Digital television in Europe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section needs to be updated.
Parts of this article or section have been identified as no longer being up to date.

Please update the article to reflect recent events, and remove this template when finished.

Contents

[edit] Digital television deployments by country

[edit] Belgium

[edit] Cable

In Belgium, over 94% of all households have cable television.

Telenet, the main cable operator in Flanders (the northern region of Belgium) has around 25 analogue TV channels which are also available digitally (MHP over DVB-C). In total about 80 TV channels are available digitally. This includes some TV channels that were already available in analogue and digital form: Canal Digitaal (in Dutch) or BeTV (in French) are pay-TV operators broadcasting several SDTV channels over one DVB-C multiplex. Telenet is howeve pushing for their DVB-C cchannels as interactive Digital TV, using their cable network for uplink purposes. Current cable customers do not need to pay an extra subscription for about 35 digital channels, but they must purchase a set-top box in order to view these digital channels and use the interactive services. HDTV was expected from summer 2006, to coincide with the 2006 FIFA World Cup, but has not materialized. Despite Telenet, the main cable operator in Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), confirmed as part of its launch announcement of "Telenet Digital TV" on June 16, 2005 that it would sell HDTV set-top-boxes as of June 2006, HDTV capable set-top boxes for telenet interactive digital TV are not available in November of that same year.

From July 2005 Integan, a cable provider in the outskirts of the city of Antwerpen, is offering HDTV.

[edit] Terrestrial

The two Belgian public TV networks, VRT (on the Flemish side) and RTBF (on the French-speaking side), also broadcast their channels in DVB-T. VRT can be received all over Flanders, whereas RTBF channels can still only be received around Brussels and the west of Wallonia from Tournai. Analogue terrestrial TV transmissions of VRT will end in 2010-2012.

[edit] Satellite

Both also have an international channel on digital satellite (DVB-S) called BVN (as a cooperation between the Flemish Één and the Dutch NOS) and RTBF Sat. (See also Euro1080).

[edit] Mobile

With the advent of mobile digital receivers (DVB-H), Belgacom is showing some interest in building a DVB-H network.

[edit] IPTV

Belgacom is offering digital television on ADSL. Its offering has been extended with two optional bouquets: one providing movies and one selection for families (including cartoons, National Geographic, etc)

The Belgian commercial TV stations are currently only available on cable and ADSL. Terrestrial broadcasting is limited to public service TV stations. This is due to the high adoption rate of cable (94%) in Belgium which makes it unnecessary to broadcast commercially.

[edit] Croatia

[edit] Terrestrial

Experimental digital terrestrial television broadcasting started in May 2002. As of October 2006, HTV 1, HTV 2, RTL Televizija and Nova TV are available on DVB-T in Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Zadar and Osijek.

[edit] Czech Republic

Experimental projects with DVB-T started in 2000. Final 21 October 2005 was launched multiplex A (DVB-T) with 3 channels of Česká televize and one of TV Nova and radio channels of Český rozhlas. Broadcasting can be seen in Prague, Central Bohemian Region, in surrounding areas of Brno and Ostrava. On April 12, 2006, six digital terrestrial television licenses were awarded to commercial broadcasters. The receivers of the licenses were: Z1, TV Pohoda, Regionální televizni agentura (RTA), Febio TV, TV Barrandov and Óčko. Z1 will provide a news service, TV Pohoda will run provide a children's service, Óčko will deliver a music service, and Febio TV & TV Barrandov will provide general programming services. It is planned that analogue transmissions will cease in 2012.

[edit] Denmark

Free-to-air DVB-T was launched on 31 March 2006 with the transmission of the national public service channels DR1 and DR2, and TV2 and the regional TV2 TV channels. Other private TV channels are expected to follow suit. All analogue terrestrial TV transmission will end on 1 November 2009.

DR and TV2 intended to broadcast the 2006 World cup in HDTV, although it would not be available in terrestrial (DVB-T).

