ATSC Standards Update: Updated Recommended Practice Published

Posted on July 16, 2025 in ATSC News

Since the last issue of The Standard newsletter, an update of Recommended Practice A/327, “Guidelines for the Physical Layer Protocol,” has been published on the ATSC website. The document, A/327:2025-06, includes an amendment on MIMO System Performance Estimation. The amendment provides reference information for MIMO operation, including the underlying channel modeling and characterization.

An updated version of the ATSC 3.0 Interactive Content Candidate Standard has been published. This version, S38-590r4, includes several updates recently approved by TG3/S38. The CS period extend to 11 December 2025.

An ATSC Candidate Standard is a technical document that has received significant review while in Working Draft status. Advancement of a Working Draft to CS is an explicit call for implementation and technical feedback. A CS may be revised during the implementation period by the originating group, which can be a Specialist Group or a Technology Group. The implementation period may be shortened or lengthened by the Technology Group, generally at the recommendation of an authoring Specialist Group, which must explain the reasons for the change.

Two documents were at ballot of the full ATSC membership at this writing:

• S31-487r15, “ATSC Proposed Standard: Revision of A/300:2024-04, ATSC 3.0 System.” This revision of A/300, in addition to the annual reference updates, includes a new Annex B on “ATSC 3.0 Operating Configurations.” The ballot closes on 17 July 2025.
• S32-682r3, “ATSC Proposed Standard: A/322:2024-09 Amendment #1, ATSC 3.0 Errata.” This amendment mainly corrects errata items found in the MIMO, Channel Bonding, and LDM combinations in the physical layer. It also fixes errata items for Subframe and Frame term additions, and LDM Core layer <= Enhanced Layer SNR description. The ballot closes on 28 July 2025.

All ATSC ballots open at 6:00 p.m. ET and close at 11:59 p.m. ET on the closing date. Notification of an open ballot is sent to all voting-eligible members when the ballot opens. Reminders are issued to voters who have not yet voted one week before the close date and again one day before the close date. ATSC staff sends a notification of ballot results on the next business day following the close of the ballot.

ATSC staff are available to answer any questions that members may have on voting.

Posted in ATSC News