Current Distinguished Lecturers

The use of spectrum and its management have been a hot discussion topic since the beginning of radiocommunications. Frequencies are a scarce resource. For decades, engineers have looked for new ways to make a better use of ways of available bandwidth. This means delivering as much content, to as much users as possible, while ensuring as higher quality of service as possible. At this point, where commercial systems operate close to the limit described by Claude Shannon, the demand for more spectrum is even higher than ever. The broadcast industry is right on the middle of the discussion, as its natural operating bands VHF and UHF have raised extraordinary interest for broadband mobile radio access networks. 
The talk will provide the audience a description of current and expected use of the most popular bands used by terrestrial systems. I will speak about spectrum allocation procedures, including spectrum management models, global and regional regulations and how translate into country legislation.
Each band has its own technical advantages and disadvantages, and propagation conditions, as well as required antennas impose specific restrictions to the use of each band. The advantages of each band will be discussed in view of the current allocations to broadband mobile (5G) and terrestrial broadcasting. In both cases, I will cover traditional and new bands, potential future extensions, network planning and propagation implications, receiver performance, antenna restrictions, noise, etc. The talk will finish with a compilation and analysis of the views on spectrum currently published in Europe.
The talk will be a tutorial session and the audience is expected to be have basic propagation, network architecture (cellular, DTV) and video coding skills (BsC students on their final year, MsC students and PhDs).

This talk will review the standards and technologies evolved during the last decade for broadcasting, with the emphasis put on the standards of the DVB family. A tutorial of the newest terrestrial standard will also be part of the talk, namely the DVB-T2.  The technical content will be covered in relation to the current international spectrum limitation changes (ITU-R and other regional activities) will be also addressed. The seminar will also provide also a description of the current standardization activities in other regions, providing a short update on standards in Asia and the Americas.

Cloud Transmission System is a flexible multi-layer system that uses spectrum overlay technology to deliver simultaneously multiple program streams with different characteristics and robustness for different services (mobile TV, HDTV and UHDTV) in one RF channel. In this system, the transmitted signal is formed by superimposing a number of independent signals at desired power levels, to form a multi-layered signal. The signals of different layers can have different characteristics, i.e., different coding, bit rate, and robustness. For the top layer, however, such characteristics are chosen to provide a very robust transmission that can be used for mobile broadcasting service to handheld devices. The bit rate is traded for more powerful error correction coding and robustness such that the receiving Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) threshold is a negative value, e.g., in the range of -2 to -3 dB. The negative SNR value indicates that the system can withstand combined noise, co-channel interference and multipath distortion powers that are higher than the desired signal power. Such a low threshold makes the top layer highly robust against co-channel interferences, multipath distortion and Doppler effects. The system is already part of the ATSC 3.0 standard, it is aligned with the COFDM and LDPC techniques used by DVB-T2 and it is one of the key technologies being currently analyzed within the Physical Layer Technical Group of the Future of Broadcast Television (FOBTV). This talk will describe the basics of the system, the building blocks and design basics as well as the performance of LDM under different conditions.

This presentation is all about transport technology, it notably deals with: electrical/optical layers, Packet based multiplexing, MPEG tables and descriptors, system layers for DVB and ATSC, Implementation issues, clocking, handling of metadata, syntax monitoring and translation, conflicts prevention.

A complete review of how ATSC 3.0 physical layer works aimed at the non-scientist clientele; this paper will review the basic concepts used in ATSC 3.0 (OFDM, advanced signaling, LDM, etc.) and apply them to a typical ATSC 3.0 transmission system. An extensive use of analogies makes this scientifically sound paper, accessible to managers and engineers of most levels.

This presentation is aimed at outlining the different technological options available to bring HD contents back to a broadcast center from anywhere on the globe, the topics covered are: DVB-S & SVB-S2, real-time or non-real-time transmission, video coding (MPEG-2, H.264 upcoming MPEG-H), system integration and system issues, IP or direct MPEG TS layer ?, FTP issues, unicast or multicast, back channel, real life SNG operation and logistical constrains.

