New Digital TV Technologies Demonstrated at 2012 NAB Show Extend Value and Reach of ATSC Standards

ATSC TechZone to Highlight Unique Solutions for Interactive Mobile DTV,

Loudness Control, 3D-TV, Descriptive Video and ATSC 2.0

LAS VEGAS, April 13, 2012 – Digital TV continues to evolve with the emerging demands for mobility, personalization and Internet functionality, and the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) will highlight new innovations at the 2012 NAB Show that starts this weekend. 

“More than 20 educational sessions and presentations involving ATSC standards are planned over the next several days, with the capabilities and future needs of TV broadcasters taking center stage at the annual meeting of broadcasters.  ATSC is also one of the leading organizations driving the global ‘Future of Broadcast TV’ (FoBTV) initiative and is pushing that project forward to chart the long-range future of television, enhancing the experience for broadcasters and viewers,” said ATSC President Mark Richer.  An FoBTV progress report session is planned for Tuesday morning, April 17, in Room S222 in the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

At the ATSC TechZone (North Hall N4039 at the LVH hotel walkway), ATSC members from three continents will demonstrate implementations of new work by the ATSC on DTV enhancements.  Among the companies and projects being showcased there:

Dolby Laboratories, best known for high-quality audio and surround sound, also creates innovations that enrich home entertainment.  At the NAB Show, Dolby will demonstrate how the TV experience could be better for the 25 million visually impaired people living in America.  Utilizing the enhancements of Dolby Digital Plus to provide Surround Descriptive Audio with ATSC-compatible streams, the Dolby demonstration will show how content can be made accessible with improved clarity of the on-screen action to people with impairments such as sight or hearing loss.

Samsung Electronics and the Korean Broadcast System (KBS) will demonstrate Real-Time Hybrid 3D-TV Broadcasting of Full HD 3D content (1920x1080 resolution for each of the two views in a 3D presentation.)  The system uses the legacy 2D ATSC terrestrial channel for one of the two views, synchronized with broadband Internet streaming of the other view.  It is designed to be fully compatible with legacy broadcasting systems, with no degradation of the bandwidth or video quality of the 2D legacy broadcast transmission.

Through the Open Smart Alliance (OSA), KBS also will be showing aspects of ATSC 2.0 including a DTV multicast service called “Korea-View” that is broadcast in MPEG-4 along with special receivers designed to pick up the advanced transmissions.  The KBS director of new media strategy, Dr. Jong Won Park, will present a paper about Advanced ATSC Service with MPEG-4 during the NAB Show.  Since 2009, KBS has been transmitting the advanced multicast service, which has both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 ATSC compliant transmissions.  “Korea-View” is able to broadcast one HD program of 12Mbps MPEG-2 and three SD programs with 5Mbps MPEG-4.

The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) will show a Non-Real-Time (NRT) terrestrial high quality 3D-TV broadcasting system that transmits stereoscopic content or additional view of the stereoscopic content in advance using ATSC NRT.  The system is backwardscompatible with the legacy digital broadcasting system and enables stand-alone high quality stereoscopic push-VOD service or 2D broadcasting linked high quality stereoscopic service.  Additionally, ETRI will demonstrate ATSC-ADT (Augmented Data Transmission), a technology that enhances the throughput of the ATSC terrestrial DTV system. The ATSC-ADT has negligible impact to the legacy A/53 and A/153 receiver performances and presents a platform for next-generation broadcasting services, while preserving current services.

Finally, in cooperation with LG Electronics, ETRI will show how both standard ATSC and Mobile DTV can be utilized to transmit and receive 3D TV broadcasts.  The 3D-TV broadcasting demonstration is composed of two coded video images, where one image is transmitted via ATSC A/53 terrestrial broadcasting and the second image is transmitted using the ATSC A/153 Mobile DTV Standard.  This method of 3D-TV transmission is now being considered by the ATSC for standardization.

Linear Acoustic is planning a demonstration of key products that address the new requirements of the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act passed by Congress.  The company’s AERO.lite 2-channel Audio/Loudness Manager helps broadcasters cost-effectively deliver CALM and R128 compliant audio while the AERO.air Audio/ Loudness Manager delivers proven loudness control, Dolby decoding and encoding, and upmixing capabilities. Staff will be on hand to discuss loudness and audio issues in light of recent regulatory changes.

Canadian educators and engineering students from Ryerson University will showcase interactive Mobile DTV prototype technology that utilizes ATSC’s A/153 Mobile DTV standard.  Ryerson is demonstrating how Mobile DTV can be used to bridge online resources with TV broadcasts, showing a smartphone-sized Toronto weather application that reads RSS feeds from Environment Canada and could easily be adapted for use in other Canadian cities.  The Ryerson team is currently constructing a car-based Toronto traffic, weather, news and public transit application that could receive emergency alerts if programmed and ultimately could react to GPS information if the Mobile DTV reception technology was placed in the appropriate GPS receiving device.

Germany-based Decontis, a leading supplier of analysis and monitoring solutions for both Mobile DTV and Digital TV, is demonstrating a Simple Network Management Protocol enabled monitoring solution that analyzes and monitors all aspects of Mobile DTV and ATSC broadcasts.  The new product is capable of processing ATSC and Mobile DTV content from the entire multiplex simultaneously, and it provides RF, Asynchronous Serial Interface, IP and File input to make it useful for virtually any monitoring environment.  The Decontis solution is highly configurable and allows monitoring of up to eight complete ATSC/Mobile DTV multiplexes within a single server.

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About the ATSC:  The Advanced Television Systems Committee is an international, non-profit organization developing voluntary standards for digital television.  The ATSC member organizations represent the broadcast, broadcast equipment, motion picture, consumer electronics, computer, cable, satellite, and semiconductor industries.  For more information visit www.atsc.org

Contact:

Dave Arland, Arland Communications:  Dave@ArlandCom.com, (317) 701-0084