The SCTE and the SCTE Foundation announced $60,000 in awards intended to benefit current members of the cable technology workforce, as well as STEM programs at the scholastic level.
The awards, which draw on monies raised as part of the SCTE Foundation's Advancing Cable Excellence (ACE) campaign, include support for college or technical training for SCTE members and ongoing support for high school FIRST robotics clubs or groups.
Two awards totaling $15,000 are immediately available and must be applied for by May 31. They are:
An SCTE Foundation Scholarship for Engineering and Software Development that is available to anyone who has been an SCTE member for four years and currently is working in a technical capacity. The scholarship is for $12,500 and funds education toward a degree program at an accredited two- or four-year college or university, technical training through the SCTE or affiliated industry training and certifications, including online and distance learning opportunities.
An SCTE Foundation Grant of $2,500 for a FIRST robotics team. At least one member of the team must have a parent who is an SCTE member in good standing, and the team must be affiliated with the student's high school.
Eligibility requirements and application forms are available at http://foundation.scte.org/take-advantage/grants-and-scholarships.
In other SCTE news, the Society has approved SCTE 35 2016, "Digital Program Insertion Cueing Message for Cable." The standard is intended to support delivery of events, frame accurate or non-frame accurate, and associated descriptive data in MPEG-2 transport streams, MPEG-DASH and HLS. It supports the splicing of content (MPEG-2 transport streams, MPEG-DASH, etc.) for the purpose of digital program insertion, which includes ad insertion and insertion of other content types. An in-stream messaging mechanism is defined to signal splicing and insertion opportunities, and it is not intended to ensure seamless insertion (splicing, playlist, etc.). The standard is available at http://www.scte.org/SCTE/Standards/Download/SCTE/Standards/Download_SCTE_Standards.aspx.