Every set sold is still mandated to have "obsolete" ATSC 1.0 technology. Mandating ATSC 3.0 now will not prevent it from also becoming obsolete. What should mandated is "upgradability".

Mild disagreement with Sneals2000's characterization of ATSC 1.0 as "incredibly dated." His support for that statement is that it doesn't use spectrum very efficiently, which is true.

But I don't think most OTA viewers feel it's "dated" - let alone "incredibly" so. It's true that it's been around for over 20 years, but most of them have been using it for a decade or less. In contrast, NTSC was used for about 50 years before being (mostly) supplanted by it.

The TV market isn't like the PC or smart-phone market (thank goodness)! As long as their TVs work - and with ATSC 1.0, they work reasonably well (certainly better than with NTSC) - most folks don't throw them in the trash and buy brand-new ones every few years.

You, I, and the others on this forum can see how much technology has advanced and to us, the advantages of 3.0 are obvious. But to the average OTA viewer (and Trip is right; the average OTA viewer isn't the same as the average TV viewer; nevertheless, there are still a lot of OTA viewers in the US), there's simply no clear reason to go through another transition so soon after the last one.

Edit: Some minor technical corrections to what's been said recently:

1. H.264 is part of the ATSC 1.0 standard. However, since it's not a mandatory part, there are a lot of ATSC tuners out there that don't support it. Thus, the only ones using it are folks who control the receiving-end equipment (like the aforementioned Airbox subscription TV service).
2. ATSC does have an extension intended for mobile devices: ATSC M/H (Mobile/Hand-held). Unfortunately, as others have mentioned, the broadcasters prefer to charge for their content as much as they can get away with, so most M/H content is encrypted with the Dyle system. So unless you paid extra for a rare Dyle-enabled mobile device, you're not going to be watching M/H broadcasts.

I don't disagree with that. I meant that I would be willing to pay (some reasonable price) for ad-free TV. I'm OK with "free" OTA TV that is supported by commercial ads, as long as I can have my TiVo to skip the ads which are irrelevant to me (most of them).

Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. How can you "upgrade" to a totally different modulation standard via software? (Well, SDRs can do it, so I guess it's possible; but they require a lot of computing power.)

Yet, in a way, this "upgrade" port already exists. It's called an HDMI port and several are present on practically every TV sold since the DTV transition. All you need is a tuner to plug into it.

In fact, I already did that with my first flat-screen TV. It didn't have an ATSC tuner (was made before the mandate) but I bought it anyway because I knew it had both component and HDMI, so all I needed to add was a tuner. That split the cost of upgrading to HDTV into two smaller, more manageable parts (I bought the TV, then bought the tuner a year later). And I expect I'll be able to do it again when ATSC 3.0 tuners come out in another year or two.

Right on! Except for that ATSC 3.0 would be a easy rollout.

The biggest problem for me will coming up with a solution that works as well as the two PCI tuners that have time shifting / pause of live TV with remote controls.

My initial ATSC 3.0 tuners will be like the HDHomeRun network tuners I now have. So capturing programs to watch later will not change. Watching the live round and round (NASCAR) and the back and forth (NFL) may need a solution that may not exist for HTPCs as they are decreasing in numbers. Oh, and pausing the "Theater of the absurd" (Local, National, World) news.

SHF

Dyle and ATSC M/H are both pretty much buried and dead. Most broadcasters quietly dropped those streams a while back, perhaps one or two years ago?

Since the transition is voluntary, I don't see any mandate in the future. Other voluntary conversions... AM Stereo, HD Radio, haven't been followed by a tuner inclusion mandate. I DO see some set manufacturers rolling out ATSC 1/3 tuners in 2-3 years, assuming there's little additional manufacturing costs.

Serves them right. I was perfectly happy to buy an M/H device - a small 7" TV - but when they encrypted, I wasn't about to start paying for what I could get for free!

My point was merely that the standard exists. But it is too bad that broadcasters' greed killed it in practice.
That could be a problem - I have an HD radio, but it's still very much a niche market. AM stereo didn't do any better either, IIRC.

The thing is, we are going to need ATSC 3.0, if for no other reason than to deal with the (somewhat artificial) spectrum crunch caused by the recent incentive auction. But if no one has a 3.0 tuner, there's little incentive for broadcasters to switch - and if few broadcasters switch, there's little incentive for anyone to want a 3.0 tuner. And if few folks are buying 3.0 tuners, prices will remain high, which means demand will remain low. Remember the first HDTV tuners were easily 5 times more expensive than ones you can get today, while HD radios mostly remain expensive even now. Occasionally you can find a good closeout deal on one, but manufacturers need high sales volume to get prices down.

