LG, co-developer of the ATSC 3.0 next-generation television broadcast standard, has confirmed that all LG Ultra HD TVs now on the market in South Korea already incorporate ATSC 3.0 tuning circuitry. At CES 2018, where the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) officially released the new suite of standards, LG announced plans to support broadcast trials and early deployment testing in the United States during 2018.
Korea adopted the new TV standard in 2017 and leading broadcasters KBS, MBC and SBS launched ATSC 3.0 broadcasting in advance of UHD transmission of next month’s 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang. Since last fall, all new LG UHD TVs and most new LG Smart TVs sold in Korea include dual ATSC 3.0-ATSC 1.0 tuner chips.
LG’s 65UJ750V Ultra HD TV.
To support initial US next-gen TV broadcast deployments, LG said it will leverage its marketplace experience from the launch of next-gen TV in Korea and its technical expertise as co-developer of ATSC 3.0, which has been hailed as the world’s first Internet Protocol-based TV broadcast system.
The US Federal Communications Commission approved key elements of the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard in November 2017 for voluntary implementation of next-gen TV. Technologies developed by LG, along with Zenith, its US R&D subsidiary, are included in all three major layers of the ATSC 3.0 standard. LG contributions are in the majority of the A/322 Physical Layer Standard adopted by the FCC, including the scrambler, forward error correction, bit interleaver, mapper, time interleaver, OFDM framer, frequency interleaver, pilots, reserved tones and guard interval functions.
Hoping to to redefine TV broadcasting for decades to come, the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard is designed to deliver Ultra HD and immersive audio, robust reception on mobile devices and improved spectrum efficiency. The increased payload capacity of the physical layer, combined with HEVC encoding, will allow broadcasters more options for expanding their broadcast service offerings, including business-to-business opportunities in new markets such as the automotive segment.
Development of ATSC 3.0 technology represents the latest digital television innovations by LG and Zenith, long-time supporters of US terrestrial broadcasting, including the A/153 Mobile Digital TV Standard adopted by the industry in 2009. Zenith developed the core transmission system at the heart of today’s ATSC 1.0 A/53 Digital Television Standard, approved by the FCC two decades ago.
