Pearl ‘Super-Excited’ With Sony Collaboration on ATSC 3.0 Program Guide for Phoenix Test Bed

The navigation tool, “built with ATSC 3.0 technology,” will be a new type of onscreen guide with program information from broadcasters and MVPDs, said Pearl. It will bring “a state-of-the-art experience to the viewer with interactivity, personalization and voice command support,” and will be the first “fully compliant implementation of an ATSC 3.0 interactive environment,” it said.

The FCC granted Sony special temporary authority Friday to demo 3.0 services and “full protocol stack operation including the physical layer” at CES, records show. “ATSC 3.0 emissions as defined in ATSC A/321 and A/322 standards will be used to transfer IP packets between a transmitter and receiver within a suite at the Wynn Hotel,” said Sony’s application, submitted by Luke Fay, senior manager-technology standards. Fay chaired ATSC’s S31 specialist group that wrote 3.0’s physical layer standard (see 1404080061). The Wynn demos, which will use a DekTec modulator for 3.0 transmissions, are designed to “prove ATSC 3.0 viability and service options at the 2018 CES show,” said the application.

Next-generation TV “will greatly expand consumer choices as ATSC 3.0 can be used to deliver pristine Ultra HDTV with expansive audio and also bring together broadcast and broadband sources," said Sony Electronics President Mike Fasulo in a statement. “This work will lead to better viewer experiences for consumers as well as provide a great resource for the industry.”

Sony's 3.0 collaboration with Pearl is "quite a big deal if you look at future capability," Fasulo told us Friday. "We're collaborating on delivery, we're collaborating on the user experience and capabilities, et cetera, which is why we're doing the test in Phoenix together. It gives a lot of value to all involved and ultimately the consumer, but also the broadcaster as well."

The Sony electronic program guide that will be tested in Phoenix already "expands upon the typical EPG," said Fasulo. "It provides for interactive abilities to various streams of content and information, whether it's over-the-air broadcasts or internet broadband." For consumers, "it gives various options beyond the content offered by broadcasters," including emergency alerting and the "capability to deliver more critical content quickly," he said. The navigation tool isn't just "concept, because we're already demonstrating it, but it's not market-ready, because it's still in technology beta," he said. The test bed is an opportunity to get real "users involved," he said.

Sony is collaborating "so deeply" with Pearl because of "the value of the experience," said Fasulo. "We're not going to compromise what Sony is known for. Quality means everything to us." Fasulo is "hopeful" broadcasters will use 3.0 to "embrace" content delivery with the Ultra HD quality that the new standard enables, he said. "It has to show value to the broadcasters for them to want to use it." Fasulo personally sees "great value" in an Ultra HD broadcast experience through 3.0, "and I would see why they would want to," he said.

Pearl has been “working and talking to the major manufacturers, the OEMs, that are involved in the ATSC 3.0 standardization process, and Sony is one,” Managing Director Anne Schelle told us Friday. “We are talking with all of them about working with us in Phoenix. We see Phoenix as a really important test bed for 3.0 services.” It will test “implementations and capabilities, but also more importantly, understanding from the consumer’s perspective what the value propositions are and how consumers react to the services that are different than what we’re offering today on 1.0,” she said.

The navigation tool will show consumers “the concept of a modernized user experience,” said Schelle. It’s “similar to how consumers are viewing content” in an over-the-top “environment,” but they can “now do that with their live, linear television services,” she said.

The collaboration with Sony is “very far along,” said Schelle. Though Pearl announced the model market only in November, “we’ve been working on the Phoenix project since the summer,” she said. “Our implementation team has been working with them.” The Wynn demos “will allow us to test out some of the features and functionalities -- the interactive aspects, the personalization aspects, voice command, other things -- that we can do on this new platform that we think will be interesting to consumers,” she said. Schelle emphasized Sony will be “one of many manufacturers that we work with in the market” and “other manufacturers have different types of implementations that they’re looking at and we’re working on.”

The test bed will expose consumers in Phoenix to 3.0's features and capabilities through panels and focus groups, said Schelle. “It will be similar to how you test any beta product,” she said. “We’ve tested and enacted services with Sony in the past in Phoenix. You typically do those through panels with a research firm. We deploy the sets in homes in a controlled environment, and then you get feedback from those consumers.”

Schelle views 2018 as “really an implementation phase” for 3.0, she said. With the suite of standards virtually complete, “it’s a complex implementation from transmission all the way down to the receiver side,” she said. “There’s lots of features and functionalities and opportunities to innovate. Our goal in Phoenix is to find what I call the basic television service that we start with and then over time you start to add features and functions with consumers.”

There’s “all kinds of things that we can do on this platform,” said Schelle of 3.0. “What we’re trying to boil that down to is what to start with in Phoenix. I think there's a lot of work that’s going to occur in 2018 with our manufacturing partners.” Going into 2019 “is when you’re going to start to see more of the deployment phase of 3.0 -- go-to-market strategies -- and that would involve the retailers,” as a prelude to “full-scale consumer market launches” beginning in 2020, she said.

Tuesday’s 11 a.m. milestone ceremony in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s Grand Lobby will mark completion of standards that same day, said ATSC’s advisory. “Release of ATSC 3.0 will be the culmination of a five-year effort to re-think broadcast television in the Internet age,” it said.