This paper is about the issues and opportunities that IP over satellite raises: IP layer, is a DVB TS is really required?, Encapsulation, unicast, multicast transmission, TCP windowing issues, protocol acceleration, system integration.

As well-intentioned as regulators and regulations might be, unforeseen negative consequences can develop over time as the letter and spirit of rules drift apart or are taken over by events and progress. One obvious example is loudness, arguably one of the most commonly presented audio topics, perhaps overly so. When the sole arbiter of regulatory compliance is a simple loudness meter, it is a simple process to make the meter happy. While this may satisfy the letter of the regulations, it can all too easily result in a lower quality experience for consumers and may put broadcasters at a disadvantage compared to other services. Like gravy without the occasional lump, the excitement of variance is gone. The trick is to preserve the good variance and manage the not so good variance.
  
 
  
The guidelines for delivering quality television sound boil down to one rule we should all post on our walls: don’t upset the viewer! This is where it all begins and ends. No complaints=happy regulator=happy broadcaster. This applies to loudness as well as dialog intelligibility, and a consistent soundfield. The challenge then is to manage the cost of this satisfaction versus preservation of content. Standards, practices and practical methods to make it work will be reviewed as well as suggestions for an instant improvement that can be implemented by broadcasters at no cost

Mobile devices are a very popular target for both over the air (OTA) and over the top (OTT) video programming. Devices are generally quite small and include mobile phones, tablets, laptops and related devices. The dynamic range “comfort zone” used for mixing television audio for viewing on stereo or surround in-the-home televisions is far too wide for comfortable listening on typical “earbuds” or worse, the tiny speakers found in mobile devices.Dialogue intelligibility is a serious issue for these less-than-ideal transducers. Physical and electrical limitations impact audio quality and can reduce intelligibility. Further, the environments where mobile television would typically be used have a relatively high background noise loudness floor – if the volume is simply increased for acceptable intelligibility on soft passages, loud passages run the risk of outstripping device capabilities or worse, potentially causing uncomfortably loud audio.The goal is to deliver to the viewer the most satisfying experience appropriate for widely varying individual listening environments. Research has shown that attempts to improve mobile audio by simply employing traditional broadcast audio processing systems actually make things worse.This presentation includes a brief review of the most recent work done by the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), a discussion of the physical and electrical constraints inherent in typical mobile devices and an overview of the psychoacoustic aspects of listening in less-than-ideal environments. It then analyzes various approaches to managing audio intended for mobile viewing starting with an overview of how codecs that support metadata can provide the highest quality, lowest complexity answer for content producers and consumers. The importance of appropriate program delivery specifications is highlighted. Several real-world examples will also be described and recommendations for broadcasters and device manufacturers will be offered.

In January 2018, the new ATSC 3.0 standard was officially released and it offers broadcasters a major leap forward in features and performance. It is built on an IP backbone which provides many advantages including direct support of streaming services, and offers exceptionally robust modulation for reception while stationary or in high speed motion. Video is delivered via efficient HEVC and supports 4K UHD, High Dynamic Range (HDR), and a wider color gamut. The audio system chosen for use in North America, including Canada and Mexico, is Dolby AC-4 and South Korea has specified MPEG-H.

This presentation provides a background that is common for both Dolby AC-4 and MPEG-H and goes into deeper detail on the specifics of AC-4 which offers immersive and personalized audio, dialog enhancement, intelligent loudness, and of course, more efficient compression. Examples are presented to demonstrate how AC-4 is both compatible with existing operations and offers some built-in improvements that can help broadcasters from the start. Details of new advances in efficiency will be revealed, as well as a demystification of the differences between object based immersive and channel based immersive audio. Applications beyond ATSC 3.0 will be presented, including how OTT services can improve and expand the features offered to consumers without the need to expand the library of versions for each title.

Finally, this presentation will cover distribution and interchange requirements for live and file based programming, including audio over IP formats such as AES 67 and new mezzanine audio and metadata transport methodologies for supporting advanced immersive and personalized operations.

