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FCC Approves Next-Gen ATSC 3.0 TV Standard (reuters.com)
New submitter mikeebbbd writes: "U.S. regulators on Thursday approved the use of new technology that will improve picture quality on mobile phones, tablets and television, but also raises significant privacy concerns by giving advertisers dramatically more data about viewing habits," reports Reuters. ATSC3.0 will apparently make personal data collection and targeted ads possible. New TVs will be necessary, and broadcasters will need to transmit both ATSC 2.0 (the current standard) for 3 to 5 years before turning off the older system. For now, the conversion is voluntary. There appears to be no requirement (as there was when ATSC 2.0 came out) for low-cost adapter boxes to make older TVs work; once a channel goes ATSC 3.0-only, your old TV will not display it any more.
" make personal data collection and targeted ads possible."
You can go F yourself right there and then.
I wonder who the real beneficiaries of this policy really are...
From TFA:
The new standard would also let broadcasters activate a TV set that is turned off to send emergency alerts.
One step to closer to the world of Max Headroom where TVs are required to be on all the time ("off" switches are banned) and the country is run by an oligarchy of television networks - enabled by their butt-boy FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.
Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan said the new technology “contemplates targeted advertisements that would be ‘relevant to you and what you actually might want to see.’
Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the new technology would force consumers to buy new televisions. “The FCC calls this approach market driven. That’s right — because we will all be forced into the market for new television sets or devices.”
Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc last month called the new standard “the Holy Grail” for the advertiser because it tells them who is watching and where.
I'm too annoyed to even comment on these, but I'm not buying a new TV so I can be more easily spied on.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
... that tells you wheter if it's good for *us*...
Meanwhile they are hemorrhaging users to the internet.
I haven't had cable in years, I don't even watch local TV because it's also garbage.
Focus on improving the user experience rather than exploiting them and i may give a shit.
Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan said the new technology “contemplates targeted advertisements that would be ‘relevant to you and what you actually might want to see.’
(Although it seems this representative does have the appropriate last name for her apparent level of intelligence.)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Cable which can barely do 1080i on a good day. I have seen some broadcasts that were less thsn 480
How will the new TV with ATSC 3.0 broadcast TV spy/target ads at me if it isn't on Wifi or ethernet?
According to this article
https://www.cnet.com/news/atsc-3-0-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-future-of-broadcast-television/
They will be able to send you targeted ads because "most devices will be Internet-connected". That is, they're using the internet connection to identify each individual viewer. Smart TV's for everyone!
Dumb consumer sheep. ... PAY for it.
Not only do they watch TV
Not only do they watch adverts
Not only are they on an upgrade treadmill
Not only do they get spied on while they’re watching
They PAY
Absolutely pitiful.
You cut the cord to get away from set-top boxes and fees from your cable provider and the co$t - now you get to pay for a set-top-box for every TV.. again? The broadcasters are saying this will pave the way to 4K yet right now they can't even send 1080p. This is just another driver for the hardware manufacturers (aka China) to get you to spend more money. When will it end?
Here is a link... it all looks good but look at the 7th and 8th bullet - Good News!! =P
http://www.antennasdirect.com/blog/atsc-3-0-laymans-terms/
TV was really great back in the day, but it's already on its last elbows anyway.
I was already pretty sure I was never going to buy another TV (No, I'm not that guy--I still have one).
Just a note... The broadcast standard currently in use is ATSC 1.0. The new one recently approved is ATSC 3.0. ATSC 2.0 (mentioned in the article) actually died on the vine somewhere.
It has been years since I have watched TV (cable or broadcast), but as far as I am aware there remains now only one broadcaster still actively transmitting within a 100 miles of here to even receive anyway, and they are exclusively a 24/7 advertising platform. I think broadcast TV already died, so how relevant is this?
Broadcast television is far from dead. I live in a "fringe reception" area for the Los Angeles broadcast area, and still receive in excess of 100 channels including subcarriers.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
The FCC makes another move on its quest to empower major corporations at the expense of the American people.
If this FCC signed off on it then it must include a mechanism to charge people for higher than color 240i video.
What is broadcast?
