Sinclair Launches DC-Area ATSC 3.0 Emergency Info Pilot
A pilot project using ATSC 3.0 to disseminate advanced emergency information was launched in Washington, D.C., and Virginia’s Arlington and Fairfax counties by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and One Media 3.0. The program will provide “free, over-the-air redundancy”…
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to emergency messaging currently sent by local governments via text, email, and social media, said a news release Tuesday. One Media’s parent company, Sinclair Broadcast, will also provide “rich” supplementary information to those messages using newsrooms at its local TV stations. The pilot program will initially use the facilities WIAV-CD Washington, D.C., and then migrate to ABC affiliate station WJLA-TV Washington, D.C, which has broader reach, the release said. “Rather than simple text crawls across a TV screen that a tornado is approaching, for example, NextGen Broadcast powers a much more robust signal that can render real time doppler radar, weather images, evacuation routes, shelter locations, flood maps -- and do it in multiple languages,” the release said. The pilot is an outgrowth of an Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN) Alliance roundtable event in D.C. in December (see 2212080044, the release said. “Anyone in the WIAV viewing area who has a NextGen TV set or a NextGen set-top converter box should be able to receive the emergency messages from WIAV,” the release said. The program will eventually incorporate other devices and jurisdictions, the companies said.