Over-the-Air Broadcasts in 4K and HDR? It's Here (Sort Of)

In the before times, there was NTSC. This was the broadcasting standard in the US for over half a century. It was officially replaced in 2009 by ATSC, aka HDTV. Now ATSC itself is being supplemented by NextGen TV in many markets.

NextGen TV offers a variety of new technologies, including the ability to broadcast 4K, HDR and more. Because of how it works, you'll likely get better reception than with ATSC if you're far from the TV tower. 

The short version is: NextGen is free over-the-air television with potentially more channels and better image quality than older over-the-air broadcasts.

Most major cities carry NextGen TV stations, as do a lot of smaller ones, and more are rolling out every month. The transition to NextGen is voluntary, but so far many stations in most markets are embracing the change. A lot of that has to do with groundwork that was laid during the digital transition to HDTV. Since everything is digital already, upgrading to NextGen doesn't have the same high cost that switching from analog NTSC to digital ATSC (1.0) did. There are also new ways stations can make money, which certainly softens the blow.

You can find out what stations are already active in your area at watchnextgentv.com/markets. Clicking on your city, or putting in your exact address, not only lists what stations you should be able to receive, but if those stations broadcast anything other than HD, including content with HDR and Dolby Atmos.

All you need is a NextGen tuner and an antenna. If you're shopping for a new TV, many current models have built-in NextGen TV tuners. This includes many models from Hisense, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, and TCL. While older models had a tuner, LG TVs from 2024 and later do not. There are a couple of external tuners you can buy as well, though not as many as you might think -- at least for now. Manufacturers include ADTH and Zinwell.

The antenna part is fairly easy: There are a lot of inexpensive options. If you have an antenna from the HDTV days, it will likely work just fine.

Some stations in some markets are broadcasting some HDR content, mostly special events. According to the ATSC, HDR is available in "67 of the 76 markets." For example, Los Angeles has one channel that offers HDR, while New York has two, Des Moines has four, Wichita has none, and so on. Adding HDR to a 1080p signal is generally easier than upping the resolution to 4K. 

The list for 4K content is much easier: none. 

This is a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario. Because NextGen TV is predominantly traditional broadcasters, and those broadcasters predominantly broadcast HD, there isn't much incentive to push for 4K to the small percentage of total viewers that could watch it. Sure, basically everyone has a 4K TV, and sure they'd be able to sell 4K content to the streaming services for "reruns," but it's not a trivial problem. We'll likely see one-off broadcasts like sports events in 4K, but to get shows in 4K will take quite a push by a network to convince production companies to switch to 4K. Either that, or a significantly greater number of NextGen TV viewers.

This is the ultimate question, isn't it? What good is free content if it's not content you want to watch? According to the ATSC, currently 76% of US households have access to NextGen TV broadcasts. That includes the "broadcasters" of yore (namely ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and PBS).

Not every station in every region will have converted to NextGen, though the rollout has been going on for eyars, so there are significantly more channels now than a few years ago. Also, conveniently, if you have the antenna and tuner you should be able to get all the "ATSC 1.0" (aka old-school HDTV) broadcasts. So you should be able to get all the major broadcasters for free over the air one way or another.

In many areas, however, you'll be able to get much more than just those. Most stations run multiple sub-channels, which in turn run different programming under the same "channel" banner. Plus, there are smaller broadcasters with varied content. For instance, I live in Los Angeles and there are nearly 200 channels broadcasting. Even smaller markets, such as Des Moines, Iowa, have nearly 100. Are all of these pristine HD and showing hours of amazing content? No, but it's all free.

While you won't be able to watch streaming shows like Arcane or The Last of Us over the air, you will find shows like Chicago Fire, NCIS, Grey's Anatomy and most major sports. 

Nothing is ever truly free, right? In this case, you pay with your time by watching ads. Back in the olden days, aka before streaming, there were things called DVRs that recorded programming to a hard drive for later watching. You could fast-forward through the commercials. It was A Thing. And it still is if you pay for cable, satellite TV or own the Tablo OTA device. 

There is currently one certified NextGen DVR on the market, the ZapperBox M1. While more models should be coming soon, the other aftermarket tuners can't record.

In theory, yes. There is far more capability in NextGen TV broadcasts and tuners to encrypt a broadcast to limit copying. Currently, the ATSC 3.0 Security Authority (A3SA) promises that users can record broadcasts, at least specifically the ones that are also simulcast via ATSC 1.0 (aka old school HD broadcasts). If you have a certified device that has the right integrated "key," you should be able to record for personal use and skip commercials all you want.

Whether that changes when and if they shut off ATSC 1.0 broadcasts remains to be seen. Given the interconnectivity of NextGen TV, it would be very easy to disable recording on any or all broadcasts, which is not a great outcome. We'd like to think that the recording rules set by Sony v. Universal is now "settled law," but as we all now know, there's really no such thing. We'll update when there's more information, but to a large degree we all will have to wait and see how this plays out.