Light field is used to define how light rays transmit through the free space and several lenses and finally integrate into an image. Traditional cameras record a 2D projection of the light rays integration, which loses a lot of information, especially with respect to each light ray’s angular direction. Light field cameras are designed to resolve the light rays integration and capture the directional information, which is useful in many applications. This talk will focus on recent progress in light field imaging and its applications.

Data analytics becomes a research focus on intelligent transportation systems (ITS), which can be seen in many projects around the world. Intelligent transportation systems will generate a large amount of data. These data will have deep impacts on the application of smart cities and transportation systems, which makes the transportation system safer, more efficient, and greater user satisfaction. Various sensors are used to achieve these tasks. The sensors can broadly classify into two categories, i.e. roadside sensors and in-vehicle devices. Based on the individual sensor and the combination of roadside sensors and in-vehicle devices, we will discuss the technologies used for various new applications.

Rain removal is important for improving the robustness of outdoor vision-based systems. Current rain removal methods show limitations either for complex dynamic scenes shot from fast-moving cameras or under torrential rainfall with opaque occlusions. In this talk, we cover a novel de-rain algorithm which applies superpixel (SP) segmentation to decompose the scene into depth consistent units. Alignment of scene contents is done at the SP level, which proves to be robust towards rain occlusion and fast camera motion.

The dramatic increase in man-made radio frequency (RF) fields in the environment during the last few decades has led to public health concerns in many parts of the world.  Specifically, questions have been raised on the safety of exposure to RF energy emitted from radar, television and radio communication systems, microwave ovens, video display terminals, and most recently, mobile telephones and base stations, Wi-Fi, and LTE. Wireless power transmission is a newer subject. The IEEE EMF database now has more than 6000 original, peer-reviewed papers useful for public health risk assessment of RF exposure.   The first topic will be on research to summarize recent epidemiological, human, animal and in vitro studies. Reviews of independent expert panels and health authorities will be discussed.  The difference between possible biological effects and established health effects will be explained. To protect human health and to make measurements of RF emitting devices, exposure and assessment standards have been developed by International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the IEEE International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety.  Current regulatory status in the world will be presented. Variations of exposure limits adopted by different countries reflect the political nature of this issue. The final topic on risk communication is extremely important, and will cover the findings with respect to the perceptions and attitudes of people, who are trusted sources of information and why, and the influence of culture and other factors on risk communications and precautionary advice. The role of consistency and the need for harmonization of RF safety standards as important elements for minimizing confusion in public concern will be emphasized.

International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection and IEEE International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety (ICES) TC95 develop exposure guidelines and standards. International Electrotechnical Commission and IEEE ICES TC34 develop assessment standards.   IEEE standards are developed with oversight of the IEEE Standards Association to ensure due process openness, balance of interests and transparency at every level.  The ICES develops standards for the safe use of electromagnetic energy in the range of 0 Hz to 300 GHz. Technical Committee (TC) 95 develops standards based on established adverse effects and include safety margins for human exposure to electric, magnetic and electromagnetic fields, including induced currents from such fields; TC34 deals with methods for the assessment of human exposure to such fields, and develops compliance standards for products that emit electromagnetic energy. The IEEE C95.1 standards development process is further governed by principles of balance of concerns over safe exposure and attainment of levels of restrictiveness that are based on the best available science and engineering. The subcommittee that developed IEEE C95.1-2005 had an extremely wide range of participation by 125 members from 25 countries with expertise in engineering, biology, medicine, measurements, and safety programs. In terms of stakeholders, the committee consists of members of the government, military, academia, industry, and general public. In this presentation, activities of the two ICES Technical Committees will be discussed

