FoBTV (Future of Broadcast Television) held a meeting in Las Vegas on April 10, 2019, during the NAB Show. The FoBTV is a voluntary organization with 85 members of more than 20 countries of professional broadcasters, standardization organizations, etc., to share and exchange views and opinions on the future of TV broadcasting. They hold a regular meeting twice a year; in April during the NAB Show in Las Vegas, and in September during the IBC in Amsterdam.
On April 10 in Las Vegas there were two sessions held; Technical Committee and Management Committee.
Approximately 30 people attended the meeting including 6 people from Japan; from NHK, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) and DiBEG.
Atmosphere of Meeting
Technical Committee
Standardization Activities
ATSC:
- ATSC set up the Planning Team and the Implementation Team, each continuing its activities to fulfill their objectives. The Planning Team, according to the report, is studying new video compression CODECs for future applications, as well as research and development of applications of broadcasting technologies to the automobile industries. The Implementation Team is working on personalization of TV, emergency broadcast applications and the establishment of environment for conformance test on ATSC 3.0.
- They also introduced various educational programs for field engineers to grasp the contents of the ATSC 3.0 specifications.
- Besides, they reported the frequency repacking program to introduce the ATSC 3.0 into operation.
DVB:
- They reported the progress in the DVB group regarding the introduction of new technologies such as target advertisement, in-house IP distribution, Low Latency Dash, Multicast ARB (Adaptive Bit Rate), HDR, etc.
- They added that a study group was launched to study the next generation broadcasting, considering the possibility of using the 5G technologies as a means to realize UHD (Ultra High Definition) TV broadcasting.
ARIB:
- ARIB reported the latest status of BS 4K/8K broadcasting services, on-going R&D schedules on the terrestrial 4K/8K broadcasting, etc.
- ARIB also reported that they have made revisions on the standards and specifications in relation to studio equipment and systems as well as content distribution network.
Latest Activities of Research Organizations
NHK of Japan reported their pilot project of 8K terrestrial digital TV broadcasting performed in Nagoya and Tokyo.
ETRI of Korea reported a seamless connection of broadcasting and internet transmission, taking advantage of the ATSC 3.0 features, and also reported their latest efforts in 8K terrestrial digital TV broadcasting.
TV Globo of Brazil presented their introduction of HDR and Immersive Audio as a part of their development toward the next generation TV service; They also reported their latest development of DTVPlay for the IBB service.
5G Broadcasting
Rohde & Schwarz of Germany reported their trial 5G broadcasting in Germany. The general specifications are reported as follows;
- Frequency ¦ 750 — 758MHz
- Bandwidth ¦ 5MHz
- Locations of transmission ¦ at Wendelstein and Ismaning, with 64km distance in-between
- Transmission output power ¦ 5kW (Wendelstein), 7kW (Ismaning)
NERC DTV of China reported their latest status on the 5G broadcasting in China.
FoBTV confirmed that they would continue their efforts in its study of 5G broadcasting from the viewpoint of the entire body.
Next Meeting
The next meeting was scheduled to be held at the occasion of IBC in Amsterdam in September, 2019.
Management Committee
The Management Committee (MC) elected new Chairman and Vice Chairman;
- Chairman ¦ Dr. Rich Chernock, former CSO of Treveni Digital, USA
- Vice Chairman ¦ Dr. Wei Li (CRC, Canada)
