Broadcast stations in 16 more markets are lighting up their ATSC 3.0 signals this summer, bringing the total to 47 metro areas. About 150 stations are involved, with many of them transmitting multiple channels in the NextGen TV standard. 

Since May, NextGen stations have popped up in Atlanta; Baltimore; Charlotte, North Carolina; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Hartford-New Haven, Connecticut; Houston; Indianapolis; Kansas City; St. Louis; Little Rock, Arkansas; Orlando and West Palm Beach, Florida; and Sacramento, California. 

In Phoenix, where the “model market” launch has been underway for more than a year, Single Frequency Network (SFN) transmissions started in July. 

Following a year of pandemic-induced virtual development, the NextGen TV community will plunge into a new round of personal meetings in coming months. Among the issues confronting them are operations and competitive digital services. 

Supporters hope that many of the concerns will be addressed and resolved during the Advanced Systems Committee’s 2021 NextGen Broadcast conference, a live annual event in Washington, D.C., Aug. 25-26.   

Sinclair Broadcasting Group, part of the Pearl TV broadcaster consortium that also includes Nexstar Media Group, plans to show its first mock-up of a network operations center for 3.0, with an eye toward bringing stations together to operation effectively as a distribution network, Mark Aitken, vice president of advance technology at Sinclair and president of its ONE Media subsidiary, said. 

Also on the conference calendar agenda is the Consumer Electronics Design and Installation Association’s CEDIA Expo in Indianapolis on Sept. 1-3, where NextGen TV hopes to make inroads – prior to its next pitch to the CE industry at the Consumer Technology Association's CES 2022 in Las Vegas in January. 

Looking further into the future, by the time of the NAB Show convention Las Vegas in October, Sinclair plans to show off SFN capabilities and also mobile applications on “true consumer phones.” Aitken said that Sinclair’s chip subsidiary Saankhya Labs has made a deal with one of the handset makers (which he declined to identify) that supplies devices to Verizon. 

Another landmark in the ATSC 3.0 rollout will be the launch of a special NextGen TV showcase in the nation's capital in September. It will focus on the coordination of signals from two sticks: WHUT-TV, the public-TV channel, is handling several of the signals and the new WIAV-CD (a Class A station that Sinclair acquired late last year) will transmit channels. Program details and promotional plans (including political focus) are still being developed. 

Comcast is using this week’s CEDIA show in Dallas to  debut a rack-mounted X1 box that is tailored for home theater installers.

“The new, sleek box delivers all of the features of the X1 platform, but in a device designed to fit easily into standard home theater racks,” Neal Roberts, senior manager, special operations at Comcast, said in this blog post.

Curious to know what it looks like? We are too, and have requested Comcast to pass along some pics of the new device. 

Update: A photo of the rack-mounted X1 device has been added to this story. 

As part of its efforts to make X1 “the centerpiece of any home theater system,” the MSO is also demonstrating two new features for the new boxes that are expected to launch early next year:

-IP Control: Comcast said it will make it easier for home theater users and installers to seamlessly operate X1 over both standard and customized universal remote controls.

-Dolby Atmos Integration: Comcast noted that Atmos “delivers rich, detailed and clear sound that can be precisely placed and moved anywhere in three-dimensional space, including overhead.” Comcast said it’s poised to become the first MVPD to offer this next-gen sound experience.

Roberts said all three home theater-facing developments come out of the MSO’s Custom Xfinity Integration (CXI) program, which was created in 2012 to serve the custom home integrator community.

The program “also serves as a clearinghouse and central contact point for home integration companies to access tools and support that was previously not available to them,” he explained. “This allows the integrators to set up and adjust Comcast Services and ensures a smooth installation experience on the behalf of our joint customer.” 

TiVo took aim at the high-end A/V market with last year's launch of the TiVo Mega, a rack-mounted device that sports 24 terabytes of storage (but doesn't seem to appear on the TiVo web site). 

TiVo is using this week’s CEDIA Expo in Dallas to introduce the TiVo Bridge, billing it as the first TiVo-branded multi-room networking adapter.

The new device is equipped with MoCA 2.0, the latest generation of Multimedia over Coax Alliance technology. The Alliance announced earlier this week that recent field tests of the speedier 2.0 version of the home networking platform achieved net data rates of 400 Mbps or more in 90% of all coaxial outlets, and net throughputs of at least 350 Mbps in 95% of paths.

At the show, TiVo will show off the Bolt, its new retail-focused DVR that’s capable of delivering 4K and includes a new SkipMode feature that lets users skip past commercial breaks on a select group of channels, including the Big Four broadcasters.