rack unit “Marble” series transmitter providing outputting 2,200 watts. It uses the latest Ampleon BLF989E ninth-generation LDMOS chip, rated at a peak power of 1 kW and average power of 180 watts per device. Proper cooling will be essential for these compact devices.

What I found most interesting was Anywave’s chart showing a new gap filler design using a reference antenna. This is used to characterize the booster’s transmitter reflections from the surrounding environment. Anywave claimed rejection of the transmitted signal into the gap filler of up to 50 dB, allowing higher power. Download http://anywavecom.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Anywave-Gap-Filler-Indoor-Flint-Series-Product-Specification-4-22.pdf for more data. I expect low-power gap fillers to become more common as ATSC 3.0 is deployed.

Innovation from South Korea's ETRI
The Korean booth at the NAB Show usually has some interesting ATSC 3.0 technology and this year was no exception. ETRI described a system using MIMO and a 1024QAM constellation to transmit over 100 Mbps in a single ATSC 3.0 RF channel. The design requires separate transmit antennas (one for horizontal and one for vertical polarization) and a receive antenna with separate outputs for horizontal and vertical polarizations.

This is obviously incompatible with existing receive antenna installations, so I asked if LDM could be used to provide a robust non-MIMO layer at reduced bandwidth for viewers without the outdoor dual-polarized antennas. I was told it was possible, but greatly increases complexity. 

A more likely scenario would be a station provides only high-data rate service, requiring a special receive and likely professional antenna installation. A pay-only service might be possible if FCC subscription TV rules used by analog for-pay OTA companies like On-TV apply to digital broadcasts as well. Google “ETRI ATSC 3.0 MIMO” for a number of articles on the technology, many in Korean (use Google translate). 

Inspecting With Drones
In a Broadcast Engineering Conference presentation at  the NAB Show, Paul Shulins with Shulins Solutions showed how he uses drones to examine the thermal characteristics of antennas and transmission lines. TDR (time-domain reflectometry) measurements with a vector network analyzer can reveal major issues with transmission line connections but are less useful pinpointing problem areas inside antennas or heat-related problems that don’t change the line impedance. 

Shulins uses a drone outfitted with a special IR camera able to detect minor temperature differences in the line. This is more complicated than it may sound at first because the outer on copper transmission line, particularly new line, tends to reflect IR and hide internal heating. Measurements are best made before the sun has had a chance to heat the line. This IR imaging as proven it's worth in several cases, which Shulins outlined.

All it takes is one bad transmission line connection to eventually take a station off air and potentially cause expensive damage to many sections of transmission line. In Fig. 1, a thermal image shows the hot spot in a line due to a bad “O” ring that resulted in damage to 150 feet of transmission line. In Fig. 2, the arrow on the visual image provides a higher resolution view of the line. 

Due to the time of day when the visual image was taken there wasn’t much light. I stretched the contrast on the images to make the less illuminated and heated parts of the line and the tower more visible. The fault was not visible in a ground-based TDR sweep of the line. I’m now recommending IR inspections on new line installations to avoid future problems. For more information, visit https://shulinssolutions.com/drone-tower-inspections for more information.

Jason Schreiber, CEO of RF measurement provider SixArms, presented a paper on using drones to measure antenna patterns. I’ve covered drone antenna measurements in previous columns, so I won’t repeat the details. He noted measurements found several antenna patterns that didn’t match the expected pattern. In about 80% of the cases, they were due to installation errors, a common problem being the antenna rotated by one bolt hole. Manufacturers’ defects were less common. 

Of course, tower reflections result in measured patterns from side-mounted antennas being quite different than the free-space patterns. While ground measurements were enough to find that error, drone measurements would be required to discover more subtle discrepancies. SixArms also had some new measurement equipment at the NAB Show (for more information, visit www.sixarms.com). 

Testing NextGen TV on the Road
For ATSC 3.0 reception on the road, I have an early Airwavz Redzone receiver using the original LG demodulator.The SiliconDust ATSC 3.0 IP HDHomeRun gateways use the new Sony chip and in my limited testing seem to perform better than the old Airwavz tuner. 

