Some time in 2017 you may be able to tune your new TV, smartphone or tablet into a 4K video stream with rich colors and immersive audio. The choice of content may be more varied and personalized than what you are used to from a local broadcaster, too, because it will be based on the same Internet standards used by Netflix and YouTube.

That’s the dream of ATSC 3.0, the next generation of the U.S. terrestrial TV broadcast standard launched 20 years ago. It’s the first TV broadcast standard to embrace IP transport. Past standards used MPEG transport mechanisms, very different from those that carry today’s Web content.

“Having broadcast and Internet similarity makes it easy for content providers to swap ads or content – with MPEG-2, it was a very complex operation,” said Mark Richer, president of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), adding the shift could open up new business models for broadcasters.

ATSC 3.0 also embraces HTML5, at least in part, at its applications layer. “We have gone essentially the Web-based route,” said Richard Chernock who chairs the working groups developing the suite of ATSC 3.0 standards.

Last fall, broadcasters demonstrated one of more than a dozen proposed systems for the physical layer of ATSC in an event attended by EE Times’ Junko Yoshida.

The work comes at a time when viewers are increasingly cutting their cable-TV cords, relying on free and lower cost Internet video services instead. But backers say ATSC will still be relevant. “The ultimate way to cut the cord is to use an antenna,” said Chernock.

Many viewers who have turned off their cable-TV service already supplement their Internet fare with over-the-air digital TV broadcasts based on the existing standards. In addition, ATSC 3.0 will support a spectrum of configurable services broadcasters can employ, said Richer.

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