Comment by toast0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toast0 | Hacker News Reader

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> Viewers can experience some of the benefits of ATSC 3.0, like higher resolutions, without needing a new ATSC 3.0 compatible TV or tuner.

How many TVs/tuners are compatible with HEVC over ATSC 1.0 is a real question I have. I'm pretty sure my computer based tuners would be fine; AIUI, it's still an mpeg transport stream, and demultiplexing doesn't care about the codec, and my player app can figure that out (or not, but I think it would), but I don't know if even my recent atsc 1.0 only tvs know about this and they do have the codecs supported for smart tv.

Otoh, if they're broadcasting in ac-3 audio instead of ac-4 that's common on atsc 3.0, that's a big compatability win. I can't get ac-4 to work well at all.

> How many TVs/tuners are compatible with HEVC over ATSC 1.0?

Great question to which I don’t know the answer. My intuition is the video decoder is the compatibility limiter but it’s beyond my expertise but not my interest.

this Q is covered in the longer-form interview, but in short, here's what I've seen and heard from audience feedback:

-If it's a UHD TV, and has an ATSC1 tuner, it seems everything we test or encounter will decode HEVC pictures, up to 2160p, at up to 30 FPS

-If it's a 1080 only TV, but has usb/sd/mmc card support, and made after 2020, it's likely that it'll decode HEVC up to 1080p30

-If it's a 1080 but made between 2013 and 2020ish, and has usb/mmc/sd/etc, it's likely it'll at least decode AVC up to 1080p60

If someone is using a USB or network tuner, and decoding on something like a computer, laptop, tablet, etc. with software like the VideoLAN CLient (VLC), the "Channels" app (for hdhomerun units), or ffplay/etc. then it's totally likely everything will work up to the limits of their system. That seems to be 2160p30 at least, today, but likely p60 if they've got a semi-recent GPU or fast enough cpu to decode & push frames around to their display.

https://www.rabbitears.info/screencaps/or-eug/185855-0_0.htm

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