"... allowing broadcasters to roll out the standard on a 'market-driven,
voluntary basis' ..."
Again, as far as I can tell, these are words with no meaning. What does
"market-driven" mean, if the CE vendors don't produce anything? The above quote
makes it sound like the broadcasters are waiting for the "market" to develop,
and we already know that the CE vendors are also waiting for this "market" to
develop (as LG stated explicitly, just a couple of weeks ago). Okay, let's all
keep on waiting.
Plus, the FCC is also out to lunch, with their recently-familiar chanting of
libertarian claptrap, coupled with totally misleading negative rhetoric from
the minority left (like, anything about ATSC 3.0 would impact cable TV addicts?
How?).
And then there's the recurring implication that a one-way broadcast standard
will provide interactivity, video on demand, targeted ads, and all the rest of
the now familiar nonsense that continues to befuddle the innocent. When in
fact, broadcasters can do all of that, and more, today, without ATSC 3.0.
It's funny to see a replay of the early 2000s, when similar innocents were so
dismayed that digital TV didn't give them instant Internet access from home!
Would be nice for a trade scribe to tell it like it is, for a change.
Even this at the end. Why not educate, instead of obfuscate?
"ATSC 3.0 will deliver advanced emergency warnings and market-driven
flexibility, so consumers can be safer and enjoy the highest-quality, most
innovative over-the-air TV experience ever, ..."
Almost total hogwash, right? Perhaps, if you take the time to configure the TV
receiver with location-dependent multicast addresses, you may get focused
emergency warnings (easily doable with ATSC 1.0). But all the rest has nothing
to do with "OTA experience" at all. All the rest is "broadband Internet
experience." Why has no trade scribe ever cut through the recycled tripe?
Bert
----------------------------------------------------
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/atsc-30-rollout-can-begin-next-month/171487
Washington
Feb 01, 2018 10:36 AM ET
ATSC 3.0 Rollout Can Begin Next Month
Federal Register to publish final Rule
By John Eggerton
Broadcasters will soon get the green flag on their race to an interactive,
geo-targeted, video-on-demand future.
The FCC's framework for rolling out a new ATSC 3.0 advanced television
transmission standard will become effective the first week in March.
The Federal Register signaled Thursday (Feb. 1) that the final rule for
allowing broadcasters to roll out the standard on a "market-driven, voluntary
basis" will publish Feb. 2, with the rule going into effect 30 days after that,
according to the FCC.
The new standard, which was championed by broadcasters, emergency alert groups
and the Consumer Technology Association, is expected to drive sales of the 4K
TV's whose higher-resolution pictures can be delivered by the new standard, and
give broadcasters a competitive foothold in the interactive, targeted
advertising, IP world.
A politically divided FCC voted 3-2 on Nov. 16 to allow for the voluntary
rollout of the standard. That came over the objections of Democrats on the
commission and in Congress, who argued that it was a gift to Sinclair or a rush
to a standard that could leave viewers paying for the change through new TV's
or equipment of higher cable prices.
ATSC 3.0 will allow TV stations to do geo-targeted ads and emergency alerts,
video on demand and other interactive services using a broadband return path
for viewers with Internet access, and provide those high-high definition 4K
pictures.
While most of the rule will become effective in early March, three portions
will not because they require information collection, which must first get the
OK of the Office of Management and Budget per the Paperwork Reduction Act,
which requires new regs that entail new information collection to be vetted to
make sure those are not overly burdensome.
So, the portions of the rule that will not become effective until OMB signs off
on their info collection (and that sign-off is also published in the Register)
are those dealing with simulcasting agreements between stations (sections
73.3801, 73.6029, 74.782)
As part of the rule, stations in a market that want to roll out the
transmission standard can join forces (a kind of Jack Spratt arrangement(, with
one transmitting both station's signals in ATSC 3.0, and the other both signals
in the current ATSC 1. format--ATSC 3.0 is not backward compatible (it requires
a new set or adaptor), so the FCC wants to make sure that, for at least the
first few years of the rollout--signals are available in both formats.
Broadcasters will have a chance to make a case for flash-cutting to ATSC 3.0
rather than simulcasting, and Low Power TV's will be allowed to flash cut
without simulcasting. MVPDs must continue to carry ATSC signals but don't have
to carry the new 3.0 signals. Broadcasters can combine retrans negotiations for
new ATSC 3.0 and existing 1.0 signals, which cable operators had opposed.
National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith said following the
November vote: "Two decades ago, the FCC blessed the transition from analog to
digital television, which ushered in the broadcast-led era of HDTV that dazzled
consumers and was the envy of the technology world. Today, the Commissioner
endorses Next Gen TV, which marks the beginning of a reinvention of free and
local broadcast television in America."
"ATSC 3.0 will deliver advanced emergency warnings and market-driven
flexibility, so consumers can be safer and enjoy the highest-quality, most
innovative over-the-air TV experience ever," CTA President Gary Shapiro has
said of the new standard.
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