Also, the first HD channel targeting the Nordic countries other than the Euro1080 channels (HD1,HD2,HD5) was launched in fall 2005 by C More Entertainment and was called C More HD. Broadcasting a few movies per night, it was only available for subscribers of the Canal Digital platform.

[edit] Faroe Islands

Digital terestrial television is now available to two-thirds the population of the Faroe Islands, offering 24 channels.

[edit] France

[edit] Terrestrial

France is quite late in the deployment of digital terrestrial television (DVB-T) known under the acronym of TNT (Télévision Numérique Terrestre ), however it has formally arrived on the 31 March 2005 after a short testing period. Like Freeview it will support many new channels as well as the current terrestrial television stations. The FTA channels currently available are TF1, France 2, France 3, Canal + (when programmes are non-encrypted), France 5, M6, ARTE, Direct 8, W9, TMC, NT1, NRJ 12, La Chaîne Parlementaire and France 4. A further four FTA television licences have also been awarded to BFM TV, i-Télé, Radio Europe 2 TV and Gulli which started broadcasts by October 2005. France Ô and possibly TV5 Monde are expected some time in 2006.

Additional pay TV channels were launched in September 2005 using the MPEG4 format, unlike the rest of Europe which currently uses MPEG2. These channels are Canal + Cinéma, Canal + Sport, Paris Première, Planète, Canal J, Eurosport France, TPS Star, TF6, LCI, and AB1. Canal + Sport, Paris Première and TPS Star have non encrypted programs at certain times in the evening.

Pay per view terrestrial channels use H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC.

[edit] DSL

M6 and TF1 will launch their HD versions by ADSL in 1 June 2006 . This bouquet will cost €19.90/month.

[edit] Satellite

Digital satellite television has existed in France since 1997. CanalSat will launch its first HD channel (Canal+HD ) in April 2006. More channels will follow in the nearly future, including National Geographic HD from June 2006. This bouquet will require an additional fee of €9 and a new H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC HD set top box (Mediasat Max).

TPS, competitor of Canal Sat, begun broadcasting in high definition.[1]. TPS is expected to merge with CanalSat in the nearly future

[edit] Finland

[edit] Terrestrial

Finland took digital television into use on August 27 in 2001. As of 2006, digital television broadcasts from the A and B multiplexes can be seen by 99.9% of the population and those from multiplex C by 78%. Remaining 0.1% of population mainly in Lappland will be covered by satellite broadcasts. In addition, many cable providers in the biggest cities provide television broadcasts, including pay TV, in digital form. Digital television broadcasts can be received according to the DVB-T, DVB-C, DVB-S, and DVB-H specifications. There are altogether 15 television and 4 radio channels at the moment. In addition to the current analogue channels: YLE's TV1 and TV2, MTV3, and Nelonen, YLE24 (24-hour news), YLE Teema (culture, education, and science-related), Urheilukanava (sports), SubTV (mostly re-runs of old TV-series and movies), and SEXTV.FI (pornography) are broadcast in digital form. All channels except Canal+ Film1, Canal+ Film2, Canal+ Sport1 and Canal+ Sport2 are broadcast free of charge. Two new paytv channels started up in november 2006: MTV3 MAX (men's network) and SubTV Juniori (cartoons).

According to a survey by Finnpanel in June 2006, 50% of all households have digital television sets or set-top boxes. Almost half of the households have the ability to receive digital broadcasts.

Under the current schedule analogue transmissions will cease on August 31, 2007. All stations will go offline simultaneously.

http://www.digitv.fi/english For up-to-date information

[edit] Mobile tv

After test period during 2005-2006, commercial mobile paytv service based on DVB-H standard will start in the begining of 2007; among the services available will be Voice TV and Kiss digital radio.

[edit] IPTV

Elisa is offering digital television on ADSL.

[edit] Cable

All paytv uses digital broadcasts but availability of DVB-C hardware is still limited. For example, there are only some television sets for DVB-C available as of 2006. Note that DVB-C set-top boxes have been available since 2001. Some HDTV -tests have been since 2005 but not yet commercial service.

