For the previous 5 years operating, I’ve written an annual check-in on ATSC 3.0 (or “NextGen TV”), the printed customary that’s purported to vastly enhance over-the-air TV. Every 12 months, it’s been a narrative of child steps.
As 2025 will get underway, that story hasn’t actually modified. While ATSC 3.0 is beginning to ship extra of what it initially promised—most notably massive occasions in HDR—you would possibly nonetheless must exit of your solution to get a appropriate TV or exterior tuner field. ATSC 3.0’s interactive parts stay restricted as nicely, with one promising effort having stalled during the last 12 months. More on that later.
All of which signifies that the prevailing ATSC 1.0 customary, which is supported by practically all televisions at this time, will keep viable for years to come back. The greater query is whether or not over-the-air TV will stay viable together with it.
A fast ATSC 3.0 refresher
When the printed TV trade first introduced ATSC 3.0 in 2019, it touted a handful of key advantages:
- Up to 4K-resolution video
- High dynamic vary (HDR) video
- Dolby Atmos and DTS:X immersive audio codecs
- Dolby dialog enhancement
- Additional stations and on-demand video, found over the air however delivered over the web
The customary additionally comes with some pitfalls for viewers: Its internet-connected nature permits broadcasters to gather viewing knowledge and serve focused advertisements over the air, and its use of DRM places new limits on the ability to record local channels.
To entry ATSC 3.0, your native broadcast stations want to supply it, and also you want both a TV or an exterior tuner field that helps the brand new customary. But even in case you meet these standards, your native stations would possibly solely provide a subset of ATSC 3.0 options. Getting all of the items into place has been a slog, with solely modest progress made every year.
Hardware assist stalls
If you purchase a brand new TV in 2025, there’s probability it received’t assist ATSC 3.0. Many TV makers solely provide it in higher-end units, and a few have even scaled again or halted ATSC 3.0 assist after providing it in earlier years.
Samsung, for example, stopped transport ATSC 3.0 tuners in its OLED TVs final 12 months and can exclude them once more from its 2025 OLED units. (The firm nonetheless provides ATSC 3.0 on its Neo QLED line.) LG received’t be bringing ATSC 3.0 again to its TVs this 12 months both, after dropping support in 2024 sets over a patent dispute.
ATSC 3.0 has introduced on some new supporters: RCA will provide ATSC 3.0 in its 55- and 65-inch Mini LED TVs for 2025, and Panasonic has included ATSC 3.0 assist within the Fire TV OLED and LED units that debuted late final 12 months.
Not a lot else has modified. While Hisense contains ATSC 3.0 tuners in most (however not all) of its Mini-LED TVs and laser projectors, TCL and Sony reserve the characteristic for a few of their higher-end units. Shipment projections from the CTA replicate this actuality: The tech commerce group beforehand expected 5.5 million ATSC 3.0 TVs to ship in 2024, however the precise determine was round 4 million, and now it expects simply 5 million shipments for 2025.
If your TV doesn’t assist ATSC 3.0, you possibly can entry it by means of an exterior tuner, however the price stays excessive. ADTH sells a NextGen TV tuner for $90, though it requires an web connection to decrypt ATSC 3.0 channels that use DRM. Zinwell’s tuner with offline DRM support, which is offered by Channel Master, prices extra at $149. Anne Schelle, managing director of the Pearl TV broadcast consortium, advised me at CES that we might even see a sub-$50 tuner, however not till someday subsequent 12 months.
Over-the-air DVR assist is restricted as nicely. The most compelling possibility this 12 months might come from an upstart gadget model known as MyVelo TV, which plans to launch a $100 Android TV box with ATSC 3.0 playback and DVR features this spring. For now, although, Bitrouter’s ZapperBox M1 is the one full answer that may play and report encrypted channels. Bitrouter has began transport satellite boxes for whole-home DVR, however the firm’s founder and president, Gopal Miglani, says streaming encrypted channels or recordings from one tuner field to a different remains to be just a few months away.
The MyVelo TV Premiere field and plug-in ATSC 3.0 tuner.
MyVelo TV
You can see an inventory of ATSC 3.0-compatible TVs and tuner packing containers on the WatchNextGenTV website.