The problem is the SiliconDust tuner requires an IP connection. Just hooking it up to the laptop’s Ethernet port results in complaint about no Internet access. I have found a way using NetworkManager in Linux to configure a shared connection between a wireless Internet link and the device and the laptop, but it is complicated. 

A much simpler solution was to buy the small TP-Link TL-WR902AC AC750 wireless travel router that connects to the hotel WiFi, provides an Ethernet port for the SiliconDust tuner, and a wireless connection to the laptop for both. The device may also come in handy when working on equipment in the field that requires an Ethernet connection as the equipment could be connected by cable to the router and accessed anywhere in the room on a laptop using WiFi—no need to string an Ethernet cable across the floor. 

As always, I welcome comments and questions. Email me at dlung@transmitter.com. I try to answer all emails promptly, but if I’m busy and the email gets buried, I might miss it. If you don’t get a response within a week or so, email me again.

MUNICH—Rohde & Schwarz has announced that its high-performance intelligent storage network, as well as its media servers for content preparation have been deployed at Swiss broadcaster blue, a popular subscription service offering movie and entertainment content  alongside a popular sport service. 

Key factors in the decision to select R&S VENICE and R&S SpycerNode for the project were reliability, redundancy, small form factor and easy setup, the broadcaster reported. Futureproofing and scalability were also important considerations, allowing blue to migrate from today’s 1080/25i to 50p to 4k and HDR/Ultra HD with outputs already configured for Ultra HD. 

As it started planning to upgrade its ingest and studio platforms, blue recognized that to serve the needs of sports viewers, high availability and redundancy were critical as well as the need to quickly turn around content as it arrived for half-time reviews and other programming. 

Time pressures also required that playlists and clips be ready for immediate playout. 

Finally, since rack space was limited, it was necessary to design the highly redundant and small form factor system in a way that was convenient to use without any any complex set up procedures. 

To meet its current and future needs, blue has installed an extensive storage and preparation network with seven R&S VENICE S8s along with mirrored storage on two R&S SpycerNode 5u84 units. 

Each VENICE device is capable of ingesting, transmitting or transforming eight HD or two Ultra HD signals simultaneously, for a total of 56 concurrent HD streams. This includes the ability to edit in place and playout while ingesting. The new set-up achieves all this in just 34 units of rack space, including IP switches and panels – a far smaller footprint than other systems. 

“blue has invested heavily in sports rights, and we need to be sure our assets are carefully managed, archived and preserved,” said Daniel Meyer, project leader for blue. “Rohde & Schwarz is a long-time trusted company, and the combined VENICE/SpycerNode solution is flexible, secure and cost-effective. The company was also able to guarantee us an SLA for at least seven years, so we know we have an effective platform on which we can build our future growth.” 

The two fully populated SpycerNode devices provide security through redundancy, ensuring there is no single point of failure anywhere in the content management system. R&S provides industry-leading resilience through erasure coding and a declustered array as well as hardware redundancy, the company said. 

Monitoring is by VENICE View, with dynamically assigned sources to ensure operators are always aware of content flows. The integrated tools within VENICE allow operators to create sub-clips, trim material, and transwrap files without generation loss. For situations when craft editing is required, Adobe Premiere can begin editing work as files are being ingested or played out by VENICE, thus enabling faster production workflows by allowing work to begin the moment file ingest begins. 

“We are proud that blue has recognized the determination in our design of VENICE and SpycerNode to provide non-stop, highly resilient, mission-critical storage,” said Jörg Fries, vice president broadcast, amplifier and media solutions at Rohde & Schwarz. “This is just the sort of application we envisaged for the technology, providing seamless operational efficiency today with the possibility of scaling in the future, not just in the number of channels, editors and processes supported, but in allowing a move to higher resolutions as the blue audience demands it.”

The system was implemented by Jordi AG, Rohde & Schwarz’s systems integration partner in Switzerland. Together, the two companies designed, installed, tested and commissioned the system in the first months of 2021, while maintaining social distancing and other protective practices for all staff involved.

MUNICH—Rohde & Schwarz has introduced new base models of the handheld R&S Spectrum Rider FPH spectrum analyzer to offer measurement of frequencies up to 44 GHz, the company announced today.