[edit] Satellite

Digital satellite television started in Nordic countries, and also in Finland, by Multichoice Nordic pay-tv platform during 1996. First set-top boxes available were manufactured by Nokia and Pace. After that service merged with Canal Digital which started late 1997. Competing paytv Viasat and YLE's channel TV Finland started digital broadcasts 1999.

Canal Digital launched some HDTV-channels, like Discovery HD, on their digital paytv-package during 2006. Pan-European HDTV-channel Euro1080 HD1 is available also in Finland [2]

[edit] Germany

[edit] Terrestrial

In a two step process that took place in 2003 analogue terrestrial TV broadcasting in the states of Berlin and Brandenburg was switched off to be replaced by DVB-T, which offers improved reception (especially in cars and with set top aerials) and because it offers a selection of more than 20 channels it establishes itself as a free competitor to cable TV.

During 2004 and early 2005 the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Niedersachsen, Hamburg, Bremen, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse also ceased analogue broadcasts in many areas. As of June 2005 only Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg have completely ceased analogue broadcasts.

During 2005 Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Bavaria began the transition to digital only broadcasts.

Other metropolitan areas are to follow in 2006. Terrestrial reception had lost most of its users in the 1990s and is believed to get a comeback now, especially in the mobile area. All analogue television broadcasting in Germany are to be terminated by law by 2010.

[edit] Satellite

Digital satellite television has been available in Germany since 1996. Most of the 30+ TV stations broadcast their satellite signal in both analogue and digital (DVB-S) forms. There is currently a single Pay TV satellite operation in Germany Premiere World, which (in form of its former owner Leo Kirch) got into serious fiscal trouble due to its early and proprietary (Betacrypt, d-box) enforcement of DTV.

Broadcast is always in DVB and SDTV PAL.

In autumn 2004 German channel group ProSiebenSat.1 showed a BBC documentary and a self produced TV movie, and in March 2005 the Hollywood flicks Spider-Man and Men in Black II using 1080i, MPEG-2 and DVB-S. These were intended to be a test for future commercial HD services.

Regular programming of the HD versions of Pro 7 and Sat 1, both free to air, began on 26 October 2005 for at least one year. Most programming is upscaled SD material still. Unlike the test broadcasts, DVB-S2 and MPEG-4 AVC is now used, because this is what the major pay TV service Premiere announced to be using.

Premiere itself, after several delays, finally started broadcasting three HD channels—one dedicated to each of movies, sports and documentaries—in November 2005, although there were virtually no suitable, certified receivers available on the market. The contents, too, is sparse and thus repeated often. Premiere reuses its proprietary digital rights management system embedded into its content scrambling system (Nagravision) from SD broadcasts to block analogue output of the movie channel from the receiving set-top box altogether, only allowing HDCP-secured transmissions; the other channels are less restricted.

For the time being, neither of the services is available via DVB-T nor DVB-C.

German channels producers and hardware companies hope for a breakthrough of HDTV sales just before the FIFA World Cup 2006 which will be broadcasted in HDTV on Premiere, also via cable. Big marketing was done at the IFA 2005. However, first reports seem to indicate flat panel TV sales have not picked up as much as anticipated. [3]

[edit] Cable

Cable transmission is still mostly analogue, again with the exception of Premiere (DVB-C) and some less important stations that did not fit any more into the analogue band. This situation is caused by the long and slow process of selling the infrastructure from former monopolist Deutsche Telekom to others, which for some years stopped nearly all new investments in that area.

[edit] Greece

In January 2006, ERT launched free-to-air Digital Terrestrial Television (DVB-T) with three channels called Prisma+, Cine+ and Sport+, collectively branded as ERT Digital. The first channel, Prisma+, is targeted at disabled people, Cine+ broadcasts movies, and Sport+ broadcasts sport programming. A set-top box is all that is required to view these channels. For the first 2 years, programs will last 6 to 10 hours each day (Cine+ already offers a 22 hour program). However, ERT is planning to make its own digital productions in order to deliver a 24 hour program for all three channels. As of March 2006 at least 65% of the Greek population is able to view DTT. A fourth channel, the Cypriot national channel's satellite program RIK sat, is retransmitted on digital together with the three ERT Digital channels on the same frequency.

