Technical Overview of ATSC 3.0 – Next‐Generation Terrestrial Broadcasting

In a Single Frequency Network (SFN) for Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) terrestrial digital television (DTV) system, the interferences induced by the multiple transmitters and/or repeaters using same frequency are unavoidable. To ease the interference handing in the SFN for ATSC DTV system, transmitter identification (TxID) signal is recommended in the ATSC terrestrial DTV system. The TxID signal is embedded in the ATSC DTV signal and transmitted from each transmitter and repeater within the SFN and in ATSC recommended practice (RP) A/111, Kasami sequence is recommended as the TxID signal. In this paper, we propose an additional data transmission scheme using the TxID signal. In the proposed scheme, the Kasami sequence not only acts as the conventional TxID of the SFN for ATSC terrestrial DTV system but also carriers the additional data bits on its polarity and the code phase.

This report summarizes work currently underway in ATSC, the Broadcast Standards Association, relating to technical standards for ATSC 3.0. ATSC is an international, non-profit organization developing voluntary standards and recommended practices for broadcast television and multimedia data distribution. ATSC member organizations represent the broadcast, professional equipment, motion picture, consumer electronics, computer, cable, satellite, and semiconductor industries. ATSC also develops implementation strategies and supports educational activities on ATSC standards. ATSC was formed in 1983 by the member organizations of the Joint Committee on Inter-society Coordination (JCIC): the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the Internet & Television Association (NCTA), and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE). This year, ATSC observes its 41st year of operation.

ATSC 3.0 is the Next Gen TV broadcast emission system defined by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) encompassing the entire terrestrial broadcast system from the physical layer to the applications and presentation layer. This paper offers an overview of the important advancements in the ATSC 3.0 Standard, which is designed to inspire today’s content creators, business leaders, and consumers.

.MNO/3D HDTV & OPQ2RS TATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) [2] UVW1AXYZ[ Q2\R]>^_R`V. ATSC [2]aSbATSC [1]XY3cd3QR], U>e QfghiOj ,TOV (Threshold of Visibility)O klf g^>L[R`V. mQn A, fg om ^_R`V.AbstractIn this paper, we propose a frame structure for modified ATSC transmission systems which is used for a terrestrial 3D HDTV broadcasting. The modified ATSC transmission systems [2] see the potential of increasing a transmission capacity at reasonable TOV (Threshold of Visibility) by modifying channel codes of conventional ATSC systems and varying modulations. We use PN symbols (Pseudorandom Noise) in a guard interval which is used for avoiding the ISI (Inter Symbol Interference) to estimate and compensate the time-varying multi path channel effectively with a maximum transmission payload. With PN symbols in the guard interval, a CIR (Channel Impulse Response) in a time domain can be estimated and a compensation in a frequency domain can be achieved for the accurate channel estimation and compensation. The prosed frame structure is applied to the modified ATSC systems and computer simulations are performed for SER (Symbol Error Rate) performances in TU (Typical Urban)-6 Channel.Keyword: Terrestial 3D HDTV broadcasting, Modified ATSC system, Frame structure™šMN 

New digital television standards are emerging to meet the demand for new services from TV broadcasters, as well as to support new high-resolution audio and video formats available on the market. In Brazil, the Brazilian Digital TV System (SBTVD) Forum defines the standard to be adopted. Among the currently available physical layer technologies, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 standard offers great flexibility in operating modes, depending on the broadcasters’ requirements and propagation conditions, for both fixed and mobile reception. This allows the system to be configured to balance robustness and transmission efficiency. This paper presents the performance test results in various mobile reception scenarios in the city of Rio de Janeiro, using an ATSC 3.0 signal with a transmission rate of 32.3 Mbps in a <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2\times 2$</tex-math> </inline-formula> Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) configuration. The results showed a reception success rate of 53.6%, with an increase in reception errors for Carrier-to-Noise Ratio (C/N) lower than 26 dB. Furthermore, reception errors were detected with greater intensity when the received signal level was below -70 dBm. Although the overall success rate was around 50%, the complementary metrics (C/N threshold, RSSI, and PLP0 error behavior) were consistent with theoretical expectations, demonstrating that ATSC 3.0 performs effectively under real urban mobility conditions at high spectral efficiency. ATSC 3.0 thus proved effective in broadcast transmission, meeting the needs for ultra-high-definition (UHD) audio and video broadcasting.

