The Next 100 Years of Innovation via Collaboration Continues at NAB Show

By Pickle April 3, 2025

Join us in Las Vegas from April 5 to 9 to collaborate on the future.

By Sam Matheny

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has a long history of innovation. We celebrated NAB’s 100th anniversary at the 2023 NAB Show in Las Vegas. In the first 100 years, NAB played a pivotal role in developing, promoting, and expanding the use of innovative technologies that inform, entertain, and engage audiences around the world. And that work continues today, as we are well underway with the next 100 years.

In the fall of 2023, NAB was honoured by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with the presentation of the Philo T. Farnsworth Corporate Achievement Award and the Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Award. I had the privilege of accepting that award along with members of our technology team.

In my remarks that evening, I noted that through the development and implementation of new tools, techniques and standards, we’ve been able to use the same 6 Megahertz (MHz) channel to evolve from black and white with mono audio to colour with stereo, to high definition with 5.1 surround sound, and to ultra-high definition with object-oriented audio.

We are indeed doing so much more with that same scarce spectrum resource through continued innovation and investment in technology.

For example, last year we were delighted to partner with Intel to bring live 8K coverage of select events from the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris to the NAB Technology Lab in Washington, D.C. The 2023 NAB Show germinated the seed for that idea. It is only fitting to say that it all started in Futures Park, a special exhibition area that features emerging technologies that are not yet commercially available.

Ravindra Velhal of Intel was exhibiting on behalf of the 8K Association in Futures Park, and we struck up a conversation about the possibility of doing something from Paris that would move the industry forward. We proceeded to collaborate and, with Ravi’s leadership, were able to deliver a “glass-to-glass” 8K Ultra High-Definition experience.

By “glass-to-glass”, I mean that the images were initially captured by native 8K cameras and delivered and displayed on a native 8K television set with no upscaling.

The 8K video format was 7680 x 4320, 10-bit HDR at 60 frames per second, resulting in a raw bit rate of approximately 48 Gb/s. In Paris, Intel used Versatile Video Coding (VVC) to shrink the live raw feeds by about 1000:1. This made it possible to send a 20–60 Mb/s livestream over the internet. In NAB’s lab, the live stream was compressed and decoded on a PC with an Intel® CoreTM i9 processor. It was then shown on a regular 8K TV.

One of only two locations in the United States to offer this experience. The collaboration was successful, and we were able to share this effort with policy makers and technologists from organisations such as NASA and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). They were delighted with the results and the ability to witness the future of television firsthand.

Moving into 2025 and taking a related step, in February NAB filed a petition with the FCC seeking a full transition to ATSC 3.0. There are already over 400 programme channels being broadcast from 100 transmitters in 80 markets in the U.S. These transmissions are available to approximately 77% of all television households in the U.S.

That sounds great, but it’s only possible because broadcasters have agreed to share channels, which limits what they can do with the new standard. They are still required to offer their services in ATSC 1.0.

A full transition to ATSC 3.0 will mean each broadcaster no longer has to share their channel and can make full use of their spectrum to deliver advanced services that will better serve their communities.

This includes options like 8K Ultra HD broadcasts, broadcasting to mobile phones, interactive apps that combine broadcast and broadband, and advanced broadcast data services like the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS TM) that can add a new level of security to the economy and the country.

In 2021 Pamela Kumar, Director General of Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI), gave the keynote address at NAB’s Broadcast Engineering and IT (BEIT) Conference as part of NAB Show. She spoke passionately about globally harmonised standards as an objective and about global collaboration and consensus building as the mechanisms.

Since then, TSDSI has recommended ATSC 3.0 for use in India to broadcast directly to mobile devices. Additionally, there has been strong collaboration between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Saankhya Labs on software-defined radios and building mobile handsets equipped with ATSC 3.0.

This collaboration, both on foundational standards and commercial applications, will yield success in India, the U.S., and other nations, like Brazil and South Korea, which are also deploying ATSC 3.0.

This year, Futures Park will once again be in the West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Centre, and we are delighted to have exhibitors from around the globe participating, including the 8K Association (W3492), the Ultra HD Forum (W4051), the Korea Radio Promotion Association (W3957), the University of Oregon Reality Lab (W3946), and several others.

NAB will also be demonstrating BPS in our PILOT booth (W4042). And the opening session of our BEIT Conference on Saturday morning will feature a live 4K Ultra HD conversation with astronauts on NASA’s International Space Station and a panel about the future of delivering large-scale live events like the moon landing.

I invite you to attend the NAB Show, Futures Park, and the BEIT Conference, not just for a visit, but also to collaborate.