It sounds like the same 3-way deadly embrace that's kept HD radio from broad acceptance. I understand the reason for making ATSC 3.0 voluntary; it's what I just posted about: there's no appetite for a second mandated transition so soon after the last one! But I think we may still need a tuner mandate. (Not likely to happen under the current administration, with its anti-regulatory fervor, I realize. Just sayin' the HD radio model doesn't seem like such a good one to me.)

Do you know that the frequency response is less for HD FM Radio than normal FM radio?

I got one when the only radio station I listen to went off the air (Format change) and it took two (2) Years for a station to come available to be purchased and put the KDFC signal back on a transmitter I could easily receive. Without the HD radio the signal was too noisy from either the North Bay transmitter or the flea power transmitter closer.

Now the station is "owned" by the disk jockeys and most of what you hear is them talking. In the beginning KDFC played music, commercials and station Ids. Now it is like attending a university of music education.

KXSC which is licensed to my city does have a HD signal and you hear KXSC-HD in the stream of station names and frequencies, but there is nothing on the webpage about HD FM, just like before, but they did at times say the second stream had no commercials on air. Now nothing. I have not bothered to try the FM HD box.

SHF


So much for FM HD.

It would undoubtedly be difficult, perhaps an upgrade would instead just mean a new tuner module, but with the control functions coming from the TV and therefore the TV's remote - something that could have been done instead of Cablecards, using a dockable QAM cable tuner.

But to just roll out only a fixed-in-time NTSC 3.0 - which would evolve and change, and may well be superseded by something newer. before it would see widespread usage, seems unlikely. The FCC would have to convince Congress to mandate that all new TV's (which still have tuners) be able to process ATSC 3.0, even though very few will actually be used over-the-air. Broadcasters will need to replace equipment, including possibly adding another transmitter with the signal squeezed in somehow, probably on the low band, to reach the small number of viewers with the new TV's, in the hope most will buy new sets or buy converters, eventually.

There's another wrinkle to this as well - ATSC 3.0 relies on HEVC, and much of the computer electronics industry dislikes HEVC's licensing terms to the point of creating their own digital video standard.


If broadcasters want to get mobile on board, then they may have to really focus on appeasing computer electronics vendors rather than just expecting them to "fall in line", because ATSC needs mobile way more than mobile needs ATSC.

However, by the time there's discussion of a serious switch-over to something newer than ATSC 1.0, we could be up to ATSC 3.5 or 4.0 which could very well rely on a video codec newer than HEVC.


If they're really serious about making mobile support for ATSC a reality, then they should be doing everything they can to work with the Alliance for Open Media to make sure that AV1 or even AV2 is an OTA-broadcast friendly format and then use that as the basis of the video format used by ATSC 3.5/4.0/etc.

In my old mind, the big ATSC 3.0 question revolves around what will ATSC 3.0 tuners cost and how big will they be? If they're about the size of a Chromecast and cost $30 or so, and if ATSC 3.0 is half as great as it's cracked up to be, I might even learn to like it.
But I remember having to spend well over $100 for huge set top boxes to get ATSC 1.0 for each of several HDTVs in my home. I recently bought a $30 ATSC 1.0 tuner with DVR capabilities (that actually works fine) at Wal-Mart for my friend, so maybe there is hope.
A great solution for me would be if Silicon Dust would come up with a tuner similar to their HD Home Run Prime. It uses a cable card and sends out a signal over my home network that my smart TVs and even a raspberry Pi "computer" can handle.
If the broadcasters want ATSC 3.0 to fly, they would be wise to invest in the technology users will be forced to buy to make it work on our end.

http://www.tvtechnology.com/broadcas...oadcast/277732

"With current OTA TV, you connect rabbit ears or a coax from an attic or outdoor antenna to each TV set. With ATSC 3.0, you connect your new ~$250 household gateway/router that probably includes some storage and DVR features to that OTA antenna. Now every IP device in your home’s LAN coverage area has access to everything OTA and Internet (including any “walled garden” of content your ISP might supply). The 80-inch media room TV has something to watch, the portable devices do, too, and you can control DVRs and big screens from the devices that allow you to interact with things like electronic program guides and media search engines."

Previous descriptions of the workings of ATSC 3.0 I have read made no sense to me.
But I could even learn to like it if this article is accurate.
Granted, ATSC 3.0 isn't even in its final form, but does this article make sense?

That's what Sinclair's been suggesting all along when you talk to people there. That you'll have something akin to the HDHomeRun in the attic near your antenna and then it will be distributed via your in-home network to the individual TV sets through an app.

- Trip

Thanks Trip. Not sure how practical this idea is for the average OTA consumer, but it's right in my wheelhouse.

