ATSC President Mark Richer remains “cautiously optimistic” the A/341 ATSC 3.0 video document “will go out to ballot” in December for elevation to the status of a proposed standard, “but it’s possible it could be delayed until January,” he emailed us Monday through a spokesman. Technology Group 3, the body within ATSC that’s supervising the framing of ATSC 3.0, made “a great deal of progress” on high dynamic range for the next-generation broadcast standard, Richer told us the week before Thanksgiving (see 1611170058). But the impasse inside TG3 over HDR for ATSC 3.0 has three times delayed the ballot on A/341, most recently when TG3 again extended the candidate standard period on the document for two months to Jan. 30. Under ATSC rules, extending A/341's candidate standard period again was a procedural move “necessary to ensure the document does not revert back to a Working Draft if for some reason the Proposed Standard ballot is not issued” before the Jan. 30 deadline, Richer said. He wouldn't comment whether TG3 has decided on an HDR solution for ATSC 3.0 among the six technology proposals vying for selection (see 1605200031).

CTA is in “the planning phase” for field-testing ATSC 3.0 reception at the experimental facilities owned by WJW Cleveland, Brian Markwalter, CTA's senior vice president-research and standards, emailed us Sunday. “That’s all we can say at this point,” Markwalter said. “CTA is not involved in any other field testing.” An LG, Zenith and GatesAir ex parte filing last week in FCC docket 16-142 (see 1611250030) said CTA and NAB were planning ATSC 3.0 field-testing in “Cleveland, and perhaps elsewhere as well.”

Cleveland field tests done in June found that ATSC 3.0 delivers “significantly improved mobile reception capability” over the existing ATSC 1.0 DTV standard, LG, Zenith and GatesAir told the FCC in a Wednesday ex parte notice in docket 16-142. The test results are “pertinent” to the petition for rulemaking asking the FCC to authorize voluntary use of ATSC 3.0's physical layer (see 1604130065), and were submitted at the request of Martin Doczkat, chief of the Technical Analysis Branch in the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology, the filing said. That “highly reliable in-vehicle mobile reception was achieved” in the tests using tens of thousands of ATSC 3.0 “data points” bodes well for the “current and future” automotive industry, including autonomous cars, LG, Zenith and GatesAir told the commission. The tests originating from “experimental facilities” owned by WJW Cleveland generated “clean” reception to a mobile van more than 80 percent of the time in ATSC 3.0's “most rugged mode,” the companies said. Reception, as "anticipated," was “poor” when testing ATSC 3.0 in a moving vehicle in the less robust “stationary” mode, they said. They also said “because challenging routes were chosen, results should not be considered as statistical over the entire service area.” Their goal in the field tests was to “challenge the system,” they said.

Technology Group 3, the body within ATSC that’s supervising the framing of ATSC 3.0, made “a great deal of progress” in meetings in New York this week on high dynamic range for the next-generation broadcast standard, ATSC President Mark Richer emailed us Thursday through a spokesman. “We now expect A/341 to go out to ballot for Proposed Standard sometime in December,” Richer said of the ATSC 3.0 video document, which has been stuck in candidate standard mode for months as various ATSC committees tried to hash out consensus on HDR. TG3 twice has delayed picking a winning HDR technology for ATSC 3.0. After the latest two-month delay in September (see 1609290074), the candidate standard period on A/341 is now due to expire Nov. 30.

WJW-TV, Tribune Media's local Fox affiliate in Cleveland, planned Wednesday to run the first live ATSC 3.0 broadcast of a major professional sporting event, beaming Game 2 of the World Series between the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs from Cleveland's Progressive Field, said NAB and several technology partners in the experiment, including LG Electronics and GatesAir, in a Wednesday announcement. WJW has played host to ATSC 3.0 field trials in Cleveland since last year (see 1507130007). LG had two prototype receivers in Cleveland to receive the ATSC 3.0 World Series broadcast as a simulcast of the Fox network HD feed, spokesman John Taylor told us Wednesday. LG planned to have a 65-inch OLED TV at Progressive Field and a 55-inch set at WJW headquarters to showcase the ATSC 3.0 broadcast, he said. Both TVs have real ATSC 3.0 reception chips built into the sets, he said. LG in the field trials used the Futurecast modulation system to demo over-the-air reception last year to stationary TV receivers and terrestrial antennas mounted inside a conference room at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum on Cleveland's lakefront. The World Series broadcast is a "defining moment" for the future of television, said ATSC Chairman Richard Friedel in a statement. Friedel is executive vice president-general manager, Fox Networks Engineering and Operations.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology requested copies of One Media reports on single frequency network tests in Washington and Baltimore using ATSC 3.0, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 16-142 Monday from One Media Executive Vice President-Legal Affairs Jerald Fritz. The tests are intended to “establish signal strength in an environment where content is transmitted over the same channel in the same geographical area,” the filing said. Initial testing showed clean signals were received without interference, One Media said. The tests are the first phase of “multiple planned measurement tests,” said the joint venture of Coherent Logix and Sinclair.

