ATSC Standards Update: New Recommended Practice Published
Earlier this month a new Recommended Practice was approved by the ATSC membership. A/371:2025-11, “ Delivery of ATSC 3.0 Services for Redistribution,” describes methods for transporting ATSC 3.0 Services for Redistribution, including both Direct Feed distribution and over-the-air (OTA) delivery, ensuring smooth distribution to service operators such as MVPDs, Virtual MVPDs, and other similar service providers. In this framework, content feeds such as those managed by STLTP, DSTP, and Essence handlers play a critical role, facilitating the secure and seamless delivery of ATSC 3.0 content to service operators. Additionally, the RP incorporates OTA delivery as a failover mechanism, enabling (v)MVPDs to maintain access to ATSC 3.0 Services in the event of primary distribution interruptions, ensuring high signal quality for downstream distribution to end-users. While this Recommended Practice is intended to cover all ATSC 3.0 features and how they may be delivered to a (v)MVPD by OTA reception or by Direct Feed, not all (v)MVPDs have the ability, for technical reasons, to carry all ATSC 3.0 features described in the document. Such situations are often subject to commercial agreements, which are beyond the scope of the RP. A/371:2025-11 was drafted by TG3/S37, the Specialist Group on Conversion and Redistribution of ATSC 3.0 Services. It joins the group’s other document, A/370:2025-07, “Conversion of ATSC 3.0 Services for Redistribution,” on the ATSC web site.
A new version of A/342 Part 3, “MPEG-H System,” has been published on the ATSC web site. A/342-3:2025-10 includes changes intended to align the standard with Brazil’s TV 3.0 specification of MPEG-H Audio. A/342-3 specified use of the Low Complexity profile of MPEG-H Audio but Brazil opted to use the newer and more lightweight Baseline profile, which is a subset of the LC Profile used in A/342-3 (i.e., no new functionality). Fielded devices will ignore anything signaled as Baseline profile, so there are no compatibility issues.
Posted in ATSC News
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