For 45 years, I have been involved in various bioelectromagnetics research projects including acute and long-term radiofrequency (RF) bioeffects studies, dosimetry, exposure systems, MRI safety, cancer studies involving hyperthermia and electrochemical treatment, development of RF exposure and measurement standards, and product compliance. My first study demonstrated that effects on isolated nerve and muscle preparations were due to thermal effects of RF exposure. The recording of cochlear microphonics in animals shows the mechanical nature of the microwave auditory effect. In 1992, we published the results of a large-scale lifetime study in which 100 rats were sham-exposed and 100 rats were exposed for 21 h/day for 25 months to a pulsed RF signal. In dosimetry studies, human models were employed as well as many animal species including mice, rats, rabbits, monkeys, and birds of many sizes. Cancer hyperthermia studies demonstrated that knowledge of temperature distribution was crucial for successful treatment. Research on electrochemical treatment of tumors with direct current involved cellular, animal, and clinical studies. Over the past few decades, there has been rather extensive investigation of the public health impact of RF exposure. In my opinion, future research in bioelectromagnetics should place greater emphasis on medical applications.

Safety concerns over radiofrequency (RF) exposures have been around for many decades. Recently 5G technology for wireless communication has cause a new concern over its safety. This technology provides much faster data transmission than 4G. The frequency spectrum of 5G is divided into millimeter waves, mid-band and low-band. For higher frequency transmission, the reach is short, so more cells are required, which are called small cells. Millimeter waves also have difficulty traversing many walls and windows, so indoor coverage is limited. A beam forming technology is used to facilitate communication. The concerns are over the more antennas installed in the vicinity and the fear of the unknown effects from higher frequency exposures. IEEE International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety (ICES) has recently published a revised standard C95.1-2019 “IEEE Standard for Safety Levels with Respect to Human Exposure to Electric, Magnetic, and Electromagnetic Fields, 0 Hz to 300 GHz”. In this new standard, exposure limits above 6 GHz are revised to include both limits inside the body (on the body surface due to the limited penetration depth) and outside the body (for easy measurement). Rationales of setting the limits will be discussed. 

The C-OFDM spread the transmitted payload among thousands of independent (i.e. orthogonal) carriers modulated at low speed, resulting that the duration of modulated symbols is significantly longer than the delay of multipath echoes. Hence, by extending the modulated symbols with a cyclic prefix (i.e. guard interval) the transmitter permits to all receivers to ignore the beginning of each modulated symbols, this period of the signal polluted by the delayed replica (i.e. the echo) of the previous one. As the Coded-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (C-OFDM) modulation scheme as a natural capacity to cope with the echoes (i.e. the delayed replicas of the signal provoked by the reflections of the radiated waves on obstacles), the broadcasters improved the efficiency of their broadcast infrastructure by forming a Single-Frequency Network (SFN) in which each emitter is a perfect echo of all the others. Operating an SFN implies a good understanding of the parameters of the waveform and the modeling tool developed by the author makes it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of SFN coverage.

Real-Time Professional Media over IP
In order to become more agile in operations and leverage the economies of scale and flexibility that IT infrastructure brings, Broadcasters increasingly have been migrating from broadcast-specific architectures to IT-based solutions. This goes hand-in-hand with the trend toward software-defined media processing and network function virtualization. This lecture first will give an overview of the challenges that Broadcasters and professional media providers face, the benefits of transforming to "All IP" and an overview of what exactly is meant by "All IP". It then will dive further into the technologies themselves, starting with a discussion of the Joint Task Force on Network Media (JT-NM) and followed by an overview of the major standards and specs behind "All IP" including the new SMPTE ST 2110 suite of standards for real-time Professional Media over IP and AMWA Network Media Open Specifications (NMOS). The current state of the industry will be reviewed and what's to be done next.

Ultra-HD + High Dynamic Range
Arguably the hottest new development in viewing experience since the introduction of color to television, High Dynamic Range (HDR) has taken the industry by storm. The level of realism it creates literally makes the viewer exclaim “wow!”, from large Ultra High Definition (UHD) and HD displays to tablets and smart phones. This lecture first discuss UHD and how the limitations of the human visual system could impact the user experience. It then will explore in depth what HDR is and how it greatly increases the immersive viewing experience. The different transfer functions of perceptual quantizer and hybrid log gamma will be explained, as well as the many different HDR schemes that have emerged and how they impact broadcaster workflows. Color volume mapping will be described, as well as the state of HDR standardization and implementation.