[edit] Ireland

[edit] Terrestrial

Main article: Digital terrestrial television in Ireland

[edit] Cable

Digital cable (DVB-C) is provided by three of the firms involved in cable in Ireland. It is deployed on the entirety of the Casey Cablevision network, is available to the majority of the NTL Ireland wired network, and parts of the Chorus Communications wired network. The uptake rate of digital in enabled areas is generally poor, and many homes continue to use analogue cable to feed second televisions, video recorders and similar devices. The remaining, mainly small, cable firms do not provide any digital

[edit] MMDS

All of NTL Ireland's MMDS is digital, and the majority of Chorus Communications network has also been digitised

[edit] Satellite

Virtually all satellite reception, be it from Sky Digital, who are the dominant commercial satellite provider, or free-to-air setups, is digital. No Irish channels operate on analogue satellite.

Sky HD was launched by BSkyB on 22 May 2006 in both the United Kingdom and Ireland as an add-on to their existing Sky Digital service. Both 720p and 1080i are used. Some reports suggested that Sky's system will be capable of transmitting imported U.S. HDTV programming in its native 30 or 60 Hz vertical scan rates, in addition to domestic programming in 25 or 50 Hz. However, according to Sky's official website, only 25 and 50 Hz will be used.

[edit] Italy

[edit] Terrestrial

In Italy the DVB-T (Digital Terrestrial Television, known as Televisione Digitale Terrestre in Italian) is expanding rapidly. Almost every major network in Italy—including RAI, Mediaset, La7, MTV—started digital transmissions (continuing with analog television transmissions at the same time anyway until the transition is completed). Starting from January 2005 some networks (notably Mediaset and La7) started offering pay TV services through a prepaid smartcard (soccer games, usually five euros per game).

At the time of writing (May 2005) about 60% of the Italian territory is covered by digital television signal and the entire system is considered in an experimental phase until July 2005. Although at first the definitive switch off date was set by law to December 31, 2006 with a 100% coverage of the national territory, this date has been repeatedly pushed forward. At the time of this writing the complete switch off is set for 2012 [1] The former Italian government (in charge until April 2006 and led by Berlusconi, the owner of Mediaset television network) started promoting the new standard by granting a financial contribution for the purchase of a MHP capable digital television decoder

On February 2006, during the XX Olympic Winter Games held in Turin, RAI has broadcasted a number of sport events using a 1080i signal and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC coding. The HD signal has been transmitted over the Turin area, using DVB-T hyerarchical modulation, and only specially crafted decoders have been able to receive this signal: they were placed in strategical points in the town.

[edit] Satellite

There has been digital satellite broadcasts since 1997. Currently Sky Italia pay TV plaftorm is broadcasting from Hotbird -satellites. HDTV regular services will start in June 2006 under the name Sky HD, with the broadcasting of the 2006 World cup in High Definition. Additional movie and sport channels are planned for the service. Sky HD will cost an additional €7 fee.

[edit] Malta

Two commercial licences were awarded in Malta in 2005.

On July 2005, Multiplus Ltd started commercial operations in direct competition to the existing dominant cable operator utilising a total of 8 frequencies. Maltacom plc is also expected to offer DTV services but as of December 2005 no date has been announced.

[edit] Netherlands

[edit] Terrestrial

Due to the very extensive penetration of cable systems, usage of terrestrial television in the Netherlands is largely confined to remote rural areas and for portable televisions in caravans, etc.

Major radio and television transmitters in the Netherlands are operated by Nozema.