The new 44 GHz model joins existing R&S FPH models that measure 5 kHz to 6, 13.6 and 26.5 GHz. Three new versions with tracking generators are available with measurement frequencies up to 13.6, 26.5 and 44 GHz, it said.

The R&S Spectrum Rider FPH is equally well-suited for use in the field and the lab. Large buttons and multi-touch gesture screen make it easy to operate. The new higher frequency models enable the spectrum analyzer to perform a broader range of measurement tasks, it said. 

The spectrum analyzer offers sensitivity of –160 dBm and measurement accuracy of typically 0.5 dB between 10 MHz and 3 GHz. The new models support field applications such as verification of 5G, broadcast, radar, defense and satellite communications links, it said.

The handheld spectrum analyzer family offers a large-format capacitive touchscreen, making it intuitive to adjust settings, such as frequency, span and reference level as well as setting set markers, it said.

The analyzer can be remotely controlled via USB, LAN and the R&S MobileView app for iOS or Android provides seamless remote control of the device, company said.

More information is available on the company’s website.

MUNICH, Germany—Rohde & Schwarz is touting early ATSC 3.0 transmitter deployment market share numbers it says reveal the company accounts for nearly 90% of NextGen TV transmitters installed around the world.

More than 60 ATSC 3.0 transmitters from Rohde & Schwarz are in commercial operation in South Korea, and during the U.S. TV spectrum repack the company has provided hundreds of transmitters that are NextGen TV-ready.

In South Korea, ATSC 3.0 has been the centerpiece of its drive to broadcast 4K UltraHD to viewers. The nation’s broadcasters transmitted 2018 Olympic Winter Games from Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea, in 4K UHD using 3.0, and the country is targeting 2027 to have all of its programming offered in UHD. In the United States, ATSC 3.0 deployment is voluntary.

”KBS [Korea Broadcasting System] and Rohde & Schwarz have worked together developing our new terrestrial UHD service based around R&S THU9 TV transmitters since 2014,” says Sungho Jeon Ph.D., manager, Department of Media Distribution Management at KBS. “Today most of South Korea’s ATSC 3.0 TV transmitter sites operate R&S THU9 transmitters—not only KBS, but also other broadcasters in Korea. For three years, the system has been operating, and KBS is very happy.”

Rohde & Schwarz transmitters support core ATSC 3.0 features, including multiple physical layer pipes (PLP), multiple subframes and single frequency networks (SFN) capabilities, the company said. They also support ATSC 3.0 layered division multiplexing (LDM).

For 3.0 single frequency network (SFN) deployments, Rohde & Schwarz offers the R&S RelayCaster that enables public internet connections to feed stream inputs to transmitters at individual SFN sites, the company says.

Rohde & Schwarz also provides a translator solution to simplify extending ATSC coverage and eliminate the expense of the transport stream feeding infrastructure to LPTV transmitters. 

“Next Gen TV is bringing wide-scale terrestrial broadcasting into the IP age,” says Manfred Reitmeier, vice president, Transmitter and Amplifier Systems at Rohde & Schwarz. 

More information is available on the Rohde & Schwarz website.

COLUMBIA, Md.—Rohde & Schwarz USA have announced three new hires that will work with the Broadcast & Media division, specifically the Media Content Solutions team—Burt Young, Greg Doggett and Kim Thomas.

Young has been tapped to serve as the senior sales manager for the newly expanded Media Content Solutions team, handling all aspects of sales for the respective business in the U.S. Young has 20 years of industry experience, previously holding positions with Grass Valley, Snell Inc. and Harris Corporation.

Joining Young’s team will be Doggett and Thomas in the roles of sales and business development manager, responsible for promoting sales growth and strengthening existing relationships with customers and partners.

Doggett’s previous experience includes sales positions at Grass Valley and Snell Inc. Thomas joins the team from Avid and Dalet Digital Media Systems, where she held executive sales positions.

LAS VEGAS—With the motto “Supporting you today. And in the future,” Rohde & Schwarz will have its product portfolio on full display at the 2019 NAB Show, including new additions of a cloud system for monitoring and a high-power transmitter, and a focus on 5G broadcast.

