Sinclair Broadcast Group will demo an automotive infotainment system delivered via ATSC 3.0 television broadcasts at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in January.
The new system will also start undergoing user trials at car dealers in the Baltimore area next year. Sinclair states that their digital TV powered platform will receive 100+ local radio stations including digital rebroadcasts of AM stations without the electric noise, ATSC 3.0 powered television signals, and play audio and video service on both in-car displays and personal devices.
That last line adds extra importance as it could lead to the development of a catch-all digital app capable of accessing any broadcast station in a market via any digital device.
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SBGI) will demonstrate live infotainment delivered for connected vehicles at the ATSC booth during the CES® 2023 in Las Vegas. For more than 50 years, CES® has been the global stage for innovation. Delivered by NextGen Broadcast (ATSC 3.0), this innovative new service is a supplement to existing infotainment systems, adding new features and capabilities.
The service is being readied for consumer trials by several auto dealerships in the Baltimore, MD region. Drive testing is underway and is yet another NextGen Broadcast use case that shows the flexible use of broadcast channels. The exhibit will be a real-time demonstration of a variety of services that can be delivered live to a moving Connected Vehicle.
The new services will provide the ability to:
- Receive 100 or more live local radio station channels of audio programming,
- Receive live in-car rebroadcast of AM radio station services without interference from electronic systems,
- Receive NextGen Broadcast stations operating in the region inside a moving vehicle with no signal loss,
- Play audio and video services on in-car displays, and
- Play audio and video services on personal devices inside the car.
This demonstration receives live signals from multiple ‘in-market’ local broadcasters. The demo system uses Silicon Dust’s HomeRun FLEX 4K device in conjunction with ONE Media’s automotive audio interface built in collaboration with OpenZNet.
Said Mark Aitken, President of ONE Media 3.0, “At CES, we are looking for feedback from the automotive community on what forms of live infotainment they would like to see added into vehicles. Using NextGen Broadcast technology combined with live broadcast services give us tremendous flexibility. The same receiver can provide public services such as beaming live emergency information from local broadcast newsrooms directly to vehicles during critical times and blanketing highway regions with live situational awareness information for vehicle to everyone (V2X) applications.”
A single receiver brings a variety of new services in the move into the age of Connected Vehicles. Those include enhanced GPS, over-the-air software updates, Infotainment (audio, video and others) and a number of V2X and cellular vehicle to everyone (C-V2X) services. A recent series of webinars hosted by Sinclair focused on the automotive sector and the value an ATSC 3.0 receiver brings into mobile vehicles. See: https://www.atsc3advocate.com/.
As Sinclair, working with its valued partners, builds out a new Broadcast Core Network and the internetworking components that make up a first ever Broadcast Data Distribution Platform (a wireless data highway), Broadcasters will find new economics that bring value beyond simple TV.
