The US Federal Communications Commission has approved a new
standard for OTA (over-the-air) antenna TV broadcasts. ATSC 3.0,
or Next-Gen TV is supposed to prompt big improvements for
antenna users, including 4K HDR video, better surround sound,
interactive features, and easier access for mobile devices.
In addition, the DRM (digital rights management) portion of ATSC
3.0 is designed to allow broadcasters to provide value-added
services like On-Demand and Pay-Per-View content on a
subscription basis to complement Over-the-Air TV, which will
remain free.
It is in testing now and Phoenix is serving as a model market
for ATSC 3.0. Phoenix currently has more than 20 percent of its
1.8 million TV viewers receiving OTA (antenna) television. Ten
stations in that market will deploy the next-generation TV
standard before April 2018 to demonstrate the viability of the
next-gen system while at the same time continuing to serve
over-the-air viewers with current ATSC 1.0 digital television. Testing
organizations have been testing the standard for a while and
more are expected.
Next-Gen TV also has a bad downside: For the first time, it
allows local broadcasters to lock down content with digital
rights management (DRM), potentially preventing people from
recording free, over-the-air channels. Some stations in South
Korea, for instance, are already using ATSC 3.0 to broadcast 4K
video, and those feeds are encrypted to prevent unauthorized
copying.
All this will require
new hardware to view ATSC 3.0, because the standard is not
backward compatible with current tuners. That could mean another
round of converter boxes or dongles, only without the government
subsidies that helped push the analog-to-digital transition a
few years ago.
Bottom line, all of
this means interactive 4K TV over the air, no internet provider
required. Obviously content will be restricted by the big guys,
but cord cutters will finally be able to go back to the old days
of free, but limited TV, with a few extra goodies and excellent
sound and picture quality thrown in. Stay tuned, it will be a
few years before we experience it in our living rooms