Analog broadcast is dead. Digital is working great in my neck of the woods. DB4 antenna and a RadioShack pre-amp. Dropped cable 4 years ago when they wanted to encrypt the broadcast channels. I'm not paying multiple monthly fees just to watch the broadcast channels. We haven't regretted it.
That's not really feasible. TV transmission antennas are not designed to receive, and OTA TV antennas are not designed to transmit. That's not to say it's impossible, but you're going to have to push out a LOT of power on the TV side to get signal back to the TV tower. I don't think TV manufacturers are going to squeeze in 100W linear RF amplifiers in their nice, slim LCD televisions.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
"ultra-high definition picture quality and more interactive programming, like new educational content for children and multiple angles of live sporting events."
There are some benefits. Besides, I watch so little network TV that it really won't affect me. Plus, I'm pretty sure my TV is going to have a really hard time connecting to the internet for some unknown reasons.
It has been years since I have watched TV (cable or broadcast),
You may be l337, but
but as far as I am aware there remains now only one broadcaster still actively transmitting within a 100 miles of here to even receive anyway, and they are exclusively a 24/7 advertising platform.
but your broadcast area is not. Where I live, I can get 72 stations (including subcarriers). Most are crap but some have something worth watching from time to time, like last weekend's marathon of unsold pilots. That's obscure entertainment you'll not find on the 'net,
I think broadcast TV already died, so how relevant is this?
Just because TV is beneath you does not mean it is for the world at large. But in any case, you misunderstand what is meant by "broadcasters." I suggest that you read (or re-read) TFA, especially the last four paragraphs.
1) We are currently on ATSC 1.0 (which replaced NTSC). There was a proposed ATSC 2.0 (although ATSC 1.1 might be a more appropriate name) with incremental improvements, and backwards compatable. It was abandoned before being implemented. Version 3.0 is a radical re-write, done from a clean slate, and hence incompatable.
2) My condo, north of Toronto, has an unobstructed view of the CN Tower, where the Toronto local TV stations all have their antennas. It's 17.5 km (almost 11 miles) distant. The properly-tuned TV transmitter antennas are cranking out hundreds of kilowatts ERP, and they don't always come in on my digital indoor antenna. (Silver Sensor log periodic). Does anybody competent really believe that a wide-band log-periodic table-top antenna, outputting a few milliwatts, will be received properly by the transmitter 11 miles away? Especially if tens of thousands of other antennas are watching the same show? bwaaahaaahaaahaaa
I also have a direct view to Grand Island, New York, where most Buffalo TV stations have their transmitter antennas. That's approximately 80 km (50 miles) distant. But from my 6th floor window, the reception is quite decent. We go from the ridiculous to the sublime, claiming that an antenna 50 miles away can recieve my few milliwatts sent back over a log periodic table-top antenna.
And we haven't even begun to consider a modded tuner that suppresses the return signal.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Today, there is no spare bandwidth so who will get kicked out of HD when they go to channel sharing?? MAX 2 HD (maybe 3) + some SD subs.
1 HD + 5-6 SD subs.
Some locals may go HD only on cable / satellite tv (unless you have an 3.0 TV)
will we get 4K OTA or just have the sub channels go HD? More sub channels?
The standard allows for multiple broadcast streams and for internet delivery of video. It can allow one of several simultaneously broadcast advertisements to be selected, and an internet connected smart TV can also download an advertisement to display. If your TV isn't connected, it's not very different from existing ATSC, since it doesn't involve your TV sending data back via the TV broadcast (which would be very unlikely to work).
The real issue, not described here, is whether there will be a "broadcast flag" prohibiting recording and skipping of advertising. Last I heard, that was still an open question, but Idiot Pie will no doubt do the worst possible thing, so... Yeah.
ATSC 3.0
Ultimately, it has been decided that H.264 would not be considered for ATSC-3.0, but rather the newer MPEG-H HEVC / H.265 codec would be used instead, with OFDM instead of 8VSB for modulation, allowing for 28 Mbit/s to 36 Mbit/s or more of bandwidth on a single 6-MHz channel.
tl;dr: They finally really did it. Those maniacs! They blew it up! God damn them! God damn them all to hell!
