Many of the coming ATSC 3.0 station launches in the U.S. will extend signals into rural and tribal areas where broadcast signal translators — signal repeaters — will be needed. While the need to extend signals to these areas is great, the low audience density means that the rollout must be economical. And, as public television becomes more active in ATSC 3.0 station launces, the need for a cost-effective solution will grow rapidly.
The engineers at DigiCAP came up with an innovative answer that grows out of their recent work with SpectraRep on their EduCast distance learning service.
During the pandemic, the EduCast solution was the most successful distance learning solution using broadcast TV signals for delivering educational materials to students in areas where broadband Internet was unavailable. EduCast was successfully deployed in 13 states and 3 cities mostly in partnership with public television stations. For this program, DigiCAP created HomeCaster, a rebroadcast device that received over the air ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 broadcast signals and rebroadcast the education content to students over home wi-fi. Tens of thousands of these devices were deployed, mostly though public television station partnerships.
DigiCAP has adapted this rebroadcasting technology to create a ATSC 3.0 translator to help rebroadcast ATSC3.0 television signals to rural areas. It has partnered with Heartland Video Systems, to deliver their ATSC 3.0 translators to U.S. broadcasters.
Joonyoung Park, SVP of DigiCAP, is thrilled. “We believe that this low-cost translator will help public television stations relay their ATSC 3.0 signals just as they currently extend coverage of their ATSC 1.0 signals to rural areas.”
DigiCAP’s ATSC 3.0 new translator is based on single-board computer architecture, which is reliable, has low power consumption, and can be managed remotely. Most importantly, it is based on ATSC 3.0 technology that has been deployed tens of thousands of times.
DigiCAP will show the ATSC 3.0 translator at NAB 2023 in Las Vegas at the Korean NextGen TV Alliance, booth #W4126 West Hall, Future’s Park.