With the performance improvements of state-of-the-art technology, the Broadcast and Professional Media industries are shifting to an IT model where media processing functions that used to rely on purpose-built hardware are being replaced with application-specific software running on standardized commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware. The end result is the replacement of dedicated hardware silos with multi-functional media processing capabilities with dynamically deployed scalability and elasticity of need.  This lecture describes the industry’s move from purpose-built hardware appliances to cloud-native software-defined media processing. A review of basic technology and terminology will be discussed including the difference between virtualization and cloud-native, and the design philosophy of MicroServices.

Radio broadcasting is one of the most important and influential methods of mass communication ever developed.  Analog radio broadcast technology has roots from the very dawn of the electrical age and evolved to successfully compete with television in the second half of the twentieth century.  In the 1990s, digital radio broadcasting emerged and today is poised to become the successful replacement to analog AM and FM radio.  With the proliferation of mobile broadband services today, radio broadcasters have new ways to reach audiences and also new forms of competition. In this lecture, Mr. Layer will provide a brief history of the development of digital radio services and their status, and then discuss the various competitive, broadband-based technologies that are becoming more prevalent and which offer an alternative for delivery of audio content to listeners.  This presentation will include an up-to-date analysis of the various options that radio broadcasters have for competing with the plethora of streaming audio options now available to consumers.  Mr. Layer will encourage feedback and discourse with the audience and ample time for questions and answers will be provided.

Radio and television broadcasters in the U.S. are licensed to operate by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and are subject to the rules and regulations established by the FCC for these respective services.  One of the basic requirements for radio and TV stations is that they provide free programming, broadcast in their frequency band and on their licensed channel(s), receivable by commercially-available radio and TV receivers.
While the ubiquity of these services offers a powerful advantage in the information and entertainment marketplace, it also places constraints and restrictions on broadcasters that can disadvantage them when competing with internet-based services that are under far fewer regulatory constraints.  As the availability of these internet-based services expands, in particular with the near-universal use of smartphones and other devices connected using mobile broadband, broadcasters are increasingly challenged to maintain their dominant position with consumers and grow their reach.
In this lecture, Mr. Layer will talk about current regulatory and legislative issues relevant to broadcasters and impacting the delivery of broadcast services.  As a long-time staff member for the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the principal representative of the free over-the-air broadcast services before the FCC as well as the legislative (US Congress) and executive (White House) branches of government, Mr. Layer is uniquely positioned to offer insight into these topics and guide the audience through not only the issues facing broadcasters but the manner in which broadcasters, through NAB and others, are able to positively influence the evolution and enforcement of the rules and laws governing the broadcast industry.
Mr. Layer will encourage feedback and discourse with the audience and ample time for questions and answers will be provided.

Overview of the capabilities of ATSC 3.0 Next Gen broadcast standard cover physical layer, transport, security, audio, video, captions, interactivity, emergency messaging, and more.

Introduction to the new story-telling capabilities of ATSC 3.0 Next Gen Television including advanced video, immersive and personalized audio, multi-track captions, interactivity and content security.

Introduction to the new emergency messaging capabilities of ATSC 3.0 Next Gen broadcast standard including device wake-up, geo-targeting, rich media content, first-responder and consumer messages, and more.

I edited the digital radio guide for WBU-TC twice in the last decade. I have been researching on digital radio broadcasting technologies for the complete value chain. This lecture aims to summarise the evolution and the state of art digital radio broadcasting technologies. The lecture also addresses challenges and opportunities that digital radio broadcast offer. I have worked with global stakeholders in this industry and chaired, moderated, presented in many conferences, seminars and workshops. DAB/DAB+/DRM and their families of digital radio broadcast technologies and standards will be described. The functioning of compression and transmission of audio content are described using block diagrams. Current hybrid radio broadcast technologies, its impact and value on current radio industry will be highlighted too.