I sure hope I'll be able to get tuner cards with Linux drivers for my MythTV.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
From TFA:
Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc last month called the new standard “the Holy Grail” for the advertiser because it tells them who is watching and where.
And who is Sinclair Broadcast Group? Sort of Rupert Murdoch meets the Koch Brothers. From Wikipedia:
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Oh, you were talking about the "legacy" signal on older transmitters. This is going to be really shitty when it happens. ATSC hasn't even been officially up for 10 years yet, and they're already planning a completely incompatible upgrade, with the only bone thrown to the previous system being lumping a bunch of signals onto a single transmitter that could barely handle five reduced resolution channels?
This isn't exactly the UK 405-line standard here, it's the super-duper replacement for an analog system that lasted over 60 years, with backward-compatible color video and stereo audio, that they went to a lot of trouble to switch over from.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I can get about 20 channels from a small uhf antenna out the window. It doesn't matter: Nobody uses it. I used to have a mythtv setup that could record everything, and we used to watch stuff together, but after a while nobody used it, nobody could be bothered to set up recording of anything. The kids and wife will not watch on anyone else's schedule, especially if they can't pause it, and they can find everything they are interested in online. Yeah, broadcast really is feeling flintstone. With Netflix and even local news on youtube live, there is nothing on local tv to watch. My perfectly serviceable HDTV with amplifier is disconnected, and nobody said boo. Just don't mess with the internet though!
That's an unusally large number of channels to have OTA. Last I checked I had like 20 including the subchannels and I'm living in a major city. Cities where there's more than that have to be extremely large to justify that many channels.
So new televisions will have a report-to-base component: How will this be implemented?
Does the new standard have a dedicated 'reporting' radio frequency? That will require broadcast networks to build an array of receivers: Little surprise the FCC is allowing them to merge, although it is difficult to imagine a broadcast network building infrastructure. An antenna array can, of course, be used to associate a television to a specific household.
Will home network/wi-fi connections (or worse, cell phone) be mandatory, allowing the manufacturer/ broadcaster to perform any surveillance they desire? Bonus, many televisions already have the necessary hardware, so this requires the minimum change to manufacturing.
So the broadcaster can't totally deactivate the Tv because a network cable is unplugged. But who wants their bedroom Tv to broadcast an Amber alert at 2 AM, for a child that is 400 km away?
Unfortunately, ATSC 3.0 won't support native transmisson in formats like 720p50 in the US, so we're STILL stuck with ugly, lurching judder when watching shows shot at 25 or 50fps.
AFAIK, ATSC *also* declined to require the ability to seamlessly change formats on the fly (so they can't broadcast a football game in 1080p60, then seamlessly switch to 2160p30 for a primetime TV show). Apparently, the blame lies with HDMI... as of 1.4a (not sure about 2.x), switching modes triggers HDCP re-authentication & blacks out the screen for several seconds every time there's a mode change. So requiring support for on-the-fly switching (or at least, actually USING it) would break support for older TVs (or at least, cause you to miss several seconds every time there was a mode-change).
Basically, this means broadcasters are STILL going to pick one mode and force everything to use it... so forget about 1080p120 sports and 2160p30 TV shows on the same channel. And 24fps content will STILL be 3:2 telecined to force it into 60fps, even if the TV is perfectly capable of showing it at its native timing.
... they still broadcast TV over radio waves? Really? Do I wait for my pager to buzz while I watch?
worst case with that is some may lose locals in HD even on cable / sat systems.
Now what about big markets will pbs be pushed out on 1.0? WGN / FOX / NBC / MyNetworkTV / CBS / ABC / WCIU all in SD on the sole 1.0 channel (no sub channels and no PBS no Spanish and no ION maybe they can the main feed of all at the most shit PQ there is)
My fox O&O mess-ups often when there is an local weather alerts (just with the on screen over lays) and local shows are only in DD 2.0.
Mode changes also can mess other sub channels and local cable systems that pass though the local feed.
what about Canada?? some areas are still on full power analog will they jump to 3.0 or just move to 1.0 for the TV transmitters slated to transition to digital OTA TV between 2019 and 2022
TV transmitter antennas are optimized to transmit on one frequency. For synchronous two-way, you'd have to receive on a different frequency, which the transmitter antenna wouldn't be optimized for. It would have to be something weird, like an eighth-wave or something, which would probably be out-of-band for TV.
