Video: ATSC 3.0 in 2021

ATSC3.0 is an innovative set of standards that gets closer to the maximum possible throughput, AKA the Shannon limit, than 5G and previous technologies. So flexible a technology it is that it allows convergence with 5G networks, itself in the form of an SFN and inter-transmitter links as well as a seamless handoff for receivers between the internet and the broadcast transmission. ATSC 3.0 is an IP-based technology that is ready to keep up to date with changing practices and standards yet leave viewers to experience the best of broadcast RF transmission, wireless internet and broadband without having to change what they’re doing or even know which one(s) they’re watching.

This SMPTE event looks at a number of ATSC’s innovations, moderated by SMPTE Toronto section chair, Tony Meerakker and kicks off with Orest Sushko from the Humber Broadcast-Broadband Convergence Lab development in Toronto. This is a Canadian initiative to create an environment where real-world ATSC 3.0 testing can be carried out. It’s this type of lab that can help analyse the applications talked about in this video where different applications are brought into a broadcast RF environment including integration with 5G networks. It will also drive the research into ATSC 3.0 adoption in Canada.

Next is the ATSC president, Madeleine Noland, who introduces what ATSC 3.0 is and why she feels its such an innovative standards suite. Created by over 400 engineers throughout the world, Madeleine says that ATSC 3.0 is a state of the art standard with the aims to add value to the broadcast service with the idea that broadcast towers are ‘not just TV anymore. This idea of blurring the lines between traditional RF transmission and other services continues throughout this series of talks.

The aim of ATSC 3.0 is to deliver all television over IP, albeit it uni-directional IP. It also uses a whole stack of existing technologies at the application layer such as HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. These are just three examples of the standards on which ATSC 3.0 is based. Being based on other standards increases the ability to deploy quickly. ATSC 3.0 is a suite of tens of standards that describe the physical layer, transport, video & audio use, apps and more. Having many standards within is another way ATSC 3.0 can keep up with changes; by modifying the relevant standards and updating them but also not being afraid of adding more.

Madeleine says that 62 market areas will be launching which bring the reach of ATSC 3.0 up to 75% of the households in the US under the banner ‘NextGen TV’ which will act as a logo signpost for customers on TVs and associated devices. ATSC 3.0 exists outside the US in Korea where 75% of the population can receive ATSC 3.0. Canada is exploring, Brazil is planning, India’s TSDSI is researching and many other countries like Australia are also engaging with the ATSC to consider their options for national deployment against, presumably DVB-I.

The last point in this section is that when you convert all your transmitters to IP it seems weird to have just a load of ‘node’. Madeleine’s point is that a very effective mesh network could be created if only we could connect all these transmitters together. These could then provide some significant national services which will be discussed later in this video.

Interactive TV

Mark Korl is next talking about his extensive work creating an interactive environment within ATSC 3.0. The aim here was to enhance the viewer/user experience, have better relationships with them and provide an individualised offering including personalised ads and content.

Mark gives an overview of A/244, ATSC 3.0 Interactive Content and ATSC 3.0 standard A/338 talking about signalling, delivery, synchronisation and error protection, service announcement such as EPG, content recovery in redistribution scenarios, watermarking, Application event delivery, security and more.

Key features of interactivity are the aforementioned use of HTML 5, CSS and JavaScript to create seamless and secure delivery of interactive content from broadcast and broadband. Each application lives in its own separate context and features are managed via API.

Mark finishes by outlining the use of the Emergency Advanced Emergence informAtion table which signals everything the receiver needs to know about the AEA message and associated rich media and then looks at how, at the client, content/ads can be replaced by manipulating the .mpd manifest file with locally-downloaded content using XLink references.

Innovateive technologies implemented in ATSC 3.0

Dr. Yiyan Wu takes the podium next explaining the newest RF-based techniques used in ATSC 3.0 which are managing to get ATSC3.0 closer to the Shannon limit than other similar contemporary technologies such as 4F and 5G New Radio (NR). These technologies are such as LDPC – Low Dennsity Parity Codes – which have been in DVB-S2 and DVB-T2 for a long time but also Non-Uniform Constellations such as 4096NUC-QAMas well as Canada-invented Layered-Devision-Multiplexing (LDM) that can efficiently combine robust mobile and high-datarate service on top of each other on a single TV channel. This works by having a high-power, robust-coded signal with a quieter signal underneath which, in good situations, can still be decoded. The idea is that the robust signal is the HD transmitted with HEVC SVC (Scalable Video Coding) meaning that the UHD layer can be an enhancement layer on top of the HD. There is no need to send the whole UHD signal. Dr. Yuyan Wu finishes this section by explaining the LDM offers reduced Tx and Rx power.

