WASHINGTON—As evidenced by field trials across the country and a groundswell of support from equipment manufacturers at this year’s NAB Show, it’s time to consider what must happen next to get ATSC 3.0 into homes and creating consumer awareness of the new DTV standard. That was the focus of this year’s Advanced Television Systems Committee’s Next Gen TV conference, held in Washington, D.C., May 29-30.
One of the presentations (“By Any Other Name: Branding & Conformance Plans for ATSC 3.0”) examined the process of ensuring interoperability of equipment on both broadcast and consumer sides, and also of creating public awareness of 3.0 with the creation of a logo and catchy tradename.
“When you can’t get your service on a TV, that’s a problem,” said panelist Bob Campbell, director of engineering at Eurofins Digital Testing and chair of the ATSC’s Conformance Implementation Team, which is developing test materials and methodology to ensure 3.0 interoperability at all levels. “No consumer expects a $100 TV set to do exactly the same thing as a $1,000 set, but they certainly expect that when they plug it in it will show them a picture.”
Campbell stressed the importance of developing standardized test materials and making them available to all manufacturers so everyone is doing the same testing in the same way. “[Then] the broadcasters’ services all work on the TVs in the market and consumers get what they expected and they’re happy and they’ll keep buying TVs and watching your shows.”
