BALTIMORE— Sinclair Broadcast Group’s ATSC 3.0 efforts have been shortlisted for an IBC Innovation Award, the broadcaster said. Sinclair subsidiary ONE Media, along with TeamCast and Sinclair jointly submitted an entry for the IBC award in the content distribution category.
The entry highlighted the “next-generation” broadcast platform project as conducted by ONE Media and Sinclair Broadcast Group. This project reconsiders the traditional way of deploying and operating a terrestrial broadcasting Nnetwork. One major difference is the implementation of a “standard agnostic” transmitting technology as implemented by TeamCast.
Beyond conceptual definition, development and laboratory experimentation, SBG says it has validated the concept with over-the-air testing. This ATSC 3.0 Single Frequency Network Baltimore experiment, which started in March 2016, turned into an inaugural deployment during the second quarter of 2017, with the addition of a third transmitter, allowing SBG to refine the field experiment and create the rich media experience desired for the nationwide deployment to come.
The rest of the IBC2017 Innovation Awards shortlist is here. The winners will be announced during the IBC2017 Awards Ceremony, at 18:30 on Sunday, Sept. 17, in the Amsterdam’s RAI Auditorium.
Mark Aitken, vice president of Advanced Technology for Sinclair Broadcast Group, said: ”Sinclair has long advocated evolving Terrestrial Broadcast to an all IP data network. Working with TeamCast and ONE Media, we have taken a significant step forward in defining an architecture that enables Terrestrial Broadcast to fulfill its promise. Being identified by IBC for this advancement is an honor, and I am proud of our team and the hard work they have accomplished to make this happen.”
Kevin Gage, executive vice president of Strategic Development and chief technology officer of ONE Media, said: “It has been a pleasure working with the TeamCast and Sinclair teams to realize our vision of a modern broadcast broadband distribution architecture. The new architecture will enable terrestrial broadcasters the flexibility to provide new service capabilities in addition to their core television service to meet rapidly changing market dynamics. We are honored that IBC recognizes the value of this work to serve terrestrial broadcasters’ future needs.”
And... Eric Pinson, business unit manager at TeamCast: “We are very proud and honored of being shortlisted for the prestigious IBC Innovation Award alongside SBG and ONE Media. This highlights a growing interest for this very new innovative and non-traditional way of designing, deploying and operating a Terrestrial DTV infrastructure. One of the key challenges for TeamCast designers has been to implement the centralized network architecture concept, as required for this project, onto a turned-key and ready-to-deploy solution.”
