ATSC gains six new members

ATSC gains six new members
WASHINGTON — Six companies have joined the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), the standards body that developed the U.S. digital TV standard. With the addition of Fujitsu Microelectronics, Digitra Systems, Hubbard Broadcasting, iSurfTV, Nielsen Media Research and NxtWave Communications, which were announced as new members on Tuesday (Nov. 2), ATSC now has over 200 members.

NxtWave (Newtown, Pa.), a spinoff of Sarnoff Corp., recently unveiled a demodulator chip designed to improve digital TV reception by eliminating multipath interference.

ATSC's membership includes North and South American companies, as well as Australian and a handful of Asian and European manufacturers.

The new ATSC members were announced as opposition to the ATSC standard's vestigial sideband transmission spec grows. Opponents favor an alternative transmission technique they claim will improve reception of digital TV broadcasts. ATSC counters that next-generation chip sets solve most multipath problems.