Just an FYI, all 4 tuners can still get the 1.0 signal and only 2 of them can get the 3.0 signal. If you want to get the new HDHR in early, there should be no loss or issues.
I think what often gets lost in the conversation about HEVC vs AVC, especially when people claim that there isn't much difference in subjective quality, is that the references themselves that are pointed to are somewhat flawed (at least in terms of the now vs the future). For instance, the most common representatives of each format you will find in non-commercial online 'shootouts' are x265 and x264, respectively. x264 is pretty darn good – not the best, but certainly up there with the best H.264 encoders out there, and an incredible resource to have from an open-source standpoint; x265, on the other hand, is no where near the upper echelon of H.265 encoders – it is just the most prevalent and accessible, and thus is often (non-deservedly) presented as the H.265 'reference'.
Anyway, getting back to the "now vs future" narrative: AVC is a considerably older technology. In the codec space, age of a codec generally equates to much more time and investment in squeezing out every last bit of advantage it can offer. Look at MPEG-2 encoders as an example... there hasn't been any real breakthrough on the picture quality front with MPEG-2 in at least 3 years. But MPEG-2 encoders are infinitely better today than they were back in the 90s. Similarly, AVC encoders today are exponentially better than they were in the mid-2000s. AVC is only now beginning to reach its end-of-the-road in terms of future theoretical PQ improvements (at least without further modification to the spec).
Comparatively, HEVC is in its infancy – HEVC encoders 10 years from now will show much improvement from what we see today (similar to how HEVC encoders from 10 years ago were not very good compared to what we have today). So while the decision to generally go with HEVC vs AVC for ATSC 3.0 in the here-and-now may not show much advantage, especially when there are still some considerable hills to climb with HEVC decode options, ATSC 3.0 is not just about 2020, 2021, or even 2022. ATSC 3.0 is about the year 2025 and the year 2030 etc. Standards organizations must consider this when building specifications, otherwise they will not be able to get manufacturers on-board to build solutions (no consumer-facing company wants to constantly be adopting new technologies every few years with little guarantee of market penetration).
Regarding overall ATSC 3.0 QoE: indeed, even if a broadcaster immediately starts encoding their content at 1080p HEVC, this will have little benefit until the actual content they ingest is at least 1080p. Today, most stations are still reliant upon receiving either a 1080i or 720p-native national feed; so while there may be a few benefits to 1080p, such as better and more uniform decode experiences over how some decoders handle 1080i, this is a decode quality issue and not an immediate encoder benefit.
On the audio front, AC-4's inclusion in the spec admittedly felt a bit pre-mature from a consumer's perspective at launch; but when considering the business and applicational reasons behind its support, things become a little bit clearer as to why AC-4 was chosen over traditional AC-3 or E-AC3. While AC-4 is a proprietary format, there are no additional licensing fees from a consumer product standpoint, as long as the manufacturer is already licensing one of Dolby's other codecs (quite common). The only real cost with AC-4 is if a manufacturer or developer wishes to have access to Dolby's AC-4 SDK, which is actually quite bearable and expected.
In terms of other codecs not being chosen for the initial version of the ATSC 3.0 spec, codecs such as AV1 and VVC weren't viable for inclusion because if you think that H.265 is a net negative, these would have only exasperated that feeling! Forget for a moment the greater lack of decode availability for these codecs currently, it is the encode situation which made those codecs completely untenable. VVC isn't finalized yet, and the existing AV1 encoders that do exist aren't necessarily the most resource efficient or of the highest quality (at least when it comes to true, operational environments which require good densities + real-time speeds). Also, when you already have a lot of industry veterans predicting that the industry will go from HEVC to VVC, bypassing AV1 (outside of mobile that is), then these decisions become a lot more clear. Lack of Opus is a bit unfortunate, but at least MPEG-H is there.
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I have a Quad tuner now, just can’t pull on the channels 3.0 can, so using Locast atm
Same here, I'm up by New Port Richey with some trees in the way. Reception in the summer would be hit and miss on some channels. Just got set up with 4k tuner and liking it. Do you have any problems with WMOR channel 32.1? It crashes whatever app I try to bring it up on.
I may have missed it but does anyone have experience with this tuner and how a Synology handles the ATSC 3.0 broadcasts? My mom uses my DVR remotely and I want to make sure she can still stream without issues.
In this thread someone was struggling with issues that turned out to be caused by remote viewing:
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Thanks for sharing that. I did read that thread but he doesn’t state if he has a Synology or not
I believe the type of PC or NAS you use has nothing to do with this, other than perhaps the CPU power. Anyone?
You could always disable the 1xx ATSC 3.0 channels in the source and it will use all 4 tuners to tune the ATSC 1.0 stations until you figure things out.
I think the only drawback to that is the fact the HDHR tuners do background channel scans every 3 days and might find and enable ATSC 3.0 channels that might or might not be viewable. Really wish SD would allow us to disable that, but I'm not holding my breath.
It will use all 4 atsc 1.0 tuners regardless unless you are tuning a 3.0 station.
Right.
I was saying if he wasn't sure whether remote viewing of ATSC 3.0 was possible for his Mother, that he could disable (hide) the ATSC 3.0 channels in the source until he figured that out.
I just ordered the new flex 4K and will play with it.
So I tested this last night. My Flex is running but was direct playing on my ATV4K. ABC, CBS and NBC were all playing at 1920x1080 60FPS. FOX was still at 1280x720. Tuning to each station was fast. I haven't tested remote streaming yet.
I'll keep playing around with it.
I just attempted to stream over cellular and the transcoder wouldn't work. I submitted my logs from both my phone and DVR.
iPhone or android?
iPhone 12
You need to use channels TestFlight app set cellular playback to original and update server to latest prerelease. It will work then
I noticed that when someone is watching one of the ATSC 3.0 channels that the admin page doesn’t show the rate that is being transferred. Do I need to submit diagnostics for this?
Known issue. It is not being reported by the tuner.
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Do I need to report this on the silicondust forum?