JOHNSTON, IOWA—How are broadcasters
going to ensure the future of over-the-air
terrestrial broadcasting? I am actively participating
in a number of organizations that
are contributing to enhancing current digital
television services and developing the
next generation of services.
Organizations
like Advanced Television Systems Committee
and the Future of Broadcast TV (FoBTV),
an unincorporated, non-for-profit, voluntary
association founded by 13 television broadcast
organizations from around the world,
are looking at the future on a global scale
while other organizations like NAB and EBU
have a more regional focus, but are still very
actively participating in the global view.
In an ideal world, we would all get
together and hammer out worldwide standard
that would allow manufacturers to
build products that worked everywhere
and consumers could watch content on
any device anywhere. I don’t think there is
a technological reason that would prevent
that, but technology isn’t the only component
of the mix. There are social, political
and cultural components that will also
come into play and will influence and may
even dictate what can and cannot be done.
MOBILE DTV
One of the main projects going on at the
ATSC right now is the mobile DTV enhancement
to the existing ATSC service. I personally
have looked at mobile DTV as an “experimental”
service to prove the concept
that if we offer broadcast services that can
be received on mobile devices, people will
use them. The experiments that I have seen
certainly demonstrate that the technology,
while not flawless, does work, but adoption
has been slow.
What is needed is a catalyst and I am
most interested in the Mobile-EAS project
that is being directed by Jay Adrick. Repeatedly,
we have seen where, during a crisis
when traditional mobile services such as
cellular have collapsed, broadcast continues
to provide emergency and often lifesaving
information. An M-EAS plan that would allow
broadcasters to deliver the same feature-
rich emergency information that we
send to our traditional viewers could be
that catalyst. I can envision a smart device
that not only has the graphical map of the
area of interest, and the text and audio alerting
the user, but also takes advantage of the
geolocation capabilities of the device itself
to let the user know where they are in relationship
to the event. This is the kind of
service that terrestrial broadcasting could
provide during situations that would crush
the traditional cellular service.
ATSC 3.0
Another area of interest is the next generation
broadcast standard, ATSC 3.0. In late
2011, the ATSC formed a Technology Group
to explore what was next for terrestrial
broadcasting. Probably one of the hardest
decisions to make in creating the charter for
the group was that the new standard would
not be constrained to be backward compatible
with the previous ATSC DTV standards.
System requirements were drafted in
2012 and the process was quite interesting
as we worked closely with the FoBTV organization
in soliciting potential use cases
from interested parties worldwide. The ideal
would be a global standard, but if that is not
possible, at least to have global standards for
as many of the components that make up
the systems as possible. More than 70 use
cases were gathered and they were distilled
down to 13 usage scenarios encompassing
everything from flexible and efficient use
of spectrum to interactivity and accessibility.
The end result is a list of some 140-plus
requirements.
Coincident with the latter part of this
work was the creation of specialized
groups to tackle the fundamental designs
of the specific layers proposed to make up
the new standard. The current Technology
Group (TG3) structure breaks out into the
Physical Layer, the Management/Protocol
layer and the Application/Presentation
layer. Each group is tasked with building
the functional blocks and developing the
components that will make up the new
standard. It is quite an undertaking, given
that the timeline that we have established
requires the delivery of a candidate standard
by December 2016. I will make one
appeal to my readers: if you are interested
in working on the future of terrestrial
television broadcasting, contact ATSC and
find out how you can get involved.
Although I am concerned about the
future of terrestrial broadcasting, I know
that we can create a more robust, vibrant
and valuable service through technology.
I sit in meetings with people that I
consider to be geniuses at solving technological
challenges. My concern is that
the audiences that have benefitted from
our past work, currently benefit from
what we do today, and will gain additional
benefits from what we do in the future,
are unaware of the nature of what we are.
Our biggest challenge will be to educate
consumers that television everywhere
will require a robust and well thought-out
ubiquitous wireless service. We have been
that for more than half a century.
Bill Hayes is the director of engineering
for Iowa Public Television. He can
be reached via TV Technology
