Best TVs with ATSC 3.0 tuners

Samsung Neo QLED 8K TV with ATSC 3.0
(Image credit: Samsung)

The best TVs with ATSC 3.0 not only offer excellent picture performance, but they're fully ready to support NextGen TV when it comes to a city near you.

What is ATSC 3.0? ATSC 3.0, also known as NextGen TV, is a suite of standards that will support the world’s first IP-based TV system, which marries broadband and broadcast to deliver cord-free television. Once it goes live fully, it will offer 4K over-the-air broadcasts, better sound quality, multi-language closed captioning and a number of other outstanding features.

The technology is still in its infancy with broadcasters slowly ramping up to the full suite of features, but buying an ATSC 3.0-compatible TV means that you'll be ready to jump on-board the ATSC 3.0 train when it comes to your area. 

The best TVs with ATSC 3.0 tuners

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Sony A95 QD-OLED in a brightly lit room

(Image credit: Sony)
The best TV with an ATSC 3.0 tuner is none other than the A95K

Specifications

Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65
Screen Type: QD-OLED
Refresh Rate: 120 Hz
HDMI ports: 4 (2 HDMI 2.1, 2 HDMI 2.0)
Size: 56.88 x 33 x 1.75 inches
Weight: 59.5 pounds

Reasons to buy

+
Superb picture quality
+
Color and brightness are outstanding
+
Best sound you can find from a TV
+
Includes a dizzying variety of useful, experience-enhancing features

Reasons to avoid

-
Only two HDMI 2.1 ports
-
Not the lowest input lag you can find

By any standard, the Sony Bravia XR A95K OLED is a remarkable TV — and often, it’s far better than that. This set, which sits at the top of Sony’s expansive TV lineup, unites the industry’s defining technologies like ATSC 3.0 and Sony’s own groundbreaking processing and picture enhancements to deliver superlative performance in every area. And  our own test results back this up.

As far as performance is concerned, the color and brightness on the Bravia XR A95K are dazzling. It's future-proof with genuinely useful smart features and, perhaps most important, this Sony OLED TV looks and sounds like a dream, no matter what you watch on it, making everything a transcendent viewing and listening experience.

The question with the A95K, then, isn’t whether it’s one of the best TVs you can buy. It’s whether it is the best TV you can buy. In our opinion? Yes, yes it is.

Read our full Sony Bravia XR A95K review.

The Samsung S95C OLED TV sitting in a living room.Editor's Choice

(Image credit: Samsung)
Samsung's star OLED comes with an ATSC 3.0 tuner

Specifications

Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65, 77 inches
Screen Type: QD-OLED
Refresh Rate: 120 Hz
HDMI ports: 4 HDMI 2.1
Size: 56.8 x 32.7 x 0.4 inches
Weight: 41.7 pounds

Reasons to buy

+
One Connect box for cable management
+
Impressive brightness
+
144Hz refresh rate for PC gaming
+
Works as a SmartThings/Matter controller

Reasons to avoid

-
No Dolby Vision
-
Built-in audio is average

The Samsung S95C OLED TV is a strong performer when it comes to watching over-the-air TV. It comes with an ATSC 3.0 tuner in tow, and offers great upscaling thanks to its Neural Quantum Processor 4K.

When we tested the Samsung S95C OLED TV with our X-Rite i1 Pro spectrophotometer and SpectraCal CalMAN Ultimate calibration software, the display was able to reproduce about 141.5% of the Rec 709 color space in standard mode, which is great for OTA content. 

For cinephiles, the Samsung S95C offers some of the highest color saturation (141.5% of the Rec 709 color space) and best color accuracy (it has a Delta-E accuracy score of 1.4) of any TV. In terms of brightness, it's 30% brighter than the Samsung S95B OLED and close to double the brightness of last year's LG OLED TVs.

If you want an OLED built for the next generation of television, the Samsung S95C OLED is the only viable option.

Read our full Samsung S95C OLED review.

