Digital TV around the world

Little research has gone into my opening thread (that's what you lot are for! ) but I'm just wondering about how digital TV - digital terrestrial in particular - is fairing around the World.

Not so long ago plans for digital terrestrial TV in France were unveiled - see: Digital Spy and IIRC correctly in some parts of Germany the analogue terrestrial signal has already been turned off.

I know the digital terrestrial is running in Australia, while in the USA most networks use a mux to screen just three channels - a HDTV version of their main channel, and something like a News channel and a Weather channel.

Closer to home digital terrestrial has been delayed in the Republic of Ireland - so I presume if ever RTE etc were to launch on digital terrestrial Northern Ireland viewers would receive an extra mux, rather than RTE/TV3/TV4 replacing channels on either the SDN or Crown Castle muxs.

Telly Aerial has a good section on worldwide DTT.


P.S. A couple of points about widescreen TV. I notice now alot more American dramas are being produced in widescreen, along with most Australian programmes screened here. However, mainland Europe still seems to prefer 4:3 - especially evident in their sports coverage (e.g. the Six Nations!).

In Spain, after the closedown of Quiero TV (the equivalent to the british ITV Digital) only the five main channels (TVE1, TVE2, Antena 3, Canal+ and Telecinco) simulcast their analogue signal in digital for all the territory.

There are complaints about the compression of the channels (five in a 22 Mbps multiplex) and the lack of services such as interactive services, stereo (only available at Antena 3 and Canal+) or the miniguide (only available at the semi-pay-channel Canal+).



In each region the situation differs because "Autonómicas" (regional public channels) are paying little attention in general to the new technology, with some exceptions:

Catalunya broadcasts, along with the two terrestial regional channels (TV3 and K3/33) the 24-hour channel 3/24 and the Pilot Channel (Canal Pilot). Interactive services are also a strong point of Televisió de Catalunya. There are projects of early analogue closedowns like Maresme Digital.

A whole multiplex has been conceded to a private media group (Godó), but by law in every region (Comunidad Autónoma in Spain) there should only be one regional multiplex with two public and two private channels, along with various local multiplexes (from none to two, depending on the population, and one or two channels must be run by the local government).

In Madrid a second regional public channel, LaOtra (TheOtherOne) has been broacasting for four or five years, but with a little budget. Also Onda 6 and E-Music (which survived from Quiero) are available.

Other regions such as Galicia or the Basque Country broadcast the public terrestial channel(s) along with public radios and the international satellite versions of the terrestial channels. TVGalicia is planning to launch a fully-digital second channel.

In the rest of Spain, all "autonómicas" should be broadcasting in digital since January 2005, but most of them are still in test transmissions and just reach the capital city. More regional channels are planned to launch simultaneously in analogue and digital in 2005, incluiding those for Aragón, Asturias and Baleares.



Two additional digital private channels, NET TV and VEO TV were born circa 2002 but their schedule is very poor. The first of them just airs what its owner (Vocento) supplies for local televisions, and VEO just simulcasts 24h/24 the signal of Expansión TV, a digital economic channel (similar to Bloomberg) owned by Recoletos.

These two channels have restricted their coverage to 25 % of the territory (Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia) thanks to the government of José María Aznar, that allowed them to cut costs until DTT (TDT in Spain) becomes widespread.



New plans for the promotion of pluralism have been powered by José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's team: projects include new private channels (although he is been very criticized because he suggested that there is a possiblity that new analogue channels appeared).

The public broadcaster RTVE (Radiotelevisión Española) and its division RTVE Digital have repeatedly said in the last months that they are ready to launch eight digital channels as soon as frequencies are given to them.

The offer would consist of current mainstream channels TVE1 (La Primera) and TVE2 (La Dos) along with the existing theme channels (available since 1997 under subscription in cable and satellite) Teledeporte (sports), Grandes Documentales Hispavisión (documentaries), Canal Clásico (classical music), Canal Nostalgia (with contents of TVE's archive) and, of course, 24-hour live news channel Canal 24 Horas.

Lunnis TV, a channel for kids, is also planned to be created after the demands of the government.



Private national channels Antena 3 and Telecinco aired a campaign in late 2004 promoting DTT and have claimed to be capable of producing a tourism and a kids channel. News and reality-shows are thought that could be additional contents. Now they are criticizing that more competitors are allowed into the market and they have pulled back their ads.

Meanwhile, Canal+ (owned by Sogecable, which also runs the digital satellite platform Digital+) is said to be waiting to convert its pay-tv license into a free-to-air one, due to the interests of Jesús de Polanco (Spain's Rupert Murdoch) in gaining influence in the market of mainstream television, after achieving the monopoly in satellite TV.



To sum up: by the end of 2005, Spaniards should be wiewing more than twenty DTT channels.

Yep - though Berlin is a special case as it has always had a strange broadcast "duality" with East and West Berlin. Also it is worth remembering that they have only switched off analogue terrestrial in Berlin - analogue satellite is hugely popular still in Germany - and that continues.

I heard reports that in France the DTT broadcasts of existing terrestrial analogue networks will be 4:3 not 16:9. Wonder if this is to keep 16:9 for "HD" - which is also launcing in France as well as the UK in the next year or so AIUI.



The Australians use a very similar version of DTT to us - DVB-T - but use it to carry 1440x1080/50i or 1920x1080/50 as well as 576/50p and 576/50i.

In the US they use a different system, called ATSC 8-VSB. This is a single carrier system, unlike the DVB-T system which uses approx 2000 or 8000 separate low data rate carriers to carry a single multiplex. The US system doesn't call their single carrier payload a multiplex - this seems to be reserved for DVB-T services.

In the US they vary what they do it seems. Some local stations add a weather radar, and/or a continuous repeat of their last newscast, and ABC ran a news channel for a while in some of their spare space. PBS sometimes run extra SD services - like kids channels, but at other times run separate HD services. Many stations run an HD and SD simulcast on their digital TV channels.

The US HD standards are either 1080/60i (CBS, NBC, PBS) or 720/60p (Fox and ABC)

Yep - I believe there are plans for at least one Eire mux to also broadcast in the North.
Telly Aerial has a good section on worldwide DTT.


P.S. A couple of points about widescreen TV. I notice now alot more American dramas are being produced in widescreen, along with most Australian programmes screened here. However, mainland Europe still seems to prefer 4:3 - especially evident in their sports coverage (e.g. the Six Nations!).[/quote]

Quite a lot of European entertainment and drama is shot in 16:9 - Scandinavia also has DTT and is broadcasting in 16:9 I believe. I think Germany also has 16:9 outlets.

Italy has a DTT system as well I believe - but I don't think many of the non-Pay TV networks are 16:9 - some aren't even stereo...

As for the Six Nations - in previous years the BBC has been host broadcaster for Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales and Italy, and so coverage from these countries has been in 16:9. The French host broadcast the matches from Paris - and these are still, annoyingly, 4:3.

(Or has Italy been 4:3 as well this year?)

Thanks for the info.

One question about TV in the Republic of Ireland. With RTE having rights to many US programmes, are they blocked on the C4 feeds?