Creator Economy Takes Center Stage at NAB Show 2024

Every year, the NAB Show in Las Vegas is the preeminent conference and exhibition driving the evolution of broadcast, media and entertainment. Held this year from April 13 to 17,(Exhibits April 14-17), the 2024 edition will display even more the growth in the content creation economy, with the show spanning from podcasting and radio, all the way to the most sophisticated digital content production for feature films and live sports events.

Fans around the world that are following the football/soccer worldcup games are probably not aware that those transmissions are creating a new test bed for the possibilities of immersive sound and different personalization options using MPEG-H audio technology. Fraunhofer is supporting its partners worldwide in setting up live transmissions of the tournament in Brazil and South Korea, the two countries that already adopted MPEG-H.

The Brazilian SBTVD Forum (Brazil's digital TV technical coordination entity) recently finalized the technical evaluation phase of its TV 3.0 Project for the definition of the next-generation television system in Brazil. It comprised a detailed technical evaluation of all proposed technologies. As a result, the MPEG-H Audio system was selected as the sole mandatory audio codec for the future Brazilian broadcast system. Fraunhofer IIS supported the SBTVD Forum in the testing and evaluation process.

The United States of America has proposed to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) adoption of the ATSC 3.0 digital broadcast standard for use by all countries in the world. The proposal is the first major step in the evaluation process for worldwide acceptance of the standard. The ITU will review the world’s first IP-based Broadcast System proposal to other regions, such as Europe, China, Japan, and Brazil, which have their own TV standards.

In the world of broadcast standards, a few countries depend upon their own specific set of terrestrial broadcast technologies, such as the United States, Japan, Brazil, and China. The rest of the world uses DVB standards. Now that everyone is preparing the next generation of standards to support 4K UHDTV, the news that the new DVB UHD-1 Phase 2 was approved is a big deal. More important for the audio community is the news that MPEG-H is part of that standard.

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is steadily confirming all scheduled stages for the development and implementation of the most complete terrestrial transmission standard, effectively upgrading broadcasting to Mobile, Handheld and 4K Ultra HDTV with immersive, personalized audio.