One company is a specialist in service quality monitoring, program guide and metadata management, and data broadcasting systems for broadcasters. The other company is well-known for its broadcast media technology empowering radio and TV stations to get on the air and to consumers.
Both have been selected to help usher in the ATSC 3.0 era at a division of Griffin Media.
Griffin’s Oklahoma Community Television is working with GatesAir and Triveni Digital in a project that Griffin says “establishes a cost-efficient networking model for low-power transmission sites through a convergence of RF and IP technology.”
As such, privately held Griffin Media says, “The successful proof-of-concept offers a basis to develop future means for a translator transition to ATSC 3.0.”
Developed by OCT General Manager Jack Mills, the networking innovation brings the SRT protocol directly into a RF infrastructure featuring GatesAir transmitters though interoperability with advanced signaling technology from Triveni Digital.
Commonly deployed in live production scenarios, SRT ensures secure and reliable transport of video and audio content with low latency, with built-in protections to maintain performance across unpredictable IP networks. Broadcasters often deploy SRT over managed fiber connections to maintain broadcast-quality standards.
For very distant locations lacking fiber connections, the expense of running lines is often cost-prohibitive. This was the challenge for at least one OCT translator. Mills was inspired to engineer a solution.
Following a thorough testing phase, Mills successfully deployed ATSC 3.0 services to two new GatesAir Maxiva UAXTE-100 translators installed in August. The first stage carries the NextGen TV broadcasts of five Oklahoma City network affiliates over a 90-mile distance. The five-station feed originates from Nexstar-owned KAUT-TV’s ATSC 3.0 Lighthouse site to OCT’s translator site in Strong City, Okla., leveraging the SRT transport over existing fiber and IP connections. The SRT signal is processed through equipment from DTV Innovations and transmitted locally through the UAXTE-100 on Channel 29.
The much greater challenge was preparing those same services for a second translator site in Elk City, Okla., with no existing microwave, fiber or wired connectivity. Mills favored an off-air RF hop direct from the Strong City site, which required a solution to regenerate ATSC 3.0 signals for broadcast over a different RF channel.
The ATSC 3.0 Translator receives and regenerates the signal, applies a unique DRM signature for legal broadcast rights management and hands it off to the GatesAir translator in Elk City, which delivers the ATSC 3.0 feed at 120 W.
“The United States has a very large installed base of approximately 5,000 LPTV and translators operating today,” said Mills, who is also President of the National Television Association (NTA). “The recent interest in mandating ATSC 3.0 will force many broadcasters to make decisions with their translators: find an affordable way for translators to transmit in ATSC 3.0, or eventually go dark. In addition to the transmission, translator operators use microwave systems, some form of IP, fiber, and OTA over mountainous terrain and very long distances to reach their translator sites. Our approach proves that affordable IP solutions and OTA can reliably feed ATSC 3.0 signals.”
Mills added that the new Triveni ATSC 3.0 Translator integrates seamlessly with his existing filters, antennas and lines, requiring no changes or additional investments in the RF infrastructure. He is actively exploring the deployment of auxiliary ATSC 3.0-ready services over the same two hops, including a Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) implementation for accuracy and timing.
— With reporting by Brian Galante
