Proponents of the DTV transition gathered in Washington last week for the annual meeting of the Advanced Television Systems Committee. Speaking were leaders of the television industry’s key trade associations.
NAB President and CEO Eddie Fritts said: “We need to provide services that exploit all the advantages of over-the-air transmission and reach the greatest audience possible with a reliable, received signal. For example, ATSC’s work on a standard for distributed transmission is commendable. The idea of synchronized multiple transmitters has the potential to help increase the reliability of over-the-air broadcast service.”
NTCA President and CEO Robert Sachs said: “The cable industry’s rollout of HDTV continues at full throttle, with cable aggressively promoting its HD offerings and rapidly deploying HD services to further bolster its competitive position.”
Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, urged all DTV leaders to “work together to educate the American public and promote this wonderful technology.” Looking to the future he added: “Interactivity clearly is the next phase of digital television, thanks to work by the ATSC and others.”
The NAB's Graham Jones was this year’s recipient of the Bernard J. Lechner Award for Outstanding Technical Contributions to ATSC. Jones led the effort to develop the Programming Metadata Communications Protocol (PMCP) standard.
Technical demonstrations were conducted by ATI, Dolby, Microsoft, LINX Electronics, LSI Logic and Zenith. Sponsors of the annual meeting were ATI, Harmonic, LG Electronics, LINX Electronics, Panasonic, ST Microelectronics, TANDBERG Television, and Zenith Electronics.
