The world’s first end-to-end 4K broadcast using the next-generation ATSC 3.0 standard has been successfully undertaken by a broadcast technology consortium in South Korea.
The group comprises LG Electronics, Korean broadcasters SBS and MBC, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) of Korea, conditional access firm DigiCAP of Korea, broadcast equipment supplier TeamCast of France, and US video software supplier Media Excel.
“The success of this trial highlights the potential for Korea’s launch of terrestrial UHD TV commercial services using ATSC 3.0 in February 2017. And the fact that Korean companies are playing such an important role in ATSC 3.0 provides a good opportunity for Korean equipment manufacturers to advance in the US market,” said Young-Soo Park, technical director, SBS.
ATSC 3.0 is the world’s first Internet Protocol (IP) based broadcast system, combining broadcasting and broadband for the first time. It is currently under development as a global standard by the Advanced Television Systems Committee, with most of the standard’s 20 elements now classed as ‘candidate standard’, one of the final steps in the process.
The test broadcast featured a live camera feed with real-time IP transmissions from the SBS network studio in Mokdong to the broadcaster’s Gwanak Mountain transmitter. The IP signals transmitted over the air on Channel 53 were then received using a simple antenna and decoded by a 4K Ultra HDTV ATSC 3.0 receiver developed by LG Electronics.
Signals in the Korean broadcast were delivered with next-generation IP technologies based on the Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) streaming media format and Real-Time Object Delivery Over Unidirectional Transport (ROUTE) IP delivery protocol.
K Y Kwak, executive vice president, Advanced Standard Research & Development Lab, LG said: “SBS and MBC plan to work with LG and ETRI to take full advantage of new capabilities of ATSC 3.0, such as the combination of broadcast and broadband signals. “We will continue to develop technologies to help commercialize ATSC 3.0 as the next great advance in terrestrial broadcasting”.