US-based 6G-Datacast.tv claims to have developed and patented a “transformational and revolutionary” communications protocol that is intertwined with ATSC 3.0, also known as NexGen TV – the newest release of the broadcasting standards, which support considerable integration between mobile and TV networks and traditional TV.
The new protocol project is piggybacking on the NextGen TV infrastructure in order to support ultra-low latency use cases as well as video. Wireless Watch’s sister service, Faultline, which analyses the digital video markets on a weekly basis, interviewed 6G-Datcast.tv, which is jointly owned by CeWi Networks and All 6G.
6G-Datacast.tv’s IP broadcast protocol claims to be the world’s first and only one capable of broadcasting a live linear data stream. It uses a unidirectional transmission protocol for all over-the-air and over-the-top distribution, which it says is evolved from telemetry developed for CBS Sports/Paramount for auto racing coverage.
The technology claims to have successfully demonstrated the broadcast of any IP data to audiences of unlimited size with virtually zero latency, although the protocol’s primary target applications are critical infrastructure data (such as transportation data), sports betting, as well as IoT use cases of the smart home appliance variety.
There is no mention explicitly of IP video, apart from alluding ambiguously to “gaming opportunities”. But the patented proprietary protocol –coined CY4 after the initials of the founder – can also be used to broadcast live scoring updates for sports events, in sync with a video/audio stream, overlaying scores, stats, fantasy-sports and sports betting information, for instance. Interactive TV is high on ATSC 3.0’s agenda, bringing interactivity to viewers without the anchor of a fixed broadband connection.
While this looks an opportune window for 6G-Datacast.tv’s CY4 protocol, to address certain limitations in conventional networking protocols which prohibit the dissemination of digital information over a multicast or broadcast (one-way) communication link, we know that the folk behind ATSC 3.0 do not like to admit to any shortcomings. CeWi is a contributing member of ATSC and while admitting that CY4 was not developed specifically for ATSC, says it is ideally suited for enabling the datacasting feature specified in ATSC 3.0. As used in ATSC 3.0, it is an application layer protocol which is transported as UDP message packets over existing ATSC transport layers.
The term datacasting has been used to describe various different guises of technology for decades – educational datacasting, transport datacasting, public safety datacasting – any broadcast of data across a wide area via radio waves. Digital signage data management is another big area.
In this context, ATSC 3.0 infrastructure supports datacasting such as emergency broadcasts, to complement its IP video backbone which brings the benefits of video in 4K resolution, HDR, wide color gamut at 120fps, and with Dolby audio.
The company was unable to provide is with any objective guidance on what it defines as “virtually zero latency”. But because CY4 is a broadcast or multicast protocol, it means that all receivers get the feed with the same latency, and it assures that the CY4 protocol does not introduce any additional latency.
AT&T Mobilecast was mentioned as a customer, and apparently AT&T licensed the CeWi technology, which was internally branded Mobilecast as a B2B system for TV network customers (such as ABC, CBS, Fox). AT&T’s product marketing group has not yet publicly announced this capability.
Another apparent advantage of CY4 is the ability to reduce bandwidth and infrastructure necessary to deliver serial streams of data. It argues that existing distribution protocols are over-reliant on unicast over bidirectional networks, while 6G-Datacast.tv can send data using multicast while synchronized with video/audio all-in-one broadcast.
“Any ATSC 3.0-compliant receiver is capable of receiving a digital stream (per ATSC – A331) in addition to the dedicated audio/video streams currently being broadcast using ATSC 1.0. 6G-Datacast.tv is currently licensing new encoding/decoding software which allows for the broadcast of any type of digital information over that new digital stream,” the company explained.