This lecture will provide an overview of current terrestrial digital technologies that are available for television. Four DTT technologies and standards will be summarised having more emphasis on their ability to integrate seamlessly with broadband delivery.  The evolution of all DTV technologies will be described. The media consumption patterns are changing over the last two decades. However, online delivery or cellular technologies cannot replace terrestrial or satellite services completely. Advancements in media transport technologies will be compared, the merits and demerits of them are highlighted. The lecture also addresses advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and the impact of AI making the media production, compression, access and delivery efficient and economical.

Image and video contain a large amount of data. Despite the cost of storage and bandwidth are on downward trends, it is required to compress image and video data for storage and transport. Today we talk about ultra-high definition television which may have spatial resolutions of up to 4k and 8k in conjunction with high frame rates of 60, 120 frames per second. These image and video capture leads to very high raw bit rates. The lecture will discuss various compression algorithms, standards and impairments due to the compression. The lecture also aims to highlight challenges in evaluating Quality of Experience (QoE) and presents a framework to evaluate compression artefacts such as blockiness, ringing, blur and colour bleeding including a new set of test pattern which can stress the codec. The recent advancements in coding using artificial intelligence and possible multi-codec media industry scenarios will be presented too.

Traditional broadcasting was one-way communication scheme and it provided little opportunities for interactivity due to lack of an integrated return channel. With the penetration and popularity gained by the broadband, broadcasting can make use of broadband as a return channel to interact with the broadcast services. There are several technologies and standards available to offer hybrid or integrated broadband broadcast services. This lecture will highlight and provide an overview of the technologies available for hybrid television broadcasting. The lecture will also address some value added services that could offer using broadband including over-the-top (OTT) services that new and incumbent broadcasters could offer. The lecture also highlights the second device, synchronisation, catch up, on-demand, favourites, alerts and other features that IBB technology such as HbbTV could offer. Some case studies from New Zealand, Australia, Korea, Japan and Europe will be discussed.

Drone technology has grown immensely over the last few years. These capable unmanned aircraft are now able to safely fly in close proximity to radiating broadcast towers and antennas with sensors that are very sophisticated. This enables engineers to efficiently collect important data from the transmission lines, power dividers, and antennas relating to energy loss and to perform detailed  visual inspections without the cost and safety risks of sending a human up the tower. Additionally these detailed surveys can easily be archived for comparison at subsequent dates, to determine if any undesirable changes are taking place on the tower or within the transmission system. In most cases the cost of performing these surveys, can outweigh the cost of remedial work by a factor of more than 100.
This talk will provide information on the types of surveys now being done, the applicability to different types of towers and transmission systems, as well las some case studies with actual field data to discuss.

Over the years there have been several attempts to deliver broadcast TV to handheld devices. So far all of these have failed for various reasons. With 5G there is now a new technology in place with the potential to deliver broadcast video to mobiles. The presentation will provide an overview for the latest status of 5G broadcast specifications and will compare transmission performance and relevant commercial aspects with already established delivery schemes like DVB-T2 or ATSC3.0

Over the last 25 years Standards Developing Organisations (SDO) like ATSC or DVB have provided the necessary specification for the transition from analogue to digital TV. Analogue Switch Off has happened in many parts of the world. Now, with HD and UHD being specified as well, what will be the future roadmap for broadcast media technology and how can SDOs provide the technology for next generation broadcast?

ATSC3.0 is a major improvement when compared to its predecessor ATSC1.0. It provides a significant performance improvement and a wide range of new features and functionalities. ATSC3.0 consists of a wide range of different specifications covering all aspects of audio/video transmission from the physical layer, AV coding, transport and finally interactive applications. In parallel to ATSC also DVB has specified a comparable range of new technologies covering similar aspects like ATSC.

In this lecture performance and functionalities of the two solutions are analyzed and compared. Similarities and differences are highlighted and the suitability for various use cases is examined.

