“Myriad” ATSC 3.0 demos, sessions and technical papers will prevail at next week’s NAB Show, said ATSC Monday. Activities will include a “Ride the Road to ATSC 3.0" stage exhibit in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s North Hall featuring more than 20 free sessions on 3.0 deployments and future potential, it said. ATSC, CTA and NAB will be the exhibit’s lead sponsors, it said. NAB, with support from a number of technology companies, also will use the show to demo 3.0's single-frequency-network capabilities, it said. The SFN demos will show how reception “can be improved in difficult locations and in moving vehicles by deploying multiple broadcast towers transmitting the broadcast signal on the same channel,” it said. Four low-power transmitters will be deployed in the LVCC, and special 3.0 SFN “viewing kiosks” are planned for the LVCC lobby and the NAB Pilot exhibit in North Hall exhibit, plus at the Ride the Road stage at N2512, also in North Hall, it said. A guide to 3.0 activities and exhibits at the show is available for download, and will be distributed at a 3.0 information booth in LVCC’s Central Lobby, it said.

One Media got extension of FCC permission to broadcast in ATSC 3.0 on a Washington, D.C., translator station through Sept. 30, said Office of Engineering and Technology materials for special temporary authority. ATSC 3.0 can be broadcast only through STAs and experimental licenses because the Media Bureau hasn’t created a form for broadcasters to transition to the new standard (see 1902260046).

Eurofins Digital Testing will showcase a new conformance test suite for ATSC 3.0 at NAB, it said Wednesday. Arreios for ATSC 3.0 enables certification and testing for UHD, HDR, video over broadcast and broadband, interactive applications, targeted advertising, emergency alerts, content recovery and watermarking, it said. The company will exhibit at Futures Park in North Hall booth N1335 in the Las Vegas Convention Center and in Westgate Director C, it said.

The Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance will demo at next month's NAB Show a new user experience and uses for AWARN emergency alerts using the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard, alliance Executive Director John Lawson told FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and an aide. To improve over prototypes, Lawson told Pai the group met public safety officials from cities including New York and did usability testing, recounted a filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. It said 3.0 could be used for connected vehicles, and there are "potential synergies between AWARN and Wireless Emergency Alerts." The standard could be used for "localized emergency alerts for streaming media," said the alliance. An alert mock-up Lawson emailed us shows a black box taking up the middle third of a TV screen, with warning text and a button on the bottom to get "more info" and another to "dismiss" the message. He told us changes from earlier versions include "a simple banner in the middle of the screen vs filling the whole page" and viewers have two choices instead of more options. AWARN could put legacy emergency alert system warning screen crawls in the top third of a TV screen and the lower third is for “'Breaking News' graphics," Lawson added. "Clicking 'more information' leads to multimedia graphics like evacuation routes and shelter locations."

MPEG LA is making “substantial progress” toward launching a patent pool for ATSC 3.0, and hopes soon “to be in a position to make an announcement” on its debut of a one-stop license, emailed spokesperson Tom O’Reilly Monday. “Each pool has its own unique set of factors affecting time to market," he said. "Reaching agreement among patent holders to offer a license of wide benefit to the market takes time. ATSC 3.0 is being tested in select markets now, and we expect the license to be available well before it becomes widely deployed.” MPEG LA hoped to have a 3.0 pool operational by early 2019 with the participation of more than a dozen licensors, O’Reilly told us in November (see 1811270013). MPEG LA's August 2017 call for 3.0-essential patents was the beginning of the process to create a one-stop-license pool.

The FCC should increase flexibility of kidvid rules, move quickly to let stations transmit ATSC 3.0, discard AM radio subcaps and grant needed extensions in the repacking, said California Broadcasters Association representatives in meetings Feb. 27 with Commissioner Mike O’Rielly and aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks, said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 18-349. “Although the repack appears to be moving forward smoothly in California, so far, broadcasters remain very concerned as the transition ‘crunch’ approaches." Attendees were from Univision San Jose and other TV stations and Diane Sutter of Shooting Star Productions, and they “lauded” the agency for actions on pirate radio.

The FCC added versions of its TV rescanning guide webpage in some new languages, the agency tweeted Wednesday. The information is now available in Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Tagalog and Vietnamese. The agency’s previous rescanning guide was also available in those languages, and the FCC is now providing those translations again for the recently updated page (see 1812040059), a spokesperson said Thursday.

The FCC will vote an order on FM translator interference this spring, Chairman Ajit Pai said in a speech Friday to the Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers (see 1810090042). The Media Bureau is drafting the order now, Pai said. A new license management system form to let TV stations apply to begin broadcasting in ATSC 3.0 is expected to be completed in Q2, Pai said. The bureau also is working on a supplementary 3.0 order on local simulcasting, and an order addressing concerns raised in reconsideration petitions on the new standard, Pai said. Pai also discussed the post-incentive auction repacking (see 1902220062).

The enhanced emergency information available through ATSC 3.0 will help viewers be better informed in disasters such as California’s wildfires, said News Press Gazette General Manager Mark Danielson for the FCC's podcast. News-Press & Gazette owns KEYT-TV Santa Barbara, an ATSC 3.0 test bed. “That combination of broadcast and the broadband technology together will allow our users to see all of our different live feeds,” Danielson told host Evan Swarztrauber, aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr. ATSC 3.0 will allow emergency alerts to be targeted to specific areas and give first responders and viewers enhanced information during incidents, Danielson said. “During the Thomas Fire we had five, six live feeds up simultaneously,” Danielson said. “Viewers will have access to that if they have a specific need.” For broadcasters covering disasters, Danielson recommended a strong relationship with the surrounding community, a plan for handling emergency breaking news, and keeping staff familiar with back-up methods of gathering live content such as through microwave technology or satellite trucks.

Wipro partnered with startup Airwavz.tv to design and sell ATSC 3.0 TV receivers and antennas for North American MVPDs, OEMs, smart TV makers and chip companies, it said Friday. It incorporates 1.0 and 3.0 delivery systems with easy porting, and supports HTML5, Android, iOS and native apps, with Wipro’s MPEG Dash and HbbTV components for multiscreen delivery, it said. It uses the Airwavz RedZone receiver dongle, a hybrid 1.0 and 3.0 DTV front-end tuner-demodulator that plugs into a PC or other over-the-top device via USB. Enabler features are said to include broadband services, security, watermarking, file download, 4K, immersive audio, 3D TV, media players and TTML closed captions; primary features include live TV, electronic guides and parental controls.