Using LDM, however, we’re actually creating more bandwidth than we had before. Dr. Wu points out that this can be used for improved services or be used for an in-band distribution link, i.e. to move live video down through a network of transmitters. While not necessary the fact that an ATSC 3.0 transmitter can operate as part of a single frequency network is very useful as a weak signal from one transmitter can be boosted by the signal from another.

Dr. Wu spends time next talking about 5G use cases detailing the history of failed attempts at ‘broadcast’ versions of 3G, 4G and LTE. With 5G USPs such as network slicing, the current version of the broadcast mode of 5G is more likely than ever to be commercially implemented. Called 5G feMBMS, it’s actually a 4G/LTE-based technology for delivery over a 5G network.

One plan for 5G integration, which is possible as ATSC 3.0 has the same timing reference as 5G networks, is for 5G networks to spot when thousands of people are watching the same things and move that traffic distribution over to the ATSC 3.0 towers who can do multicast would an issue.

Next Gen commercialisation update

Last in the video we have Anne Schelle who works with the ATSC as a board chair of the ATSC 3.0 Security Alliance. She explains that the number of markets announcing for deployment in 2021 is twice that of 2020. Deployment of ATSC 3.0 is going well, the most common initial use has been to test interactive services. The projected TV shipping numbers with ATSC 3.0 internally are positive and, Anne says, the economics for NextGen receiver inclusion is better than it has been previously. Speaking from her security perspective, having in-built content security protection is new for broadcasters who welcome it as it helps reduce piracy

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Speakers

Madeleine Noland Madeleine Noland
President,
ATSC
Mark Corl Mark Corl
Chair ATSC S38 Specialist Group on Interactive Environment
SVP Emergent Technology Development, Triveni Digital
Yiyan Wu M.C. Dr. Yiyan Wu
Principal Research Scientist,
Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC)
Anne Schelle Anne Schelle
Board chair of ATSC 3.0 Security Alliance
Board Member, ATSC
Managing Director, Pearl TV
Orest Sushko Orest Sushko
Project Lead, Humber Broadcast-Broadband Conergence Lab
Program Coordinator, Film & Multiplatform Storytelling Program, Humber College
Tony Meerakker Moderator: Tony Meerakker
Chair, SMPTE Toronto Section
Consultant, Meer Tech Systems

Video: ATSC 3.0 Part IV – Advanced Emergency Alerting, AWARN & Interactive Content

In a country where the weather can be life threatenin and where earthquakes and wild fires pose a real threat to life, an Early Alert System (EAS) is very important. This talk looks at the ‘Advanced Emergency Alerting’ system (AEA) that is available in ATSC 3.0 and the coalition behind it. It also talks about some of the interactive features possible.

Richard Chernock is back to dig deeper in to the set of standards which is known as ATSC 3.0. He starts by looking at the broadcaster’s role in being a public information provider both to first responders and to the public at large. ATSC 3.0 was seen as an opportunity to go much further than EAS available in ATSC 1.0. One improvement, as covered previously, allows for very robust transmission methods. AEA also provides rich media, version information and expiry information. Additionally it can be delivered to targeted areas.

The AWARN (Advance Warning and Response Network) is a project to look world-wide at the different EAS activities ongoing in order to bring learning into ATSC and represents both broadcasters and national agencies such as FEMA and homeland security. It provides practical advice on resilience (backup generator provision), how to maximise the verboseness of information, encryption and much more.