TV reception antennas are designed to receive a range of frequencies. Wide-band reception antennas don't make very good transmission antennas, except maybe at the center of the frequencies they are tuned for.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
I live in the DFW area, (fourth largest metro in the US, LA is second,) and get 88, including subcarriers. A listing I was able to google shows that Kansas City MO has nearly a hundred. Even Rochester, (hardly a "major" city,) gets eight.
If you're in a major metro area and only get 20 channels, you either have some very odd topography in your surrounding area, or your antenna is broken.
It's probably the topography, but we never had more than 6 stations to begin with. I've looked around and there's not much out there. There's maybe a half-dozen or so antennas out there that broadcast.
But, if there's that many carriers in other parts of the country, why does anybody bother with cable?
It has been years since I have watched TV (cable or broadcast), but as far as I am aware there remains now only one broadcaster still actively transmitting within a 100 miles of here to even receive anyway, and they are exclusively a 24/7 advertising platform. I think broadcast TV already died, so how relevant is this?
I get 23 channels OTA and installed software on a spare Linux computer to automatically record any shows I'm interested in. Cost me all of $60 in hardware including antenna with $0 recurring cost. If I want to play something it recorded I can download mpeg files or stream to VLC anywhere or just use Kodi PVR front end on the TV. I'm not exactly sure what there is not to like or outdated or out of style or whatever about this. The overall trendline for OTA viewership is increasing. OTA is not only not going away it is actually growing.
It's not like you can go to some website and download the same programming for free and even if you could they are not going to give you a clear mpeg stream and it is going to be way more complicated on big screen than simply picking from a list of crap that you want recorded. I'm sure there are youtube channels and pirate IPTV feeds... not something I care to waste my time perusing.
Of course YMMV. All depends on where you live and how much you give a shit about TV in the first place. If you live anywhere near a major city and you just assume OTA is "dead" or pointless you probably have no idea what your missing out on.
Part of ATSC 3.0, the standard A/323 defines a wireless uplink transmitter, supporting the Internet Protocol, built into your TV set, operating on a different frequency band than the downlink broadcast signal which contains the video stream.
By implementing this standard, a TV becomes a two-way communication device even if you don't plug it into Ethernet or WiFi.
My main complaint over ATSC 3.0's omission of on-the-fly mode switching is the fact that they could have EASILY worked around the HDMI problem by having the TUNER transform everything into a specific mode (if the user desires).
IMHO, the new standard SHOULD have required that compliant tuners be able to deal with content that freely switches between modes like 720p120, 1080p60, and 2160p30 on the fly as appropriate for the content (720p120 for live-acton sports that need realtime encoding, 2160p30 for primetime TV shows that are pre-encoded in non-realtime, 1080p60 for most other stuff), then leave it up to the tuner box to transcode everything into a single mode (say, 2160p120 or 1080p60) if the TV can't handle on-the-fly mode changes.
The difference is, real 2160p120 needs a staggering amount of bitrate & processing power to ENCODE in realtime to h.265 prior to broadcast, but scaling UNCOMPRESSED bitmap frames is computationally-trivial. If the BROADCASTER has to do it, everything that wasn't 2160p120 has to be re-compressed. If the BOX does it, it can scale the uncompressed frame, then dump it straight to HDMI.
I also wish ATSC 3.0 did a better job of embedding metadata to help advanced receivers un-do the damage caused by scaling & re-encoding prior broadcast. For example, if the broadcaster took 30fps source and tweened it to 60fps or 120fps, receivers should be able to tell the difference between "real" frames & "synthesized" frames so they can throw away the synthetic frames and implement THEIR OWN (better, or at least user-configurable) algorithm for doing it. Or if 50fps-native content gets telecined to 60fps, tag the original frames so someone with a higher-end receiver and display capable of native 50fps can just buffer 5 frames, ignore the doubled sixth frame, and output the 5 frames ~100ms later at real 50fps (or locally-tweened to 100fps).