UHD does not only stand for resolutions beyond HD but also for the advanced features HDR, HFR, wider color gamut and next generation audio (NGH). For broadcasters and network operators introducing UHD services can be an attractive business opportunity. However, increased resolution requires a significantly higher bandwidth as compared to HD services, which can be a challenge, especially for terrestrial broadcast.

This lecture will analyze the quality of experience gains of the individual UHD features for the end-user as well as the associated effort for broadcasters and network operators with a special focus on UHD-1 resolution.

Engineers are familiar with the Law of Unintended Consequences.  This lecture tells the story of several unintended consequences related to audio delivery which are in play today. The transition to digital delivery systems liberated audio from an existence of less than 40 dB of dynamic range. The creative community has been quick to exploit that increased dynamic range.  That is the good news, but it is also the bad news.  Without standards in place for digital operating points, sound mixers and producers have used levels varying over at least 30 dB.  This has created consumer irritation. The broadcast industry realized these issues needed to be addressed.  In 1996, the ATSC Board called for guidance to the content creators and system operators. That work resulted in ATSC A/85 “Techniques for Establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudness for Digital Television.”  While the ATSC was at work, the US Congress took the subject up and wrote the CALM Act.  How that Act intersects with A/85 is a crucial part of this lecture.
Beyond the US component, this lecture also surveys the similar efforts conducted by the EBU and others around the world. The rise of streaming and of portable playback devices has added considerable confusion to this already complex ecosystem.  The Audio Engineering Society (AES) has undertaken several efforts to document processes and methods to better assist both the creators and consumers of audio content enjoy that content without danger of damaging their hearing.  The lecture will also survey the ongoing work within the AES to provide guidance for streaming and other “online” delivery services, some of which are aimed at headphone listening and thus may result in potential hearing loss.
This lecture is of both personal and professional interest to attendees!
The lecturer served as the Chair of the ATSC Specialists Group on Audio and Video Coding (TG1/S6) (for over a decade) which was responsible for the creation of ATSC A/85.  He is active in other Standards Development Organizations, such as AES, which work in the area of audio loudness.

IEEE BTS Lecture – Media System Timing “Beyond Black Burst”  People who have not built or maintained traditional real-time media production systems (video with audio) may not realize that each (and almost every) device in the system is connected via 5 wires (often many more).  These carry video in and out (in the best case with embedded digital audio), sync (a simple analog signal termed “black burst”), time of day timecode, and control.  As systems got larger and more complex this became painful (and expensive) both to wire and maintain.  To use a current CS phrase “it doesn’t scale.”  In reaction to this media signals have begun to map into IP based networks, as has the control side.  What was left was sync.  This remained true as image formats evolved beyond standard definition images into High Definition and recently Ultra-High Definition image production.  SMPTE has been working on this problem for over a decade and has now published the first two parts of a multi-part document which leverages work done by the IEEE (IEEE 1588 to be specific) and defining how media systems can be synchronously timed with “just” a clock.  There are some implications to this change which is rapidly being adopted.  This lecture will review the structure of traditional digital media standards, the aspect of timecode distribution as well as device control.  The lecture will also cover the questions which arise around system design and media signal redundancy.

This lecture discusses important design parameters for VHF and UHF broadcast antennas used for FM and TV.  An emphasis is given to directional pattern design using computer modeling and taking into account the effects of the mounting structure on the antenna pattern for both intentional directional antennas as well as non-DA antennas. Techniques for pattern design are presented, including array theory and NEC modeling. Coverage analysis with terrain-based propagation software, consideration of elevation pattern design, near-field power density calculations, and input match tuning techniques are also covered.

Nowadays, the digital video broadcasting technologies have been widely used to replace the traditional analog terrestrial TV. The direct satellite TV, digital TV with mobile reception (DVB-H and ATSC M/H), and the internet protocol television (IPTV) are very popular in our daily life. The digital transmission and signal processing techniques and the efficient implementation issues are crucial in these digital TV services. These essential techniques will be discussed and introduced during the lectures.