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is introducing a new broadcast signal (ATSC 3.0), also called NextGen TV, that utilizes technology that can offer better-quality audio and video, a more user-focused experience including rich-format graphics, and location-based services. These technological advancements have great utility for improving the way weather warnings and other alerts are consumed by the public. To best utilize this opportunity, social scientists must work alongside broadcast professionals to assure that warning and alert information is displayed in a way that is user centric, targeted, and informative, while excluding extraneous information. This article outlines the importance of bringing together an interdisciplinary team from the academic, private, and government sectors to accomplish this goal. The team draws on literature on cognitive psychology, user interaction, and visual communication to show how the organization and presentation of risk information in a noisy environment can facilitate or impede effective decision-making. Preliminary analyses of current weather warning and information displays have shown variability between local and national networks. Future work using eye-tracking experiments and focus groups will be used to observe human interactions with various existing and proposed warning information displays is described. This research is the first step in designing effective warning systems that consider human behavior in addition to technology to utilize the full potential of NextGen TV.

Single frequency network (SFN) enables efficient use of spectrum by allocating the same frequency among multiple transmitters. In order to efficiently design and manage the SFN, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 physical layer standard has adopted transmitter identification (TxID) technology which allows to measure the individual and/or whole network channel response, such as power and time delay of the broadcast signal from transmitters. Since TxID is embedded into the host ATSC 3.0 frame as radio frequency (RF) watermark, it is transparent to legacy ATSC 3.0 receivers and only a specially designed TxID analyzer is able to detect it. This paper presents new TxID detection methods that improve the detection performance of ATSC 3.0 TxID signal by resolving the problems and limitation of the conventional TxID detection method. The superiorities of the proposed detection methods are verified through computer simulation, laboratory test, and field trial.

In South Korea, Broadcast companies have begun a trial 3D broadcasting service by delivering dual streams, such as a left view sequence with MPEG-2 video and a right one with MPEG-4 AVC video, within the 19.4 Mbps terrestrial bandwidth. However, this limitation of transmission bandwidth in the terrestrial broadcasting system may cause quality degradation compared to the current 2D broadcasting service. Recently, the Advanced Television System Committee (ATSC) has released a new service model called non-real-time (NRT) technology, which provides file download functionality over a terrestrial broadcasting system. And electronic manufactures have developed smart TV which enables to receive RF channel and IP protocol. In order to operate a full quality 3D service, this paper proposes an NRT-based hybrid broadcasting system in which one of two view sequences is transmitted as a real-time broadcasting program, and the other is transmitted prior to a real-time broadcasting program and is stored as a file. This system uses a method of referential relation and synchronization between MPEG-2 transport stream (TS) and the file downloaded by ATSC NRT or IP. Therefore, the proposed hybrid broadcasting system can provide stable, high quality 3D content while maintaining a backward compatibility with the current 2D broadcasting system, despite the terrestrial bandwidth limitation.

The discussion of mobile multimedia broadcasting technologies and service implementation in this chapter is limited to the broadcasting network based scheme can be received by portable or hand-held devices with a small screen. Similar to DTTB systems, digital mobile multimedia broadcasting systems are designed for high-data-throughput (to support multiple low-data-rate services) transmission through wireless channels (VHF/UHF bands in terrestrial, S- or L-band for satellite networks). The chapter summarizes the features of DVB-H, Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC)-M/H, China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB), and the new released DVB Next Generation Broadcasting System to Handheld (NGH) standards with the focus on the technical merits of reliable transmission under wireless, mobile environment and the robust reception using the portable or hand-held devices. ATSC-Mobile/Handheld (ATSC-M/H) is the standard for the DTV mobile transmission developed by the ATSC in 2007. The ATSC-M/H system shares the same RF channel of the traditional ATSC broadcast services.

