ATSC Working on Successor Document to A85

By Doug Lung
published


Citing a request from ATSC to extend the reply comment deadline in the CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) Act, the FCC has extended the deadline until August 1, 2011. ATSC explained it plans to formally approve a successor document to the A/85 Recommended Practice on DTV loudness and will publish the document on www.atsc.org on July 26, 2011. ATSC argued that the extension would allow "ATSC, its member companies, and other interested parties the ability to provide a more complete factual and legal record in this proceeding."

The FCC previously extended the original July 5 and July 18 deadlines for filing comments and reply comments (respectively) to July 8 and July 21, 2011 in response to a request by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. One of the issues being contested is who bears the responsibility for compliance with A/85 when the original signal is modified (decoded to analog, for example) by a cable or satellite company.

Doug Lung
Doug Lung

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack. A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.