3 Further, at the moment, there are no open-sourced AC-4 software decoders. Unfortunately, AC-4 hardware support is limited and, even where nominally included, may not be fully tested. Additionally, AC-4 can support up to 7.2+4 audio channels or spacial audio objects using side signals. Dolby AC-4 supports up to 5.1 core audio channels by default. But most broadcasts appear to be in Dolby AC-4 format. The ATSC 3.0 standard includes support for Dolby AC-4 and MPEG-H 3D Audio. Dolby Digital enables up to 5.1 channels for audio. AudioĪTSC 1.0 specifies the Dolby Digital AC-3 (A/52) codec for audio. ATSC 3.0’s support of wide color gamut and HDR mean that users will see higher contrast video with less color banding. More importantly, video resolutions up to 2160p are supported at up to 120fps. Similarly, far less storage is needed if you record TV shows with a DVR. 2 For consumers, if your player is able to filter a broadcast by the desired content stream (PID), this could lead to significantly less bandwidth required to distribute video streams within your home network. 4-5 channels of 1080p content rather than 480i content). Or, they can deliver higher quality subchannels (e.g. For broadcasters, this means less capacity is required to deliver the same quality content, so they can deliver more subchannels of content. For example, a 4 Mb/sec HEVC stream can provide comparable visual quality to a 16 Mb/sec HD MPEG-2 stream.

As a result, ATSC 3.0 broadcasts at a given resolution are much smaller than the same video feed from an ATSC 1.0 broadcast.

ATSC 1.0 includes support for three video resolutions: 480i, 720p, and 1080i.ĪTSC 3.0 uses a much more efficient codec, the High Efficiency Video Codec (HEVC). VideoĪTSC 1.0 uses the ancient MPEG-2 codec to encode video. Notably, TV broadcasters can now deliver content with very high visual quality, comparable to over-the-top video services like Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, or Amazon Prime Video. 1 ATSC 1.0 v 3.0Ī brief overview video, below, explains the key benefits of ATSC 3.0:īecause I am a videophile, I will focus primarily on ATSC 3.0’s new video and audio features. To receive ATSC 3.0 broadcasts, you will need either a new TV that includes an ATSC 3.0 tuner or an ATSC 3.0 convertor box, such as the HDHomeRun QUATRO 4K. Additionally, the ATSC 3.0 standard includes new datacasting capabilities. 4K) video with high dynamic range (HDR) as well as support for 7.2+4 channel audio. The ATSC 3.0 standard includes support for ultra high resolution (i.e. The next generation of over-the-air broadcast television is based on the ATSC 3.0 standard, branded NextGen TV.

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