A majority of the world's nations have chosen to adopt the DVB standard, as can be seen on the status list on the DVB Project website.

ATSC coexists with the DVB-T standard, and with ISDB-T being implemented in Japan. (ISDB modulation also serves as a basis of the SBTVD-T standard in Brazil.) A similar standard called ADTB was developed for use as part of China's new DMB-T/H dual standard. While China has officially chosen a dual standard, there is no requirement that a receiver work with both standards and there is no support for the ADTB modulation from broadcasters or equipment and receiver manufacturers. Taiwan has chosen DVB-T COFDM as its official modulation.

Because of potential use outside of existing NTSC areas, the ATSC system includes the capability to carry PAL and SECAM formatted video (576 displayable lines, 50 fields or 25 frames per second) along with NTSC (486 displayable lines, 60 x 1000/1001 fields or 30 x 1000/1001 frames per second) and film (24 frames per second).