ATSC Board Wants Members To Begin Designing ATSC 3.0 Prototype Hardware, Richer Says

Some of the most “pressing work” facing the many specialist and ad hoc groups working to frame ATSC 3.0 “relates to reaching consensus on a few remaining open items” for ATSC 3.0's physical layer transmission system, ATSC President Mark Richer said in the August issue, published Monday, of ATSC’s monthly newsletter, The Standard. ATSC’s many subgroups “will be very busy in August putting the finishing touches on documenting core building blocks” of the physical layer transmission system as it heads toward ATSC 3.0 “candidate standard” status, Richer said. Work “in parallel” on ATSC 3.0's “upper layers,” including decisions about the ATSC 3.0 audio system, also continues unabated,” Richer said. Under ATSC’s call for audio proposals issued in December, the S34-2 ad hoc group that’s studying ATSC 3.0 audio proposals faces an Aug. 14 deadline for delivering a recommended audio standard to its parent S34 specialist group on "applications and presentation," and Richer told us recently that work is “generally on track” toward completion (see 1507240030). “While there’s a flurry of ATSC activity focused on our aggressive short-term goals of moving various ATSC 3.0 elements” to candidate standard status this year, “we also have our eye on the horizon,” Richer said. One “exciting opportunity for many ATSC members” that the ATSC board has identified “is the desire for prototype broadcast and reception hardware” based on the ATSC 3.0 candidate standard, Richer said. “A critical mass of equipment from various manufacturers will be needed for laboratory and field testing as ATSC 3.0 moves toward Proposed Standard status in 2016. And we encourage our members to begin developing such prototypes as the suite of standards collectively known as ATSC 3.0 solidifies in the months ahead.”