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On Friday, October 25, the PILOT NextGen TV fellows from Howard University, the University of Missouri, and the University of Minnesota gathered at NAB Headquarters for the official in-person program kickoff event. Special thanks to AWS for its continued support and sponsorship of the PILOT NextGen TV Fellowship.

On September 9-11, 2024, we hosted a group of decision-makers and innovators who are shaping the future of the broadcast industry for a series of in-depth discussions and presentations dedicated to AI. NAB Futures: AI provided a unique opportunity to share ideas and experiences with other broadcasters charting a course to the future of broadcasting. Part inspiration, part innovation, part implementation - NAB Futures: AI focused on the potential of AI in broadcasting.  

In our last update on the Broadcast Positioning System, we detailed the progress we made in the spring, installing and testing BPS at WHUT in Washington, D.C. Frome June through August, a season known for taking time off, the BPS team had their own twist on summer vacation.

Sam Matheny had the great opportunity to attend the NIST Time and Frequency Seminar in Boulder, Colo. in August.  This was a tremendous gathering of subject matter experts, and Sam considered it a “mini master's degree" in the basics of time delivery and synchronization techniques.

NAB collaborated with Intel to bring a demonstration of glass-to-glass 8K content originating from the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris to the PILOT Innovation Lab at NAB’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

NBC is offering advanced audio and video formats, including HDR, in select markets.  In Washington, D.C., HDR (in the form of Dolby Vision) and advanced immersive audio (in the form of Dolby Atmos) were added to the NBC O&O station WRC on the ATSC 3.0 lighthouse hosted by WHUT just days before the Olympics Opening Ceremonies.

In the Broadcast Olympics, Brazil takes the Gold Medal with ATSC 3.0’s Physical Layer The “About” section of the ATSC home page describes ATSC as “an international (emphasis added), non-profit organization developing voluntary standards for [...]

As previously covered, the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) uses ATSC 3.0 to deliver a complementary position, navigation and timing (PNT) solution to augment GPS. Following lab testing in 2023, BPS was deployed on a live broadcast station in the Washington, D.C., market. Having BPS on the air allows for comprehensive validation and testing, and the NAB Technology team is proud to report on some of the initial test results.

While many people are focused on man-made threats to GPS such as acute spoofers and jammers, or even Russian space nukes, the sun can be a formidable adversary to reliable timing too.  And U.S. critical infrastructure such as the power grid, cellular telecommunications, and financial data centers all rely on GPS for their timing and reliable operations.

Xperi Inc. won the NAB Technology Innovation Award at the 2024 NAB Show for their demonstration of “in-vehicle gaming features for DTS AutoStageTM” being exhibited at the Xperi booth (W3532) in the West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The award was presented at the NAB PILOT Futures Park press conference on Monday April 15.