One of the products that will be on display is the R&S Prismon monitoring and multiviewer system. The Prismon, designed to detect errors in video, audio, loudness, subtitles or embedded content, continuously monitors transmissions and immediately alerts operators in the event of a problem. The unit can cover classic broadcast transmissions via SDI, as well as OTT, TSoIP, SDIoIP and ST 2110 and supports SDIoIP, 2110 and NMOS protocol suites.

New to the R&S lineup is the SpycerNode storage platform. SpycerNode features an easy-to-use interface, a high performance computing file system and erasure coding mechanisms, among other capabilities. The company has extended its R&S Device Manager so it can be used with the SpycerNode.

R&S is also introducing the THV9evo VHF transmitter at the show. The water-cooled transmitter combines energy efficiency of up to 50 percent and is available in the VHF band III to work with ATSC 3.0. It also features integrated signal analysis for feedback on signal quality.

R&S’s presence will be felt beyond its own both following the acquisition of Pixel Power as a new subsidiary. Despite now falling under the R&S banner, Pixel Power will have its own booth, SL7613.

In addition to the products on display, R&S will be highlighting the latest in 5G technology at the show. This includes results of a field trial taking place in March in Munich of an HPHT 5G broadcast, and a demonstration of an end-to-end system for LTE/5G broadcast.

Rohde & Schwarz will set up at booth SL6405.

To register for the NAB Show, visit www.nabshow.com.

AMSTERDAM--At the 2018 IBC Show, German broadcast transmitter provider Rohde & Schwarz will debut the R&S TMU9evo UHF transmitter, a new version of its popular TMU9 transmitter line with improved energy efficiency and reliability. According to the company, the R&S TMU9evo delivers maximum energy savings even during channel changes or when adjusting the output power. The intelligent R&S Efficiency Optimization feature automatically provides the most economical operation possible for every operating scenario, Rohde says, adding that the R&S TMU9evo is the only transmitter in its power class that can be optionally equipped with an integrated exciter backup battery, enabling it to dependably bridge power interruptions of up to 10 seconds. This reduces off-air time to a minimum and eliminates the need for an uninterruptible power supply (UPS).

The R&S Efficiency Optimization feature minimizes energy costs for all types of operating scenarios which is especially important when adjusting output power or during channel changes. An intelligent algorithm, deployed at the press of a button or adaptively, optimizes amplifier parameters so that the transmitter achieves maximum energy efficiency at all times.

Improvements to R&S Multiband Doherty technology in the R&S PMU905 medium-power amplifier in the TMU9evo provides maximum efficiency, combined with the capability to operate across the entire UHF range without any modifications. This technology ensures that network operators are optimally prepared for 700 MHz spectrum clearance and reallocation, according to the company.

The R&S TMU9evo retains the successful and proven R&S MultiTX concept along with the R&S Tx9 generation’s intuitive GUI, which is closely aligned with user requirements and work habits. The R&S TMU9evo air-cooled UHF medium-power transmitter delivers output powers from 400 W to 3.0 kW for COFDM and ATSC.

The new transmitter will be available in November 2018.

Rohde & Schwarz will be in Stand 7.21. The IBC Show takes place at the RAI Amsterdam, Sept. 14-18.

MUNICH—Germany is experimenting with 5G and has enlisted the help of Rohde & Schwarz in the process. The Bavarian research project “5G Today,” led by the Institute for Broadcast Technology (IRT), has set up a 5G test site for broadcasting in the Bavarian Oberland. Rohde & Schwarz is one of the project partners investigating large-scale TV broadcasts in the Further evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service mode over 5G networks.

European broadcasters and industry players have worked to establish an international standard for broadcasting in large 4G and 5G networks, which could enable smartphones and tablets at potential TV receivers, combining live TV services, media libraries, social networks and other media services.

As part of “5G Today,” large and smaller transmitter cells are combined to create a large coverage area. The first test broadcasts using TV signals are expected to take place at the end of 2018. They will be simultaneously broadcast on channel 56 from Bavarian state broadcaster Bayerischer Redfunk’s Wendelstein station and other locations in the Munich area. In the build-up to that, components for transmission and reception will be developed and installed, as well as the conduction theoretical studies and preliminary investigations.

[The Future of 5G and IP-ENG]

The “5G Today” project will be funded by the Bavarian Research Foundation over the course of 28 months. The project is supported by associated partners BR and Telefónica Germany.