If you want to continue getting free TV broadcasts, you’ll either need to get a new TV or use an adapter.
That’s because a new digital broadcast standard, called ATSC 3.0, is already in the works. But you actually don’t have to start worrying about it quite yet, since we’re still about two years away from a final standard.
Why the new broadcast standard? The ATSC 1.0 standard was developed more than 20 years ago, before most people had any idea of the prominent role the Internet, streaming video, and mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones would play in how we watch TV. To accommodate these, and other, shifts in TV viewing, the broadcast industry started working on a new, more modern digital transmission system that can simultaneously deliver signals to both fixed and mobile devices.
There are several advantages to ATSC 3.0 digital broadcast standard. For one, it uses TV spectrum more efficiently than the current standard, and it includes better compression. That will enable broadcasters to transmit higher-quality 4K signals with high-quality, immersive audio to those with Ultra HD TVs.
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