Another CES has come and gone with its usual fill of dazzling tech, good dining, and blistered feet. And while I’m sure there was a 500″ 5G-connected 16k smart OLED TV with AI-imbued visual enhancements and a deep learning content recommendation engine, ATSC 3.0 was notably absent from the show floor. This isn’t too much of a surprise as the standard was completed just a year ago and it takes a bit of time for products to arrive and broadcasters (and their vendors) to gear up. While no products were on the show floor there was still plenty of activity going on in the background. As in previous years, Sinclair had its ATSC 3.0 test broadcast running from Black Mountain. CES 2020 will no doubt be an exciting show for 3.0.
In the meantime, the annual pilgrimage to M&M’s World trip to CES in Las Vegas provided an excuse to peruse the ATSC 3.0 airwaves and capture some bitstreams. I’d been working with 3.0 from a specification standpoint for much of 2018 with an eye to retrofitting Project Entangle. And with an Airwavz TV RedZone Receiver in hand it was time to start tearing into real broadcasts.
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