OTA HDR expands
4K stays largely non-existent on ATSC 3.0 channels. Delivering broadcasts at that decision requires a variety of further bandwidth, which isn’t possible whereas stations are nonetheless simulcasting in ATSC 1.0.
In the meantime, broadcasters are specializing in HDR, which offers a extra vibrant image by permitting mild and darkish photos to convey extra shade element. More than 80 million properties now have entry to no less than one over-the-air channel with HDR assist, and a few stations are beginning to assist both Dolby Vision or HDR10+, each of which give extra correct shade changes on a per-scene foundation.
The upcoming Super Bowl LIX on Fox needs to be a significant showcase for over-the-air HDR, though it received’t be a local HDR broadcast. Instead it’ll be up-converted from customary dynamic vary, identical to Fox’s live stream on Tubi. (The latter, although, will even be upscaled to 4K, versus 1080p for Fox’s over-the-air broadcast.)
The WatchNextGenTV website enables you to search for close by ATSC 3.0 channels with HDR assist.
Jared Newman / Foundry
To see which ATSC 3.0 stations assist HDR in your space, verify the WatchNextGenTV website. Unfortunately there’s no solution to inform which stations provide HDR10+ or Dolby Vision except your TV offers this info.
Waiting for interactivity
At the CES commerce present final 12 months, a U.Ok.-based firm known as Roxi showed off an impressive demo of ATSC 3.0’s interactive features. Using the usual over-the-air channel information, customers might tune into one in all Roxi’s dwell streaming music channels, then flip by means of row of further genre-based channel choices. Rob Lewis, Roxi’s CEO, mentioned on the time that it was partnering with the foremost broadcaster Sinclair to launch ATSC 3.0 music channels across the nation by that March.
One 12 months later, and people plans haven’t materialized. Sky News reported final 12 months that Roxi was racing to raise money, and was later nearing a deal to sell its assets to a new company called FastStream. (Roxi had beforehand used the “FastStream” name for its underlying technology.) The firm has not responded to requests for remark.
For now, ATSC is pointing to different interactivity developments as a substitute.
Spokesperson Dave Arland mentioned that roughly 100 ATSC 3.0 channels now provide some degree of interactivity—which might be so simple as native climate forecasts—and pointed to pause-and-rewind options that NBC has been providing on its owned-and-operated stations. ATSC will even start providing a “starter” software framework that can assist extra broadcasters provide fundamental options reminiscent of visitors and climate alerts. (It will even assist facilitate the aforementioned knowledge assortment on individuals’s viewing habits.) Meanwhile, a agency known as GameLoop hopes to deliver casual games through ATSC 3.0 later this 12 months.
Still, it’s unclear whether or not these options will do a lot to maneuver the needle for ATSC 3.0. Bitrouter’s Gopal Miglani says interactive options aren’t a significant precedence for the ZapperBox, which doesn’t assist them presently, as a result of the demand isn’t there.
“Not a single customer asks for them,” he mentioned. “It’s not going to help me sell more boxes.”
Should you care about ATSC 3.0?
ATSC 1.0 isn’t going away anytime quickly. FCC guidelines require broadcasters to simulcast their principal stations utilizing the previous customary till no less than July 2027, and on the present fee of ATSC 3.0 adoption, an extension appears attainable.
In the meantime, ATSC 3.0 faces some extra existential questions. For occasion, in case you can stream the Super Bowl totally free in 4K HDR on Tubi, why trouble with an over-the-air ATSC 3.0 model that doesn’t assist 4K (and, relying on tuner {hardware}, would possibly nonetheless require an web connection)? If the foremost networks are already delivering breakthrough interactivity of their streaming apps, what extra might ATSC 3.0’s interactive channels provide? More importantly, what’s the long run for over-the-air TV as networks dial back programming investments and streaming companies gobble up more sports rights?
Without clear solutions to these questions, ATSC 3.0 in all probability received’t rejuvenate over-the-air TV, however these native broadcasts nonetheless have worth of their present type. Thus my recommendation is identical because it’s at all times been: Go with no matter TV or over-the-air DVR most accurately fits your wants at this time, whether or not it helps the brand new broadcast customary or not.
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