WASHINGTON, D.C.—The SBTVD Forum, the non-profit organization that advises the Brazilian government on digital television and policy matters, is recommending the selection of the ATSC 3.0 physical layer as the over-the-air transmission system for the nation’s TV 3.0 next-generation terrestrial broadcast service, ATSC said today.
“We are deeply gratified by the SBTVD Forum’s recommendation of the ATSC 3.0 physical layer for over-the-air broadcasting,” said ATSC president Madeleine Noland. “ATSC is also excited about the opportunity to work with the Forum and Brazilian stakeholders in fully documenting, developing and deploying TV 3.0 in Brazil.”
The recommendation follows extensive field testing conducted by the forum between December 2023 and May of two candidate technologies under consideration for TV 3.0’s physical layer. After a thorough evaluation, which considered all data collected since the beginning of the project in 2020, the Technical, Market and Intellectual Property Modules of the SBTVD Forum unanimously decided to recommend the ATSC 3.0 physical layer to the Ministry of Communications, ATSC said.
The physical layer joins five other key ATSC 3.0 technologies already selected by the SBTVD Forum as recommendations for mandatory inclusion in the TV 3.0 system, including: ROUTE/DASH transport; MPEG-H audio; IMSC1 captions; HDR10 High Dynamic Range with optional dynamic HDR metadata based on SMPTE ST 2094-10 and SMPTE ST 2094-40; and ATSC 3.0 Advance Emergency Alerting, it said.
Other ATSC technologies selected for only the TV 3.0 broadband component include:
- H.265/HEVC Video Base Layer Encoding
- HLG High Dynamic Range Video (optional)
- SL-HDR1 High Dynamic Range Video (optional)
- AC-4 Audio (optional)
The physical layer recommendation is the final technology component in the TV 3.0 Project’s selection process that began in July 2020 with a Call for Proposals.
“The recommendations of technologies for TV 3.0 are the result of four years of exemplary work by the SBTVD Forum in soliciting, evaluating and carefully selecting components for TV 3.0,” said Skip Pizzi, chair of ATSC’s Brazil Implementation Team.
“We’re proud to see so many elements of ATSC 3.0—in the physical, transport and content layers—chosen to become part of Brazil’s next-gen broadcast TV standard, and we anticipate that the TV 3.0 decisions might ultimately have regional impact beyond Brazil.”
The SBTVD Forum (Fórum do Sistema Brasileiro de TV Digital Terrestre) is composed of private and public companies that include broadcasters, manufacturers, software developers and members from academia. It makes recommendations to the Brazilian Ministry of Communications on DTV technology and policy.
“We have valued the opportunity to share experiences and exchange ideas with our colleagues in Brazil throughout this four-year selection process,” said Noland. “We have learned a great deal and are looking forward to continued collaboration. And we are gearing up to showcase ATSC 3.0 at the annual SET Expo broadcast trade show in São Paulo beginning Aug. 20.”
More information is available on the ATSC website.