&lt;p&gt;Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0, the new generation digital terrestrial television standard, has been designed for facing the new challenges of the future broadcasting systems. ATSC 3.0 has been built using the most recent cutting-edge technologies. Layered division multiplexing (LDM) is one of the major components of the new system baseline. LDM provides a tool to make flexible use of the spectrum for delivering simultaneous services to stationary and mobile services. This paper presents the performance evaluation of ATSC 3.0 core services in mobile scenarios using LDM. Simulation results are presented to analyze the influence of different LDM ensemble configuration modes for mobile reception. The simulation results have been also confirmed by laboratory tests under different channel models. The signal to noise ratio threshold values confirm the excellent behavior of ATSC 3.0 and LDM in mobile and portable scenarios.&lt;/p&gt;

This paper describes the architecture, functionality, and design of HDVO-a high definition video co-processor from Philips Semiconductors. The coprocessor design is modular and functionally complete, and is intended to be a part of and function as the primary picture/video composition hardware in any media-processor chip targeted at Digital Television (DTV) applications. Essentially a screen-refresh engine, HDVO can mix multiple video and graphics planes and is capable of scaling vertically and horizontally pictures of the highest resolution (1920/spl times/1080) specified in the DTV standard prescribed by the United States Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). HDVO can efficiently process all (eighteen) ATSC video formats, including video generation for picture-in-picture display, and is currently being wed as an on-chip video coprocessor in the TM-2700 digital television chip. TM-8700 is the second generation of an architectural family of programmable multimedia processors from Philips Semiconductors and it not only supports all ATSC formats, from standard-definition to wide-angle high-definition video, but has also the power to handle High-Definition Television (HDTV) video and audio source decoding (high-level MPEG-2, AC-3 and ProLogic audio, closed captioning, etc.) as well as the flexibility to process advanced interactive services.

Wireless backhaul and inter-tower communications networks were previously proposed as key enabling technologies for the next generation digital broadcasting systems, e.g. the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 system. Due to the backward compatibility constraint, conventional symmetrical multi-input multi-output (MIMO) techniques cannot be applied directly in the existing broadcast infrastructure. In this paper, we propose a non-symmetrical approach to integrate MIMO in wireless backhaul and inter-tower communications networks. The proposed schemes maintain the existing broadcast infrastructure, while only adding a low-power RF feeding cable and one or more highly directional antennas to achieve low-cost MIMO implementation for high throughput data distribution and inter-tower networking for the next generation broadcasting systems. The advantages of the proposed system are low deployment cost and full backward compatibility with the ATSC 3.0 broadcast services.

The broadcast networks in reality may suffer from unexpected network failures, which attribute to the pilot signal overlap between the desired signal and the co-channel interference (CCI) from untrusted adjacent transmitters. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of a transmitter carrier offset (TCO) technique to resolve the pilot contamination problem in Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 systems. Based on professional exciters and commercial receivers that fully comply with ATSC 3.0 standards, laboratory experiments are conducted to verify the TCO gain in several service scenarios. The experiments specifically address a single CCI-source case, and the presented results show that the ATSC 3.0 TCO effectively alleviates the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) requirement penalty due to the unfortunate signal overlapping.

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The physical layer [layer-1 (L1)] signaling (L1 signaling) of Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 is studied. In the new digital broadcasting system, ATSC 3.0, L1 signaling is designed to be more efficient but still robust compared with preceding standards such as DVB-T2. We introduce the error protection scheme of ATSC 3.0 in detail. Especially advanced methods newly employed in ATSC 3.0 are investigated with regard to its purpose and benefit in comparison to conventional DVB-T2.