WASHINGTON—The National Association of Broadcasters has updated the Federal Communications Commission on some of the notable advances that have been made by the NextGen TV News Technology Lab program, an initiative to develop and test innovative applications of ATSC 3.0 technology for journalism, public safety, accessibility and community service that just celebrated its first birthday.
As recently reported by TV Tech’s Phil Kurz, the projects featured through the News Technology Lab provide a practical demonstration of how broadcasters are using NextGen TV capabilities to strengthen local service and enhance the viewer experience.
One of the notable projects from the Lab has been WJLA-TV's Advanced Emergency Information initiative, which explores how broadcasters can use NextGen TV technology to deliver more relevant, more accessible and more actionable emergency information to viewers.
"The project demonstrates how ATSC 3.0 can build upon broadcasting's longstanding role as a trusted source of emergency information by enabling capabilities that are simply not possible with ATSC 1.0,” the NAB told the FCC in a June 23 letter.
For example, ATSC 3.0 can support geographically targeted emergency communications and offer capabilities for providing “richer emergency information, including maps, images, evacuation routes, shelter information, and other contextual information that can help viewers understand developing emergency situations and make informed decisions,” the NAB said. “These capabilities are particularly valuable during severe weather events, AMBER Alerts, wildfires, flooding, and other emergencies where timely and actionable information can help protect lives and property.”
In addition, ATSC 3.0 enables important advances in accessibility. NextGen TV can support multilingual emergency communications, helping to ensure that critical information reaches more viewers during an emergency. It also supports enhanced accessibility features that can improve access to emergency information for viewers with disabilities.
“These capabilities represent meaningful public-interest benefits that will become increasingly important as broadcasters continue to deploy and refine NextGen TV services,” the NAB reported. “ATSC 3.0 also provides a foundation for additional public-interest services that extend beyond traditional television viewing. For example, broadcasters are actively exploring the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS), which leverages ATSC 3.0 transmission infrastructure to provide a resilient terrestrial source of positioning, navigation, and timing information.”
The letter also address some of concerns in recent filings regarding alerting and certain receiver implementations.
In response, the NAB said that it “agrees that emergency information must remain reliable, accessible, and available to viewers. At the same time, it is important to distinguish between implementation-specific issues associated with particular devices and the capabilities of the ATSC 3.0 standard itself. The recent testing described in the record was limited to two receiver products and does not establish any inherent limitation of ATSC 3.0 emergency communications capabilities.”
“The existence of implementation issues in a limited number of first-generation devices should not obscure the broader public-interest benefits that ATSC 3.0 makes possible, particularly in the area of emergency communications,” the NAB argued. “The Commission should evaluate ATSC 3.0 not only by what it replaces, but by what it enables.”
“As the record continues to demonstrate, ATSC 3.0 is not merely a successor transmission standard,” the NAB concluded. “It is a platform for advanced emergency information, geographically targeted public warnings, multilingual communications, enhanced accessibility, resilient positioning and timing applications, and other innovative services that can strengthen broadcasting's service to local communities. Projects such as WJLA's Advanced Emergency Information initiative provide a concrete example of what becomes possible when broadcasters can fully utilize NextGen TV's capabilities.”
The full letter is available here.
