The
Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has called on the FCC to update its DTV standard to reflect ATSC’s partition of the standard into six sections. ATSC says the six-way divide will facilitate future changes and enhancements to the standard.
The six parts of the ATSC A/53 standard govern the overall DTV broadcast system; RF and transmission system characteristics; service multiplex and transport subsystem characteristics; MPEG-2 video; the AC-3 audio system; and enhanced AC-3 audio.
Partitioning the standard allows revision of one part without impacting the rest, ATSC says, and additional parts may be added later as future enhancements arise.
ATSC also told the FCC that it is working to add new functionality to the DTV standard. ATSC-M/H, for example, will enable broadcast delivery of television and data to mobile and handheld devices over the DTV signal, even while broadcasters simultaneously broadcast HDTV. ATSC is also working on ATSC 2.0, a suite of next-generation features for DTV.