BOULDER, Colo.—The Public Media Venture Group (PMVG), Korea Radio Promotion Association (RAPA), and WCTE (Cookeville, Tenn.) have announced the successful launch of an ATSC 3.0 demonstration site at W35DZ-D, a low-power television station owned by PMVG.
The new testbed, located on WCTE’s Monterey, Tenn., transmitter site, will showcase the potential of ATSC 3.0 technology for public media.
PMVG, RAPA, and WCTE anticipate that the station will begin providing a full ATSC 3.0 service to the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee and Kentucky this fall.
“We are excited about the new capabilities ATSC 3.0 can bring. As a public station in rural Tennessee, we see 3.0’s potential to better serve our community by enabling us to add more services and distribution channels,” said WCTE Station Manager Craig Lefevre. “The testbed will not only benefit the Upper Cumberland region, but also inspire the broader industry to explore the possibilities of 3.0.”
The testbed was built with the help of DigiCAP, a leading ATSC 3.0 solutions provider based in Seoul, South Korea. It will serve as a platform for developing and demonstrating various ATSC 3.0 applications and use cases, such as enhanced emergency alerting, interactive education, and datacasting.
In early August, a delegation of Korean engineers and technology suppliers visited WCTE to set up and test the new station. The delegation included representatives from RAPA, ETRI, DS Broadcast, and DigiCAP.
Welcomed by WCTE leadership and technical staff, who were actively involved in the testing process, the delegation met with local decision makers and business leaders, as well as two members of the Tennessee Legislature, the companies and groups said.
The delegation also visited Putnam County’s Emergency Management Center and toured WCTE’s mountaintop transmitter site.
While on-site in Monterey, the RAPA delegation installed and tested an ATSC 3.0 system configuration comprising a media encoder, air-chain and modulator, and conducted a successful low power test of the system configuration.
“As a platform for NextGen testing and development, this demonstration site will show how public media can continue to lead in delivering cutting-edge content and services,” explained Marc Hand, founder and CEO of PMVG. “We look forward to working with WCTE and RAPA to experiment with the ATSC 3.0 features that can benefit all public stations and their communities.”
“DigiCAP is proud to be part of this significant initiative that will showcase the capabilities of NextGen TV, from enhanced emergency alerting to targeted education services,” added Joonyoung Park, senior vice president of DigiCAP. “The launch of the testbed exemplifies the power of international collaboration and demonstrates how technology leaders and innovative broadcasters can come together to drive the future of broadcasting.”