It's kind of what I have already. I have a Linux server with 3 x Dual DVB-T2, 1 x Dual DVB-T2 and 1 Single DVB-T2 tuner connected. This can tune all 9 muxes I can receive simultaneously. It's got integrated PVR storage, transcode (for remote viewing live/recorded TV away from home) and streams to iOS, Android, Windows, Mac and Linux clients. This was a DIY solution (and 9 tuners breaks the standard 8 tuner Linux kernel limit so I roll my own)

I also have a DVB-S2 SAT>IP server with 4 LNB inputs that will allow me to tune/record up to 4 satellite transponders - either within the above ecosystem or separately. This is a commercial product in DVB territories. (Bit like an HD Homerun for satellite)

That sounds feasible. In the UK our cheapest DVB-T2 second gen HD receivers start at around GBP £20 inc sales tax (roughly US$25) on Amazon, and include USB recording. (They may not be that great for the money and probably aren't Freeview HD licensed...) Slightly better ones are nearer GBP£28 (US$35)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/August-DVB4...t2+set+top+box

What is the make and model of the SAT>IP server?
John

HEVC is happening in the rest of the world for OTA though - I think it's close to a done deal... Don't think VP9 for broadcast is going to happen. Germany is HEVC for SD and HD... All the European UHD TV on satellite and IP is HEVC. It's started - I think it's too late for a change... Unless the US decides to plough its own furrow. (Which I guess it is, along with Korea, with ATSC 3.0)

I bought an Elgato EyeTV 4Sat because it was on special offer (£80 I think). Elgato have since offloaded their EyeTV stuff to Geniatech, who are a Chinese USB tuner manufacturer. Don't think that Geniatech retained the SAT>IP stuff.

Triax are a popular supplier I believe.

I REALLY enjoy your insights from UK.
This affordable device (and its generally good reviews) is very encouraging news, and gives me hope.
It looks a lot like the current cheap ATSC 1.0 device I gave my friend, which works extremely well.

That's a reasonable idea. It's possible even now. All that would be needed is HDMI-CEC support, which many TVs have already. Then, whenever the ATSC standard changes, you just hook a new tuner to your TV's HDMI port, enable its branded version of HDMI-CEC (on my LG TV it's called "SimpLink"), and let the TV's remote control the tuner!

Another possibility: your DLNA-compatible TVs can stream from tuners over your home network. Right now those tuners would have to be HDHomeRuns, but you'd just upgrade it to an ATSC 3.0 version, then ATSC 4.0, etc. as technology advanced. As you can see in the previous posts, the ATSC 3.0 proponents have really hyped that option.

The basic idea behind both proposals is to unbundle the tuners from the TVs, so you only have to upgrade the tuners and not the TVs whenever the standards change. So the solution might be as simple as mandating either HDMI-CEC or DLNA on new TVs, so new tuners could be attached without the hassle of separate remotes. That would be a fairly painless mandate as many TVs support one or both already.

Actually that device whilst DVB-T2 is only H264 (which is what we use in the UK) not H265 (which Germany, launching HD OTA later, has chosen. Yep - Germany is only just beginning to go HD OTA now - previously they've been SD 16:9 only OTA - though free satellite in HD. On the plus side some stations are going 1080p50 not 1080i25 or 720p50).

Here's a PVR-friendly H265 DVB-T2 box from Germany https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01NCJI8Y1/...%2Bdvb-t2&th=1 EUR €45 inc tax (US$ 47) (Without PVR functionality €35 (US$ 37) )

That was the first one I found that was low cost - there may be cheaper... (Those boxes are very cut down - no HbbTV and no support for the pay-TV stuff there)

HDHomerun I can handle, what you have described I can NOT!

It's not that simple.


In many European countries, software patents are illegal, so there's no licensing cost for something like HEVC.

In the US however, software patents are very much a reality, and therefore HEVC has a licensing cost.


Regarding VP9, I honestly have no idea how you got that out of my post - I specifically mentioned AV1 and newer because they're not finalized yet and is targeting better-than-HEVC performance. And of course, AV1 is a standard being designed by a multitude internet-computer electronics giants rather than the traditional AV-broadcast media giants, so making AV1/2/etc part of an ATSC standard would allow OTA-on-mobile to have one foot in the door.


Regarding the US forging it's own path, you're right in that the US is already doing this - much of the rest of the world uses DVB, but the US obviously uses ATSC. But just because we're currently using ATSC 1.0 does not mean we need to transition specifically to ATSC 3.0 - a good example of this is Japan and western South America which used NTSC but, because they transitioned later, instead switched to the newer ISDB which uses AAC audio rather than the older AC-3 among other things.

I wasn't aware that European countries weren't licensing codecs. Certainly I've had to buy both MPEG2 and VC-1 codecs for my Raspberry Pis in the UK. That could be because they enforce their codec licenses world wide to be safe.
Yep - though my understanding was that HEVC's costs were reduced after some initial hesitation?