The LG G3 OLED in a living room

(Image credit: LG)
Ultra brightness and an outstanding picture

Specifications

Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65, 77, 83 inches
Screen Type: OLED
Refresh Rate: 120 Hz
HDMI ports: 4 HDMI 2.1 (1 eARC)
Size: 56.7 x 32.3 x 1 inches
Weight: 61.9 pounds

Reasons to buy

+
Astounding brightness for OLED
+
Superlative picture quality
+
Beautiful physical design
+
Strong smart platform

Reasons to avoid

-
Unimpressive sound
-
HDR color falls slightly short
-
No support for HDR10+

If you want to stick with an LG OLED but still want the brightness that rivals a Samsung QLED TV, yhe LG OLED evo G3 offers the best of all worlds: It’s an OLED TV, so you get perfect blacks, infinite contrast, and intense colors, but it also boasts astonishing brightness that guarantees you won’t miss out on the full impact of the thrilling HDR effects so essential to movies today. 

Even better, it uses LG’s thoroughly refined webOS smart platform; it has a good remote control; and it’s gorgeous to look at — a true showpiece that will grace your wall as smartly and stylishly as higher-end framed artwork.

If picture quality, ease of use, and/or sheer style matter to you, the LG OLED evo G3 is a top-flight choice. With stunning visuals in every application, an advanced and intuitive smart platform, and a design that is front-to-back as good as you’ll find from TVs today, it’s an impressive release that would make a glittering addition to your home.

Read our full LG G3 OLED review

Hisense U8K Mini-LED Google TV in living room

(Image credit: Hisense)
Believe the hype — the Hisense U8K offers excellent performance

Specifications

Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65, 75 inches
Screen Type: Mini-LED
Refresh Rate: 120 Hz
HDMI ports: 4 HDMI (2 HDMI 2.1)
Size: 57.2 × 35.9 × 14.8 inches
Weight: 56.4 pounds

Reasons to buy

+
Extremely bright
+
Incredibly colorful
+
Great sound quality
+
Built-in ATSC 3.0 tuner

Reasons to avoid

-
Color accuracy can be an issue
-
Not the lowest lag
-
Colors desaturate off-axis

The Hisense U8K is a very strong performer for the price. It offers great features and immaculate performance for just over $1,000. Competitors like TCL and Samsung have shown that they can get high brightness from similarly specc’d TVs, but only Hisense has mastered the art of colorful pictures and high brightness at a reasonable price.

Key to the U8K’s success are the Mini-LED Pro with Full Array Local Dimming panel that helps the TV retain good black levels in scenes with higher levels of brightness and a quantum dot layer that allows the TV to cover a groundbreaking 80% of the Rec2020 Color Space. It might be a party in the front, but it’s all business in the back of the screen.

If you’re looking for a high-end TV without the high-end sticker price, the U8K absolutely delivers the goods.

Read our full Hisense U8K Mini-LED TV review.
 

The Sony A80K OLED TV on a blue background.Editor's Choice

(Image credit: Sony)
Another excellent Sony TV with ATSC 3.0

Specifications

Available Screen Sizes: 55, 65, 77 inches
Screen Type: OLED
Refresh Rate: 120 Hz
HDMI ports: 4 (2 HDMI 2.1)
Size: 48.38 x 28.13 x 2.13 inches
Weight: 39.5 pounds

Reasons to buy

+
Dazzling picture quality
+
Captivating sound system
+
Highly polished Google TV smart interface
+
Improved remote control

Reasons to avoid

-
Only two HDMI 2.1 ports
-
Slightly high input lag

The Sony Bravia XR A80K OLED has the singular mission of delivering a scintillating entertainment experience in almost every way. Luckily, that’s a goal it has little trouble achieving — and considering just how good it looks and sounds, it’s something of a minor miracle this TV doesn’t cost more than it does.

Why is it expensive? This 4K OLED is absolutely packed with futuristic technologies: HDR, a 120 Hz refresh rate, ATSC 3.0 tuner, Google TV streaming and Sony's own Bravia Core service, Acoustic Surface Audio+ technology… the list goes on. Sure, not everyone will need everything here, but they're nice to have if you want to future-proof your home entertainment setup.

Read our full Sony Bravia XR A80K review.

What is NextGen TV?

NextGen TV is the marketing name for the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard, which combines traditional over-the-air broadcasting and improved digital signal encoding with internet connectivity, opening up all sorts of possibilities that were previously unimagined for free broadcast television. (Read our full article ATSC 3.0 explained: How NextGen TV delivers 4K HDR broadcasts for free to learn more.)

Highlights of the features promised by ATSC 3.0 include:

Better signal quality with less interference
Thanks to a move toward UHF signal, it's less prone to interference from obstructions, like buildings or trees, and adds orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), the same technology behind the latest Wi-Fi and mobile wireless technologies. It's a much more robust method for transmitting digital information, and the move will further bolster the signal quality with ATSC 3.0.

