Datacasting: Unlocking the Full Potential of Broadcast
Some of the best advances in telecommunications have been born as a side effect of networks built for other purposes. Perhaps the most brilliant example from the past is text messaging. In 1984, engineers developed a way to use existing telephone signaling paths to transmit short text messages, which would evolve into the Short Messaging [...]
Using RadioDNS to Power Hybrid Radio
A previous PILOT blog highlighted the introduction of hybrid (over-the-air plus internet) radio receivers in Audi and BMW vehicles in the United States. Both automakers are using technology defined in open technical standards developed by RadioDNS to obtain metadata from broadcasters to enhance the radio listening experience. This blog post includes information on what broadcasters [...]
Experimenting with Conversational AI Bots Using MindMeld
Many conversational artificial intelligence (AI) bots have been successfully deployed, and they are becoming quite common. Nearly everyone today has used or at least heard of Google Assistant, Alexa or Siri, for example. There are also many other conversational AI bots that can be configured to perform a certain type of task. MindMeld is one [...]
Next Gen TV Workflow Converges Broadcast and Online Teams
Next Gen TV (or ATSC 3) was designed to be flexible, extensible and future-proof with a plethora of new capabilities, including 4K, HDR and immersive audio. But what is exciting to me is the middleware environment, since ATSC 3 was developed from the ground up as a hybrid standard with a middleware environment based on [...]
Next Gen TV at the 2020 BEIT Conference
The 2020 NAB Broadcast Engineering and Information Technology (BEIT) Conference covered many topics, but none more comprehensively than ATSC 3.0, or Next Generation TV. Of course, the physical conference did not take place as planned for April in Las Vegas due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but BEIT Express, an online virtual version of the [...]
FCC Report on the 2019 Nationwide EAS Test – By the Numbers
On May 12, 2020, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a report on the 2019 Emergency Alert System (EAS) nationwide test. On August 7, 2019, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in coordination with the FCC, conducted a nationwide test of the EAS using only the broadcast-based distribution system, commonly known as the “daisy chain.” The purpose of [...]