No - neither have I. Was up early this morning - fingers not typing what brain was thinking.

Yes - though HEVC codecs are appearing (at least as possibilities) in mobile devices already aren't they? They're certainly there in lots of ARM SoCs now. (At least the decode side is)

And ISDB is COFDM-based, like DVB-T/T2 (and ATSC 3.0). ISDB-T in Japan jumped a little too early in the video codec stakes though - they went MPEG2, whereas the South American roll out of ISDB-T has been H264.

Taiwan was an NTSC country that switched to DVB-T I believe. South Korea was the main other territory outside the US that went ATSC 1.0 (and looks to go ATSC 3.0 first) - though they did look closely at DVB-T2 (and their initial UHD trials used DVB-T2 ISTR)

The US (and Canada and Mexico) is a big enough market to dictate its own standard - but it does sometimes mean that the economies of scale, and the benefits of differing market forces generating different market demands are less beneficial. (Compare the number of ATSC USB/PCI/PCI-E tuners with the number of DVB-T/T2 models - or the number of DVB PVRs etc. to the ATSC market?)

It is a pity we haven't managed to end up with a world standards family (with scope for local customisation) - if anything we now have more digital TV standards than analogue colour standards (though the number of RF and Colour standard combinations - plus audio variations - in analogue was pretty mind boggling)

When ATSC 3.0 tuners hit the market next year, I expect we'll see them in two main varieties: cheaper HDMI dongles that look sort of like a Chromecast, which will provide signals to a single TV, and network-based tuners which will connect to your home network either via ethernet or wifi (or which may even be built into an internet router) and which will stream TV signals to every connected screen in your home. But I would imagine that even the cheaper HDMI dongles will have some way to connect to a broadband internet signal (definitely wifi and maybe ethernet too), since the ability to integrate with the internet (both upstream and downstream) is a major feature of ATSC 3.0.

One industry media source I read recently mentioned that we may see broadcast station owners (e.g. Sinclair) subsidizing the cost of these 3.0 tuners to encourage viewers to upgrade. There won't be any government-issued converter box coupons this time, unlike the transition to ATSC 1.0, helping to ease the upgrade cost.

TVs from LG, etc. with ATSC 3.0 tuners built in are going on sale in South Korea this year. I expect we'll begin seeing dual 1.0/3.0 tuners built into US TVs in 2018, or 2019 at the latest.

IMHO Best Buy or Walmart will offer: "Cord Cutters Special!" and the race will be on. Feature creep is part of techno revolution.

I see that sort of claim a lot (it was also the key enhancement of ATSC 2.0, which never really went anywhere); unfortunately, it's extremely vague. Just what does it mean to "integrate with the internet upstream and downstream?" If all it means is that, while watching American Idol, we'll get prompts to "click here to vote for contestant 1" (instead of having to call a phone number), or prompts during commercials to "click here to see more info/buy now," it'll generate some excitement but not a lot.

I'm sure others can answer this question better than I can but, unlike earlier standards, ATSC 3.0 is purely IP-based; all data (video, audio, text, still graphics) are broadcast in the language of the internet. This opens up a lot of possibilities. Broadcasters like the fact that it will allow them to know exactly how many screens are tuned to their signal at any given time; no more relying on the likes of Nielsen to set ad rates or determine programming choices. It will also allow for more targeted advertising (based on location, viewing choices, maybe viewer-provided demographic data) just like you see on the web, which will mean that stations can charge more for ads (and viewers will see ads that are more relevant and interesting to them). These are big reasons why broadcasters feel it's worth their trouble and expense to adopt ATSC 3.0.

For viewers, it means that broadcasters can easily embed menus to launch internet-streamed on-demand programming right in the regular TV UI. And, yes, it can mean interactive content too, such as "vote for contestant 1" or serving up companion content on a second screen, so that you see the main show on the big screen TV and get relevant info (actor bios, relevant Twitter and Facebook comments, in-depth related news articles and maps, etc.) broadcast to your tablet, phone or laptop.

Getting content onto mobile devices is a big deal too. While phones, etc. will ultimately need their own embedded ATSC 3.0 tuners to receive programming on their own, they'll be able to receive broadcast streams even without their own embedded tuner if they're connected to a wifi network that's connected to a 3.0 tuner (although the mobile device may need to be able to decode HEVC-encoded video, which at least some modern Android phones can do). I don't know but I would imagine the fact that ATSC 3.0 is IP-based makes it simpler (i.e. cheaper hardware) to be distributed via a home network to devices throughout the home.

There are probably other benefits to being IP-based than what I've mentioned, including some that perhaps haven't even been conceived yet.