Higher resolution for over-the-air broadcast
With a bitrate of up to 57 Mbps – nearly three times as much as the older ATSC 1.0 standard – and support for H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2 codecs, the new standard can deliver much higher video quality, including HDR metadata. Broadcasts in 4K resolution are already possible, with potential for 8K broadcasts in the future.

Combines broadcast TV with broadband internet
This leverages the connected nature of smart TVs to have a dedicated return channel – an active stream of data back to the broadcaster – which makes the new broadcast system a two-way IP-based standard. That could allow broadcasters to pair their traditional content with streaming capabilities, allow for cloud DVR functions, video-on-demand and more targeted advertising.

Available on many more devices
Thanks to the more robust signal quality and the data-connected aspects of the new standard, it will offer better reception for portable and vehicle-bound TVs – two categories that have fallen off sharply since the more fragile digital TV of the ATSC 1.0 standard took effect. You could even get ATSC 3.0 on your phone, provided phone makers opt to add the necessary hardware.

The bottom line is that ATSC 3.0 is aptly named NextGen TV, because it brings several new capabilities and features to broadcast TV.

Do I need a NextGen TV tuner?

At the moment, probably not. NextGen TV is still early in its rollout, and any stations you might be able to get with the new tuner you can get on the older ATSC 1.0 standard anyway. 

But, if you want the potential to receive 4K signals over the air, or to take advantage of any of the proposed features that are likely to be implemented as NextGen TV rolls out, you will need a new tuner.

While the TVs listed above have ATC 3.0 tuners built in, there are also separate tuner boxes selling now or coming to market in the near future.

How we test TVs

In our TV test space, we submit every TV to a number of lab tests, using industry-standard equipment, such as a calibrated spectrophotometer, calibration software and a dedicated test pattern generator. We measure for several indicators of picture quality, but these are the main metrics used in all of our reviews:

Color gamut, which measures how much color a given TV can produce. Expressed as a percentage rating, most OLED TVs meet or exceed 100% of the Rec709 color space.

Color accuracy, which measures the average deviation from perfect accuracy, expressed as a number (Delta-E), with higher numbers indicating less accurate color.

Contrast, measuring the difference between the darkest darks and brightest brights that a TV can produce, which is expressed as a ratio.

Brightness, measuring the peak luminance of a panel or display. This measure is reported in nits, an industry term for candela per square meter (cd/m2).

Lag time is the interval between a signal, such as button press on a game console, and the subsequent change registering on-screen. Measured with a Leo Bodnar Video Signal Input Lag Tester, this is measured in milliseconds, and provides a good indicator of how well-suited a TV is to modern gaming.

We pair this lab testing with hands-on time, viewing video samples and movies to see how these numbers translate into real-world performance. With that information, we can tell you which TVs look best, sound best and offer the best viewing experience.

Finally, we also evaluate the smart TV software and menus, getting a feel for the navigation and functions of each TV. We look at everything from the remote control design to the voice interaction to let us meaningfully talk about the smart features and overall ease-of-use for a smart TV.


If you've narrowed down your TV shopping by brand, price range or screen size, check out our picks for the best TVs in each.

Best TVs | Best 4K TVs | Best smart TVs for streaming | Best TVs for gaming

The best TVs under $1000 | The best TVs under $500

Best TV brands | Best Samsung TVs | Best TCL TVs | Best LG TVs | Best Roku TVs | Best OLED TVs | Best QLED TVs | Best 8K TVs | Best HDMI 2.1 TV | Best TVs with ATSC 3.0 | Best TVs with Chromecast

The smallest smart TVs | Best 43-inch TVs | Best 50-inch TVs | Best 55-inch TVs | Best 65-inch TVs | Best 70-inch TVs | Best 75-inch TVs | Best 85-inch TVs 

And don't forget to watch out for the latest TV reviews.

Nick Pino
Managing Editor, TV and AV

Nick Pino heads up the TV and AV verticals at Tom's Guide and covers everything from OLED TVs to the latest wireless headphones. He was formerly the Senior Editor, TV and AV at TechRadar (Tom's Guide's sister site) and has previously written for GamesRadar, Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer and other outlets over the last decade. Not sure which TV you should buy? Drop him an email or tweet him on Twitter and he can help you out.