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FCC Approves Next-Gen ATSC 3.0 TV Standard (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the new-and-improved dept.

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.

18 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Goodbye TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    " make personal data collection and targeted ads possible."

    You can go F yourself right there and then.

    1. Re:Goodbye TV by BlueStrat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      " make personal data collection and targeted ads possible."

      You can go F yourself right there and then.

      Thankfully I stopped watching TV about a decade and a half ago so I won't have to go 'cold turkey' like some people I know who watch TV anytime they aren't actively doing something that would preclude it. A friend just spent around $3.5-$4K for this huge, curved, super-high-resolution/4K-blah-blah-blah monster "smart" TV that takes up an entire side of a not-small living room. I told him "you should have asked me to help research it for you first", as he knows I'm far, far more tech-savvy and usually does ask with most "tech" things, but he got excited at the store and made an impulse buy.

      Not sure I want to be the one to tell him it's already nearly obsolete. He's still in shock about the privacy issues with such an "always listening/watching smart-TV" that I both told him and emailed him links to relevant information about.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    2. Re:Goodbye TV by BlueStrat · · Score: 3, Informative

      I don't get it. How is his TV nearly obsolete?

      From TFS: "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."

      Granted, 3-5 years may not exactly be "almost nearly obsolete" depending on how you define it, but somewhere around a $4K investment should, to many people's way of thinking, last longer than their kid's goldfish.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    3. Re: Goodbye TV by Miamicanes · · Score: 2

      TFS is also full of shit. Your current TV will work with a cablebox-like external tuner just fine. The TV's INTERNAL tuner will be useless, but you can just ignore it.

      In theory, an external ATSC3.0 tuner can use the HDMI CEC stream to implement features like "turn the TV on in an emergency"... but it probably will require 6 hours of online research, an hour or two of configuration, and enough luck to have a TV whose mfr. DIDN'T botch its implementation of things like HDMI-CEC (the way AVR mfrs. TOTALLY fucked up HDMI audio passthrough and sold dysfunctional gear advertising support for it for 2-3 years, circa 2009-2012, before finally getting it right).

  2. gee wizz by Rainwulf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder who the real beneficiaries of this policy really are...

  3. Just great. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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. . . .
    1. Re:Just great. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The writers of Max Headroom read that idea in the telescreens of Orwell's 1984. Only members of the Inner Party were allowed to have off switches.

    2. Re:Just great. by dwywit · · Score: 2

      There's got to be a way to poison the data that the advertisers hope to reap from this technology. Presumably the TV will be able to tell if it's a real-live person watching, and not a blow-up doll.

      I think I'll order one of those Nexus-9 replicants.

      "Joi, when I'm at work, I want you to sit and watch {vapid daytime TV}. Show interest in {ads for stuff I'll never buy}. Turn it off when I get home, then we can go for a walk and discuss philosophy."

      --
      They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
    3. Re:Just great. by Snotnose · · Score: 2

      From TFA: The new standard would also let broadcasters activate a TV set that is turned off to send emergency alerts.

      I first learned of these alerts 5-6 years ago, when I was woken up at 3 AM to some godawful noise my phone was making. It was an Amber alert, for some kid that went missing in the bay area. 500 miles from where I live. Dafuq, you think I'm gonna get up in the middle of the night and drive around looking for a sketchy picture with a kid in a car you think is a 90's K-car?

      I've disabled these emergency alerts on every phone I've owned since then. If you can't use common sense when sending an alert, I can't be bothered to notice your alert.

  4. This probably won't help by bobstreo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re: This probably won't help by Miamicanes · · Score: 4, Informative

      Shows will be broadcast with a default ad, but if your ATSC 3.0 tuner has internet connectivity and it can fill an ad customized to your interests, it'll download the ad over the internet, then seamlessly replace the default ad with the targeted one.

      So, opt in & connect, and see ads for videogames (or whatever else you're into). Do nothing, and see ads for tampons.

    2. Re: This probably won't help by Mal-2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Set up your own in-house "ad server" and intercept the call. Each home-brewed "ad" features only a countdown until it ends, or maybe it gives you 30 seconds of RSS feed. Take the hook provided for the benefit of the advertisers, and use it against them.

      --
      How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
    3. Re: This probably won't help by whit3 · · Score: 2

      The only way I can imagine that anyone could force you to watch commercials is if they treated you like Robot Chicken. That is, strapped you into a chair and held your eyelids open. Otherwise, you always have a choice.

      Shush! Ajit Pal has access to this feed, it is NOT A SECURE CHANNEL.

  5. ATSC 2.0? by aaron44126 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  6. Re:Broadcast TV? So Fred Flintstone... by Mal-2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.
  7. Re:Internet Connected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Since no TV set will ever have my wifi password, this sounds like a potentially good thing.

    ...unless they require every television to have an internet connection.

  8. I call bullshit by knorthern+knight · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  9. Re:Broadcast TV? So Fred Flintstone... by AsylumWraith · · Score: 2

    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.