The transmitter identification (TX-ID) has been proposed in the recent ATSC digital terrestrial broadcasting standards. The watermarking techniques based on the Kasami sequences are used recently. The theoretical studies on the second-order statistics, interference analysis and geographical capacity of these TX-ID techniques will be provided; the implementation concerns together with the new problems associated with TX-ID will be discussed during the lectures.

Graph data have been prevalent for mobile transmission and broadcast. Situation- and location-aware graph data processing becomes crucial in the multimedia applications nowadays. Trends and states-of-arts on the mathematical analysis and algorithms for graph-based data processing will be discussed in this lecture. Potential applications can be found in geolocation technology and graph/image processing.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been widely employed for many applications ranging from data analytics, drug effect and chemical reaction forecast, object tracking, and virtual reality, etc. Recently, an interesting trend migrated from conventional statistical channel characterization to AI-assisted machine learning for radio-frequency (RF) signal propagation modeling and analysis. Instead of prevalent object-tracking using visible-light images, the feasibility for utilizing RF signals for indoor object information profiling consisting of detection, authentication, localization, and mobility analysis would be of great interest to the electrical engineering community. In this presentation, the state-of-the-arts, limitation, and projected future related to artificial intelligence for indoor object information profiling will be introduced.

Non-orthogonal multiplexing (NOM) technology can provide significantly higher transmission capacity than the traditional orthogonal multiplexing (OM) technologies, when delivering multiple services with different quality of service (QoS) requirements. This has been recognized by both the research communities from digital broadcasting industry and the mobile broadband industry. The NOM technology can find many applications in future broadcast and broadband systems. These include the simultaneous delivery of mobile and fixed services, seamless local content insertion in single-frequency-networks (SFN), delivery of mixed unicast-broadcast services in 4G/5G systems, as well as the integrated access/service and backhaul transmissions.

This presentation first describes the fundamental capacity benefit of NOM over OM technology from the information theory point of view. Next, the different applications of NOM technology in future broadcast and broadband systems are introduced, including the benefit that NOM offers and the challenges to realize it in practice. Finally, some guidelines to achieve feasible implementation of NOM in practical systems are discussed.

To deliver robust mobile broadcast services, single-frequency-network (SFN) is preferred due to the inherent spatial diversity. However, each SFN transmitter requires a backhaul link, which results in high infrastructure cost, especially for small cell networks with large number of transmitters. This talk presents the novel concept of using Layered Division Multiplexing (LDM) to implement wireless in-band backhaul to multiple SFN transmitters. Frist, the concept of LDM will be introduced and what motivate us to use it for wireless in-band backhaul transmission. Next, the application of this concept in the next generation ATSC 3.0 digital broadcast system is described, which focuses on implementing low-power gapfillers to improve the mobile service coverage performance for highly populated indoor and closed areas (airports, shopping malls, stadiums, etc.). Finally, the application of LDM to deliver integrated broadcast service and backhaul signals in 5G framework is introduced, where the focus is put on realizing a low-cost MBSFN on the low-power-low-tower broadband networks.

Reliable service detection by mobile and handheld receivers has always been a challenge for wireless communications systems using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), including most digital broadcasting systems (ATSC 3.0, DVB-T/T2/NGH, DAB, etc.) and mobile broadband systems (LTE). For these systems, higher robustness is usually achieved at the cost of significant loss of transmission capacity.
This talk discusses the technologies to improve the mobile receptions in OFDM-based systems, without sacrificing the transmission throughput. We start with transmission technologies which filtered the OFDM signal to offer a much lower sidelobs, and hence reduce the signal power spill-over among subchannels. Next, different receiving technologies that could improve the mobile signal detection are described, including antenna diversity techniques, inter-carrier-interference (ICI) cancellation techniques, as well as the digital beamforming techniques. Finally, this presentation will introduce the mobile service delivery using the newly developed layered-division-multiplexing (LDM) technology, and shows that using LDM can offer extremely robust mobile reception by enabling efficient delivery of mobile services with extremely low signal-to-noise ratio thresholds, which makes the ICI introduced by channel variation much less damaging to the signal detection.