For months now, ATSC 3.0 has had a serious issue with DRM, preventing it from being able to work with network DVRs like the Tablo or HDHomeRun. This meant if a channel had DRM on it you wouldn’t be able to stream it over your home network through a DVR. Now, though, the team behind ATSC 3.0 Nextgen TV announced new DRM changes that will help make networked DVRs work with the new standard.
“For the past year, we’ve been working in consultation with several electronics companies who are developing devices designed to add new features for NEXTGEN TV viewers, from simple DVRs to more advanced home networking systems. After considering the various home scenarios, A3SA is pleased to release detailed specifications that will guide companies and soon provide consumers with a wealth of new options for digital video recording and more,” said Ron Wheeler, managing director of A3SA.
This change means that Tablo DVRs and HDHomeRun amount others could build DVRs for ATSC 3.0 that support the new DRM standard. This change will let them stream OTA TV channels to a long list of supported devices. “The new A3SA DVR specification supports in-home streaming to applications hosted on common media consumption platforms such as Android, Fire, Roku, WebOS, and Tizen, with iOS support in process. The spec supports dynamic memory provisioning for media playback (an advantage for consumer devices) and enables developers of new NEXTGEN TV platforms to bring to market innovative new options.” A3SA said in a statement sent to Cord Cutters News.
This is great news for fans of OTA DVRs that stream their recordings to multiple devices. Now we just have to wait for them to build these DVRs for customers.
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