ATSC 3.0 ‘Generally on Track’ To Pick Winning Audio System by Mid-August, Chief Says
Though ATSC President Mark Richer “can't name a specific date for the work of a subcommittee, the process to select audio technology for use in ATSC 3.0 is making great progress and is generally on track," he emailed us Friday.…
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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" chaired by Madeleine Noland, an LG Electronics consultant. Dolby Labs CEO Kevin Yeaman on a Wednesday earnings call generally sidestepped questions about Dolby’s fate in the ATSC 3.0 audio selection process, though he said "we’ve been highly engaged in that process.” Dolby’s AC-4 technology is one of the proposals that the S34-2 ad hoc group is considering for adoption, along with a second proposal from the MPEG-H audio alliance of Fraunhofer, Qualcomm and Technicolor. A third proponent, DTS, dropped out of the running days before the NAB Show opened in mid-April (see 1504130030). “We have a fantastic solution that both increases efficiency and also opens up possibilities for new and enhanced audio experiences,” Yeaman said of Dolby AC-4. “We feel good about where we are at this stage in the game,” though “we’re still ways off from any broad implementation,” he said. Pressed in Q&A on when ATSC might pick an audio winner for ATSC 3.0, Yeaman said: “I don’t think we have a firm date from them.”