ATSC 3.0 ‘on Track’ To Become ‘Candidate Standard’ Later This Year, ATSC Says

The ATSC is “on track” to move to an ATSC 3.0 “candidate standard” later this year, said Luke Fay, a Sony Electronics software systems engineer and chairman of the ATSC’s S32 specialist group, in the March issue of The Standard. Once a candidate standard is done, “those who would implement the details will have a chance to build equipment and test the Candidate Standard in a real world environment,” Fay said in the ATSC monthly newsletter released Tuesday. “That’s where all of the poking and prodding will be done with the elements of the system. It’s a trial of new technology, and a chance to see if anything was overlooked when developing the standard.” Next in the process, ATSC 3.0 as a “proposed standard” will be balloted on, he said: Once approved, ATSC 3.0 will be done. The upcoming audio system tests for ATSC 3.0 “will be world’s first to evaluate immersive sound for a broadcast television standard,” the newsletter said. Three immersive audio formats will be tested, it said: (1) A 7.1 surround system ("7.1+4") with four height channels added in a square above the listener; (2) The 22.2-channel three-dimensional surround format pioneered by NHK as part of its Super Hi-Vision system, (3) High-Order Ambisonics (HOA), a “scene-based” format that’s independent of channels and "can be rendered and optimally mapped into whatever reproduction channels are available to the listener." ATSC will test HOA "as rendered" to 22.2 channels, the newsletter said. ATSC’s S34-2 ad hoc group on ATSC 3.0 audio has selected about 60 sound tracks for testing the three audio systems that have been proposed for ATSC 3.0, it said. The three proponents are Dolby Labs, DTS and the MPEG-H consortium of Fraunhofer, Qualcomm and Technicolor (see 1501130054). March 9 is the deadline for all three proponents to deliver detailed technical proposals to the S34-2 ad hoc group, ATSC President Mark Richer said in the newsletter. In all, about 12-14 clips have been selected for each of the five different channel formats being tested, the newsletter said. They include Suzanne Vega’s "Tom’s Diner," a rare a cappella solo, with very little reverb added, which is why it originally came into use for this purpose, pieces from the Henry Mancini orchestra rendering of "Moon River," a live version of "Whole Lotta Love" from Robert Plant, Fleetwood Mac’s "Never Going Back Again," a clip from the soundtrack from the filmed version of Chicago featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones, and an excerpt from NBC Nightly News. “The rest are from lesser known classical or jazz artists, specialized solo-instrument recordings, applause, sports commentary/game sounds (golf and hockey), ambient recordings and cinematic sound effects,” the newsletter said.