This week, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) embarks on three forward-looking endeavors in the following areas: terrestrial broadcast delivery of 3DTV, next-generation television broadcasting systems, and Internet-connected TV technologies. As described in their press release earlier this year:

• 3DTV Planning Team (PT-1) will analyze and report on the likely benefits and limitations of a standard for terrestrial broadcast delivery of 3D TV
• The Next-Generation Broadcast Television Team (PT-2) will explore potential technologies to be used to define a future terrestrial broadcast digital television standard
• The Internet Enhanced Television Team (PT-3) will consider the opportunities brought about by Internet-connected broadcast receivers

The purpose of this work will be to generate recommendations to the ATSC for the possible development of future standards or enhancements to current standards.

The start of the first and third of these Planning Teams is very timely (maybe behind the times), considering that products are already being deployed to provide both 3D and Internet functionality on home TVs. But this functionality is not already integrated into the ATSC part of the receivers — i.e., there is currently no standard way to broadcast a 3D signal over an ATSC transmission. Likewise, while TV widgets are functional on a number of TV display products, there is no standard for how they (and other Internet functions) can be transmitted over the ATSC airspace. So, this work should produce backwards-compatible solutions to enjoying 3D and Internet functionality in a way that is provisioned by broadcasters.

On the other hand, broadcast TV is evolving, and a growing number of TV viewers are shedding terrestrial reception in favor of other media. And while ATSC provides "hooks" for more-efficient compression systems like MPEG-4/AVC, such a transmission is only forwards-compatible with legacy devices, i.e., while the enhanced transmission will not "break" an existing ATSC receiver, content transmitted over-the-air using AVC, for example, can’t be enjoyed on one, either. This brings about what could be the most controversial of the three Planning Teams, the Next-Generation Broadcast Television Team, which is charged with the "exploration of potential technologies to be used to define a new/future terrestrial broadcast digital television standard that is not constrained by a requirement to be backwards compatible with ATSC or ATSC 2.0 devices."

With the FCC—and now the White House, too—pushing for an overhaul of the existing over-the-air (OTA) transmission space, with the goal of increasing competition and providing more broadband access to more people, it’s becoming ever more apparent that the "old" way of delivering content to viewers will evolve in the next 5-10 years. Nicholas Negroponte (of the MIT Media Lab) years ago opined that the most efficient use of the broadcast space was to support mobile receivers, not fixed ones, and this transition may figure into the world envisioned for next generation broadcast. (If you wonder how "lifeline" free TV could continue to be supported under that scenario, consider that the FCC wants to explore the viability of a mechanism whereby consumers would be eligible for a "lifeline" video service from cable and satellite operators, consisting of all OTA television signals in their market.)

Broadcast equipment manufacturers are also exploring the feasibility of a full-channel mobile transmission system. Although motivated by owners of 700 MHz spectrum, that are not encumbered by FCC requirements for a free OTA video program, the "full-channel" work paves the way to a world where all OTA broadcasting is to mobile devices only.

So, a mobile-only OTA world may be closer than you think. As the Firesign Theater said it, "The future is here, the future is now…welcome to the future."