Public TV station KVIE Sacramento kicked off a month-long experiment in datacasting Thursday by using it to deliver simulated emergency earthquake warnings during the Great California Shakeout earthquake preparedness drill, said a news release from America’s Public Television Stations. Datacasting is “the process of delivering internet protocol (IP) data over a traditional digital public broadcast television signal, including instantaneous alerts, combined with evacuation maps and even live video,” APTS said. The test is being monitored by the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, the FCC and the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, the release said. The next phase of the datacasting test “will measure the speed and coverage of alerts digitally encoded into KVIE’s high power television transmission,” said KVIE Director of Technology Mike Cappi. “Warnings used to be a matter of seconds or minutes, but when there are natural disasters like earthquakes, saving a fraction of a second in delivering a warning can make a huge difference,” Cappi said. “This work is part of public broadcasting’s larger public service mission, including the APTS strategic partnership with DHS, to promote the use of public safety datacasting as an effective component to alert and protect the American people,” said APTS CEO Patrick Butler.

Broadcaster adoption of ATSC 3.0 would raise “numerous complicated technical and practical issues for cable operators” (see 1605270054), NCTA said in a meeting Thursday with FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp, according to an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. An NPRM on ATSC 3.0 should seek comment on minimizing the costs of the transition for cable operators and their customers, NCTA said. “Cable operators should not be required to carry any ATSC 3.0 signal during this transition," and the FCC in any NPRM "should ensure that those broadcasters that opt to transmit an ATSC 3.0 signal continue to provide a good quality ATSC 1.0 signal to the cable headend,” NCTA said. The FCC, not individual broadcasters, should determine when the ATSC 3.0 transition period ends, NCTA said. NAB didn't comment right away Tuesday.

With South Korea having adopted the ATSC 3.0 broadcast TV standard earlier this year, the U.S. needs "to get moving, too," FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai told the Kansas Association of Broadcasters Convention Monday, hoping for an ATSC 3.0 NPRM to be issued before year's end. In remarks posted, Pai said the FCC's goal should be adoption of rules authorizing ATSC 3.0 use in the first half of 2017. "This shouldn't be controversial; all we are talking about is giving broadcasters the option of using ATSC 3.0," Pai said. "No one would be required to do so." On radio issues, the Media Bureau has received 957 FM translator applications from AM radio stations, and granted 854, Pai said. He said he plans to press for two other application windows for AM broadcasters applying to the FCC for new FM translators to open "as soon as possible in 2017." Some have raised concerns about possible interference (see 1609230067). Pai said the agency "should take action" early next year on some AM revitalization issues that enjoy broad consensus, such as relaxing the main studio rule. Pai also said he hopes the FCC will lift the public file requirement on broadcasters by year's end. And he criticized the agency's retention of the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule: "It was all about politics. And I fear that at the rate we are going, the ... cross-ownership rule will outlive newspapers themselves, absent judicial intervention."

As ATSC enters Q4, and with the progress being made on ATSC 3.0, “I feel like we’re entering the fourth quarter of an exciting college rivalry football game,” ATSC President Mark Richer said Wednesday in a football-laced commentary in the October issue of The Standard, ATSC’s monthly newsletter. With ATSC members having just approved three more standards in the suite that will make up the ATSC 3.0 system, ATSC “is in the red-zone, about ready to score its final winning touchdown,” said Richer. “After three hard-fought quarters, marked by lots of blocking and tackling and some huge plays, victory is imminent. Team ATSC is on track to bring the world’s first Internet Protocol-based television broadcast standard across the goal line.” Richer’s commentary didn't mention the latest delay in elevating ATSC 3.0's A/341 video document to the status of proposed standard because framers haven’t chosen a winning high-dynamic-range system. Nevertheless, “with the fourth quarter upon us, broadcasters, manufacturers and especially consumers are expected to win big with Next Gen TV,” said Richer in his commentary. “Winning in the end will take more than a couple of field goals, but I don’t think it will take any Hail Mary passes either.”