ATSC 3.0 To Comprise Suite of 20 Standards, Says Technology Group Chairman

Though people generally have called ATSC 3.0 the next-generation broadcast TV standard, it actually will be a suite of about 20 standards, said Rich Chernock, chairman of ATSC Technology Group 3, the committee that's supervising ATSC 3.0 standards development, in a blog post. “When considering what the architecture for the ATSC 3.0 documents will be, think of standards like toolboxes,” said Chernock, chief science officer at Triveni Digital. “When you’re faced with a plumbing task, your ability to reach into a box containing plumber’s tools only is quite helpful, as opposed to a box containing a jumble of electrical, woodworking and plumbing tools.” ATSC 3.0 specs will cover “an entire next-generation broadcasting system, from the RF transmission through presentation to the viewer or listener and all the necessary items in between,” Chernock said. “All told, the documentation for ATSC 3.0 will easily be in excess of 1,000 pages. As you might imagine, a single monolithic document of this size would be very difficult to create, to manage and especially to read. This is one of the reasons it makes sense to have a suite of standards, covering different aspects of the overall ATSC 3.0 system.”