Yeah, a receiver can "sort of" sniff out the duplicate frames by examining the existing flags, but in practice this only works WELL if the content is a 24fps Hollywood movie (specifically, the movie itself... extras usually break the algorithms). For other content, the algorithms completely fall off the rails due to sloppy editing or splices made further down the pipeline. Keep the source video pristine (or at least, easily-restorable to its pristine state), and let the VIEWER's hardware do the heavy lifting.
Perfect example: "stretch-o-vision" vs pillarboxing. With ATSC 1.x, there's no easy way for a receiver to auto-detect 4:3 content stretched to 16:9 so it can de-stretch and pillarbox it instead. If the broadcaster decides to pre-stretch some (but not all) content & you HATE stretching, you're just fucked... if you're lucky, you can manually toggle de-stretching, but the TV can't do it automatically. With proper metadata documenting upstream transformations that have already taken place, the receiver end could undo those transformations automatically.
Except for news and reruns of the Big Bang Theory, there's nothing on tv, so if all the channels go dead due to ATSC 3.0, I won't miss much.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
âoeI donâ(TM)t wanna be spied-on...â
...said the people all using internet connections to read and post stuff, somehow blissfully unaware of how many people are spying on them every second of their online time, as well as most of their offline time. The only meaningful protection your privacy has in this modern world is that most of you are not interesting enough to warrant the attention.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Live sports would be about the only reason I would want to have cable or satellite TV. Baseball works well enough on the radio, but hockey? Not so much.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Analog TV was compatible for 60 years. Even B&W sets could receive color TV.
But since we have gone digital, format rot has set in fast. Now standards change every 5 years, and the old box becomes obsolete. Welcome to planned obsolescence.
Overall, if you like free TV, its a benefit, and a far better value than spending $10-50 per month on pay TV subscriptions (whether cable or netflix). Using better compression will allow more channels to be crammed in. The new modulation scheme allows for mobile TV use, and better resist multipath interference which is a big problem in cities. Also, the modulation scheme will allow repeater stations to be set up so that they can bring a better signal out to fringe areas. .
I would be pretty sure, that tuner adapters will be marketed for being able to decode off the air ATSC 3.0 and feed in to an older TVs ports. Getting dozens of new channels will be well worth the one time $50 for an adapter (compare to the hundreds of dollars people spend per year on pay TV (internet or traditional) subscriptions).
The advertising issue should be put in perspective, every time you use Youtube or Netflix, you dont think that this is happening? Broadcast TV is also not bidirectional, so you would need to have an Internet connection. Just don't plug the TV into the internet if it bothers you. So its easier to avoid the privacy issue than internet services. In this way, its somewhat better than Youtube since you can still get the TV signal without sending any data the other way by simply not plugging the TV to the internet.
ATSC was an enforced change, ostensibly to free up frequencies for other uses. Will ATSC 3.0 be a required change for all broadcasters?
The majority of people who get their TV are probably paying a cable company to deliver it, so won't be affected by any changes in over the air signals.
I've got a 55 inch TV connected to a TiVo Romio. I watch a wide variety of programs in a wide variety of formats. I've been surprised it how good a 720p video can look on the screen, while also surprised at the differences in football coverage quality even on the same network between the top games and the bottom games.
What's the benefit to the local station in upgrading their broadcast equipment, if they might be cutting off a significant portion of their viewers?
If ATSC 3.0 was a cable company standard, I'd understand it much more..
I didn't think that there would be anything worse than forced Windows 10 (And other product) spying. Holy Shit large companies are beyond scum.
Microsoft, Roomba, Google just to start.
We suck.
I only have "cable" (actually Uverse TV) part of the year to get certain sports (not NFL, FWIW) for my elderly mother to watch. I otherwise stick to OTA ATSC on my MythTV. One of the local OTA sub-channels (on the ION station) is qubo, but it's on an upper tier to receive over pay TV, and I couldn't receive it that way if I wanted without paying more money.
Cable TV was originally about receiving TV in mountainous areas where a normal antenna wouldn't work; now it has become the no-brain option for five hundred channels of crap you don't watch so that you can pay a hundred bucks a month for the five you do watch.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }