2026 NextGen Olympics TV Coverage Plans

[danieljlevine]

The Winter 2026 Olympics are coming up and NBCUniversal has been saying for a while what their ATSC 3.0 plans are:

https://www.nbcolympics.com/video-audio ... %20(1080i).

NBC NextGen TV***

NBC coverage of the Olympics will be available in 1080p Dolby Vision and Atmos through NBC’s NextGen TV broadcasts in select cities.
***NextGen TV is the new free Over-the-Air broadcast TV standard that has been rolling out across the United States. More information available here.

This is the same as 2 years ago for the summer olympics, meaning no 4K yet. Sadly my ATSC 3.0 NBC stations in Baltimore and Washington (111.1 and 104.1 respectively) are currently DRM encrypted.

[lenlab]

Hilarious! Most people will be watching on ATSC 1.0! Why? Because of DRM!

[mbirk1951]

I have a TV that can play ATSC3.0 DRM, but in my area (Dallas) we don't have an ATSC3.0 NBC station. Oh well plenty of other options to watch in higher quality than ATSC1.0, just need to spend a little cash.

[danieljlevine]

Anyone have an NBC NextGen TV that doesn’t have DRM who can report on the nature of the Olympic broadcasts when they start? HDR, Atmos, 4K are all fair game. Guessing 4K is not possible. Does NBC on NextGen TV stations already broadcast with HDR and Atmos all the time? Or do they switch it in and off with the content. I think switching is too agile for stations to pull off.

[jasonl]

The page linked above hasn't been updated since Paris 2024 so who knows what NBC's actual plans are. Peacock got a press push talking about getting Dolby this and Dolby that, but I'm not seeing anything about any plans for enhanced coverage via ATSC 3.0, and we're less than 17 days away from the first events starting.

[DSperber]

In all honesty, there's really nothing to motivate watching the Olympics on NBC broadcast, ATSC 1.0 or 3.0. First of all given the 6-9 hour time zone difference here in the US with rare exception virtually nothing that you see during day or night will be truly "live". Perhaps it might be live overnight, but then it will be edited and boiled-down for American TV consumer consumption for re-broadcast during the following daytime and primetime hours. You will not see "start to finish" sessions, but probably only winners and hightlights and top-tier countries and competitors.

Furthermore, ATSC 3.0 content is simply the national 1080i ATSC 1.0 content locally upconverted to 1080p and "faux HDR". Audio is the original ATSC 1.0 5.1 locally upconverted to "faux Dolby Atmos" 7.1.4 or 9.1.4.

Furthermore, the only events that will be covered are what/when NBC chooses to put on NBC network. Off-events are on the NBC sister cable channels like USA. But even these are again not start-to-finish complete session telecasts. Edited, chopped, discontinuous, and uninteresting.

As was proven last summer with the Paris Olympics, the ideal and only really satisfying way to watch the Olympics now is through Peacock, and preferably ad-free Peacock. First, the video is actually true camera-native 1080p production taken directly from OBS and distributed as-is via Peacock. It will either be 1080p SDR or 1080p HDR, depending on whether it is actually "live" and/or high-profile event. Replays are always 1080p SDR, but many live broadcasts are true native 1080p HDR.

Furthermore, Peacock coverage is of ALL EVENTS, at EVERY VENUE, and "start-to-finish" sessions. First ball to last, so to speak. No editing to eliminate uninteresting content. It is exactly as if you bought a ticket to a 2-hour session or an event venue, and you get to watch everything that happens at that event... including the award ceremony that follows if there is an award ceremony. Again, first ball to last.

It is night-and-day difference between camera-native true OBS production 1080p SDR/HDR available with Peacock vs. the "faux 1080p HDR" seen on NBC ATSC 3.0. Well worth the price of admission to sign up for one month to ad-free Peacock, for the two weeks of that type of coverage. You get to choose what YOU WANT TO "GO TO", and then you get to see it start-to-finish. You don't have to watch what you don't want to, and you don't have to sit through commercials, and you watch in glorious camera-native true 1080p SDR/HDR.

The special USA4K that NBC made available through selected streaming TV services for the Paris Olympics was awful. It was just a 4K simulcast version of the exact same program content being shown shown on conventional USA cable channel in 1080i. And that content was thousands of small discontinuous "snippets" of running around from one event to another. Again, not complete start-to-finish event coverage. Unwatchable, especially if you'd recorded those thousands of snippets to your "cloud DVR" and then wanted to watch something later.


==> Trust me. Maximize your 2026 Olympics TV pleasure. Watch the thing on Peacock, just what you want, live local time in Italy and full replay after-the-fact, ad-free (replays), camera-native 1080p SDR (replays) and camera-native 1080p HDR for live high-profile events. Start-to-finish, complete LIVE/REPLAY event coverage including all award ceremonies, for ALL EVENTS, at ALL VENUES.

[danieljlevine]

Why are the replays SDR if they are replay of the live HDR events that were recorded?

[tresf]

Anyone have an NBC NextGen TV that doesn’t have DRM who can report on the nature of the Olympic broadcasts when they start? HDR, Atmos, 4K are all fair game. Guessing 4K is not possible. Does NBC on NextGen TV stations already broadcast with HDR and Atmos all the time? Or do they switch it in and off with the content. I think switching is too agile for stations to pull off.

I happen to be lucky enough to live in a 4K broadcast area without encryption. From what I can tell, it's upscaled. I'm not sure how to get the other details but happy to.

[Cabal]

I happen to be lucky enough to live in a 4K broadcast area without encryption. From what I can tell, it's upscaled. I'm not sure how to get the other details but happy to.

I believe you are receiving 1080p/faux HDR/faux Atmos.

[clarkss12]

Here is the Mediainfo information for the recording today (2026 Milan Cortina Olympics )

https://imgur.com/WjZrOja

[danieljlevine]

Great reporting! My 2 NextGen NBCs are DRM encrypted. So I can’t see them on my 4K Flex. I can watch on ATSC 1.0 which is very watchable.

I assume you U4K broadcast is really 4K HDR->1080p HDR->1080i->U4K faux HDR. Or some convoluted conversion path like that.

[DSperber]

Why are the replays SDR if they are replay of the live HDR events that were recorded?

NBC wants to force you to watch the ads (or at least not FF through them). Even if you subscribe to their ad-free premium service when you watch anything HDR which they restrict to "live" in order to seduce you to this broadcast the Peacock app disables the FF control. So if you want the super-quality image HDR you MUST ALSO ACCEPT ADS.

The alternative is to watch their "replay" recording , which even if the original "live" broadcast was HDR they produce that "replay" recording only in SDR. Yes, you will neve get it ad-free, but you'll also get it in reduced SDR quality. So your choice how you want to watch, with properties one way or the other. Of course you can also watch BOTH.


Note also that if you tune into something on Peacock that is broadcasting live at that moment, you automatically have a 2-hour "rewind buffer". If the program has been airing for under 2 hours so far then you can restart at the beginning or anywhere up through the current "live" point. If it has been airing more than 2 hourse so far then you can only go back 2 hours.

And if you do go back and then begin to watch this 'live" broadcast from some point in those previous 2 hours, as you watch (coming forward toward the current "live"point) you will of course reach those points in the broadcast where ads had been inserted. Had you been watching the program truly live than your FF would be disabled and you would be forced to actually watch/view/ignore that ad which would simply be on your screen with no way to avoid it. But if you are doing that "live->rewind->replay" those ad points will now no longer actually show you the original ad which aired in that slot. It will simply be a message "This Olympic even will resume shortly" with a scenic flyover view of the snow covered mountains in the background. That message will replace the original ad and will be onscreen for the original ad spot duration, but in this case you actually now CAN FF past those several minutes.

So again, NBC wants you to see LIVE ADS when you are actually watching truly LIVE (either SDR or HDR) and those live ads are being aired. At any other time in "live->rewind->replay" you now will have FF control so skip over that "blank space" in time. And if you actually watch a true recorded "replay" (SDR only) and subscribe to ad-free Peacock, well no you won't even be sent those ad spots at all (i.e. truly ad-free delivery) but SDR for everything not live.

[DSperber]

I assume you U4K broadcast is really 4K HDR->1080p HDR->1080i->U4K faux HDR. Or some convoluted conversion path like that.

Correct. Note that the middle "1080i" is really 1080i SDR video and AC3 DD5.1 audio, even though the original Olympics OBS sequence did start with camera-native 4K HDR video.

And that NBC 1080i SDR is sent to the affiliates via national NBC network infrastructure in a better higher quality lesser compressed higher bitrate 1080i SDR than what the local affiliates actually then process and broadcast OTA as ATSC 1.0, which is compressed further (to fit in 19.3mbps RF channel with other sub-channels) for true broadcast as their MPEG-2 OTA NBC ATSC 1.0. And it is also their "better internal infrastructure 1080i SDR" which sets sent to the re-encoders for conversion to HEVC 1080p video (normally SDR) for broadcast as ATSC NBC 3.0 OTA. Audio is also normally re-encoded from AC3 DD5.1 into AC4.

It is during that re-encoding step for production of ATSC 3.0 that the added optional special "faux" electronic processing is applied to produce both faux-Atmos audio and faux-HDR video. Neither is real. Can't be. It came from SDR video and 5.1 audio that the affiliate received from NBC via national infrastructure.


That is why the Peacock alternative can't be beat by ATSC 3.0. True OBS-provided HDR video source, and true OBS-provided Atmos "height" audio channels.