Finishing off this short talk, Richard highlights the OTT-style interactive services possible with ATSC 3.0. He shows a quiz format where the graphics are within the control of the broadcaster. Other examples discussed are interactive access to sports replays, purchasing merchandise, the ability to synchronise with a second screen and advert displays.
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Please note this is a 30 minute video but the version on YouTube repeats hence lasting 1.5 hours
Speakers

Richard Chernock Richard Chernock
Former CSO,
Triveni Digital

Video: ASTC 3.0 Basics, Performance and the Physical Layer

ATSC 3.0 is a revolutionary technology bringing IP into the realms of RF transmission which is gaining traction in North America and is deployed in South Korea. Similar to DVB-I, ATSC 3.0 provides a way to unite the world of online streaming with that of ‘linear’ broadcast giving audiences and broadcasters the best of both worlds. Looking beyond ‘IP’, the modulation schemes are provided are much improved over ATSC 1.0 providing much better reception for the viewer and flexibility for the broadcaster.

Richard Chernock, now retired, was the CSO of Triveni Digital when he have this talk introducing the standard as part of a series of talks on the topic. ATSC, formed in 1982 brought the first wave of digital television to The States and elsewhere, explains Richard as he looks at what ATSC 1.0 delivered and what, we now see, it lacked. For instance, it’s fixed 19.2Mbps bitrate hardly provides a flexible foundation for a modern distribution platform. We then look at the previously mentioned concept that ATSC 3.0 should glue together live TV, usually via broadcast, with online VoD/streaming.

The next segment of the talk looks at how the standard breaks down into separate standards. Most modern standards like STMPE’s 2022 and 2110, are actually a suite of individual standards documents united under one name. Whilst SMPTE 2110-10, -20, -30 and -40 come together to explain how timing, video, audio and metadata work to produce the final result of professional media over IP, similarly ATSC 3.0 has sections on explaining how security, applications, the RF/physical layer and management work. Richard follows this up with a look at the protocol stack which serves to explain which parts are served on TCP, which on UDP and how the work is split between broadcast and broadband.

The last section of the talk looks at the physical layer. That is to say how the signal is broadcast over RF and the resultant performance. Richard explains the newer techniques which improve the ability to receive the signal, but highlights that – as ever – it’s a balancing act between reception and bandwidth. ATSC 3.0’s benefit is that the broadcaster gets to choose where on the scales they want to broadcast, tuning for reception indoors, for high bit-rate reception or anywhere in between. With less than -6dB SNR performance plus EAS wakeup, we’re left with the feeling that there is a large improvement over ATSC 1.0.

The talk finishes with two headlining features of ATSC 3.0. PLPs, also known as Physical Layer Pipes, are another headlining feature of ATSC 3.0, where separate channels can be created on the same RF channel. Each of these can have their own robustness vs bit rate tradeoff which allows for a range of types of services to be provided by one broadcaster. The other is Layered Division Multiplexing which allows PLPs to be transmitted on top of each other which allows 100% utilisation of the available spectrum.

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Speaker

Richard Chernock Dr. Richard Chernock
Former CSO,
Triveni Digital

Video: Everything You Wanted to Know About ATSC 3.0

ATSC 3.0 is the next sea change in North American broadcasting, shared with South Korea, Mexico and other locations. Depending on your viewpoint, this could be as fundamental as the move to digital lockstep with the move to HD programming all those years ago.

ATSC 3.0 takes terrestrial broadcasting in to the IP world meaning everything transmitted over the air is done over IP and it brings with it the ability to split the bandwidth into separate pipes.

Here, Dr. Richard Chernock presents a detailed description of the available features within ATSC. He explains the new constellations and modulation properties delving into the ability to split your transmission bandwidth into separate ‘pipes’. These pipes can have different modulation parameters, robustness etc. The switch from 8VSB to OFDM allows for Single Frequency Networks which can actually help reception (due to guard intervals).

Additionally, the standard supports HEVC and scalable video (SHVC) whereby a single UHD encode can be sent which has an HD base-layer which can be decoded by every decoder plus an ‘enhancement layer’ which can be optionally decoded to produce a full UHD output for those decoders/displays which an support it.

With the move to IP, there is a blurring of broadcast and broadband. This can be used to deliver extra audios via broadband to be played with the main video and can be used as a return path to the broadcaster which can help with interactivity and audience measurement.

Dr. Chernock covers HDR, better pixels and Next Generation Audio as well as Emergency Alerts functionality improvements and accessibility features.

Speaker

Dr. Richard Chernock Dr. Richard Chernock
Chief Science Officer,
Triveni Digital