In the age of digital media streaming, paying for a cable box or a satellite dish seems antiquated,
and having an actual antenna sticking out of your TV seems downright quaint.
But hold on! You might want to hold on to your old antenna, or maybe even run out and buy a new one.
The broadcast TV industry is preparing to roll out a new standard for over-the-air television
in North America called ATSC 3.0, branded as the thoroughly uncreative next-gen TV.
It's the successor to ATSC 1.0, which was the original standard released during the
digital TV transition of the late 2000s. If you guys were wondering what happened to ATSC 2.0?
Well, it turns out they just never released it. Anywho, ATSC 3.0 has a lot of advantages that
very different from any over-the-air standard that we've seen before.
For starters, you can expect much higher picture quality.
Current digital broadcasts can support a 1080 full HD signal, while ATSC 3.0 can deliver 4K
signals with high dynamic range or HDR and at frame rates of up to 120 frames per second.
It even has support for Dolby Atmos and DTSX on the audio side.
So in other words, it can deliver an experience that is on par with what you'd get on premium
content from a streaming service or even a Blu-ray player. And crazily enough,
it actually does all this while also providing a stronger signal than what we're currently accustomed
to. It uses a trick called ODFM, which is similar to technology used by some newer versions of Wi-Fi.
It works by transmitting at lower data rates, but over multiple frequencies in parallel,
which means less interference and longer range. So it should be easier to pick up channels from
afar, which can be an issue if you don't live really close to a larger city.
However, with great new technology comes great new privacy concerns. Broadcasters are also
leveraging the higher data capacities to keep track of what you're watching.
Now, this technology already exists, and if you own a smart TV or you subscribe to a streaming
service, you're already getting targeted ads based on what you watch. But this is new ground for
over-the-air broadcasting. And you might not think that that's even possible. I mean, whatever's
on the airwaves is what's there, right? Wrong. So the stuff you actually want to watch,
like TV shows and football games, will still come in over your antenna,
but the personalized commercials would be delivered over your home's internet connection
instead. This hybrid OTA and online approach isn't just all about trying to get you to give
advertisers more of your money, though. The fact that your antenna can send a signal back
to TV stations might enable cool options like on-demand content and DVR features,
bringing over-the-air actually closer to streaming services in terms of intrusiveness and features.
And because ATSC 3.0 tuners can connect to your home network,
it should be easy to watch broadcast TV on your phone or your laptop. I mean,
over Wi-Fi, of course, it would look pretty silly if you tried to stick a pair of
rabbit ears onto an iPhone. Although, speaking of which, we might actually see ATSC 3.0 tuners
make their way into smartphones, giving you broadcast TV wherever you go with no subscription
and no data use. It's kind of like those portable TVs they had back in the 90s.
What makes this theme especially likely is that several major smartphone manufacturers
have even contributed to developing ATSC 3.0, so I might end up eating those words I said just a
moment ago. Not that I expect it to happen any time soon. Now, the industry is aiming to get it
deployed in 40 major markets in the US by the end of the year, but it isn't a mandatory standard,
and right now, ATSC 3.0 tuners are very expensive. So for now, I would probably pass on paying the
early adopter tax unless you feel really compelled to bust out the antenna in order to watch all of
garden commercials in 4K. Thanks for watching, guys. Like, dislike, check out our other videos.
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