What They Say
Chip maker Mediatek said that it has worked with Pearl TV, which has been developing the ATSC 3.0 Nextgen technology, to include technology to support the specification in the Mediatek Reference Platform. The Reference Platform will be pre-certified for compliance with the Consumer Technology Association’s (CTA) Nextgen TV logo requirements, A3SA Security and the RUN3TV Application platform.
“We are very glad to work with Pearl TV as a total Nextgen TV solution provider with a complete Reference Platform for high-volume TV manufacturers, including TV System on Chip (SoC), ATSC3 demodulators and software stack. MediaTek has been providing TV SoC solutions to 90% of all TV brands, and this pre-certified fast track program will help to expedite our support to customers with scale,”
said Alfred Chan, VP, TV Business Unit in the Smart Home Group at MediaTek.
What We Think
Well, of course, last week in my article about ATSC 3.0, I said that I thought that TV brands would not want to add the cost of ATSC 3.0 unless more consumers wanted it, but clearly Pearl TV was aware of this and has made sure that potential NRE costs for set makers are taken care of by its deal with Mediatek. That’s a good move.
Separately, heading for NAB, Evoca said that it has developed a test system to transmit content using the cross polarisation functionality of ATSC 3.0. That could almost double the bandwidth of a single channel, although it would need new transmitters, receivers and aerials. That’s quite a barrier to adoption, but a doubling of bandwidth for terrestrial broadcast is a potentially big win. The group said that it could enable 8K, but it did occur to me that it could also be used to deliver content using dual layer codecs with enhancement layers, with a base layer that could go over traditional broadcast streams, and with the enhancement layer going over the second broadcast channel, 5G or other internet provision. (BR)