The national public broadcasting channels (publieke omroep) carry programmes from a large number of broadcasting organisations including AVRO, BNN, KRO, NCRV, TROS, VARA, VPRO and a number of others. NOS produces news bulletins and sports programmes and generally acts as the publieke omroep network coordinator. The national channels are called Nederland 1 (NED1), Nederland 2 (NED2) and Nederland 3 (NED3). In addition there are separate regional television stations for most or all of the Dutch provinces such as Drenthe, Flevoland, Friesland (Fryslan), Zeeland and so on.

DVB-T transmissions in the Netherlands are provided commercially by KPN daughter company Digitenne. They offer 25 TV channels and 16 radio channels. NED1, NED2, NED3 and regional channels are free-to-air. The Digitenne system requires the use of a special powered aerial.

At some time in the past NOS stated that they would stop broadcasting analogue television from January 2006. This did not happen.

In May 2006 the Dutch government announced that analogue television broadcasting would cease on 30 October 2006.

On September 15, the Dutch parliament and the Dutch government agreed that the date for analogue terrestrial switch-off would be 11 December 2006. NED1, NED2, NED3 and the regional television channels will be made free-to-air on satellite DVB-S and will be free-to-air on digital terrestrial transmission DVB-T. The signal was switched off at the planned date and as of December 11, all terrestrial television broadcast in The Netherlands is digital.

The Netherlands will be the second country in Europe to entirely convert to digital terrestrial broadcasting, the first being Luxembourg.

[edit] Cable

All the major cable companies are offering at least some digital services, with 1080i being rolled out in many areas in time for the 2006 Football World Cup. In 2008 at least 80% to 97% of the television stations will broadcast in HD.

[edit] Norway

The introduction of DVB-T is regulated by the ministry of culture and church affairs. So far Norway has developed slowly on DVB-T compared to main European countries, but pace is picking up as the Norwegian government now wants to close analogue TV broadcasting by 2009. In June 2002, a 12-year nationwide licence, including the roll-out of infrastructure, was publicly announced, met only by the application of Norges Televisjon as (NTV), a joint venture between the state-owned broadcaster NRK and the leading private broadcaster TV2. In February 2004, the Norwegian parliament passed the final regulations on digital broadcasting to the ministry of culture and church affairs, leaving the ministry to create a licence agreement for NTV. The ministry showed their proposal for a licence in December 2004. NTV was faced with more complicated regulations than they expected (such as the licence running already from roll-out of infrastructure). Therefore, in February 2005 NTV applied for extending their licence period from 12 yrs to 15 yrs, and consequently the ministry publicly announced the licence once again, announcement period expiring May 2, 2005. If licence is granted NTV during 2005, the company says it plans to roll-out infrastructure during 2006-2009, offering the Norwegian public between 15 and 18 TV stations; of them NRK1, NRK2, TV2, TV2 Zebra and a local channel. The EFTA competition authorities, ESA, has protested on the application process, saying the ministry is not in position to grant the DVB-T licence to a state-owned company like NTV, but ministry says this protest will not affect their decision. Here is a press release in Norwegian from the ministry dated March 7, 2005 announcing the extended licence for digital television. Norway will use DVB H.264/MPEG-4 AVC

[edit] Poland

On June 24, 2006, ITI, the largest media company in Poland, announced that it will launch a bouquet of 3 HDTV channels by satellite in the Fall of 2006. It has also been rumoured that TVP, Poland's public TV, will also begin broadcasting its main channels in HDTV to ITI's review ers.

Rumours also say that Polsat, another polish broadcaster is upgrading its own equipment to broadcast its main channel and sports channel in HDTV. This company also owns another digital satellite platform (Cyfrowy Polsat), which could become Poland's second HDTV source in the future.

For the time being, only ITI's plan is official, the other ones are only rumours, but most experts expect Poland to have about 10 HD channels available in late 2007.

In October 2006 Discovery Channel HD Poland will begin airing.

[edit] Spain

[edit] Terrestrial

Spanish digital television market began in 1997, with the start of two competing pay per view platforms (Canal Satélite digital and Vía Digital). The merger of the former created Digital Plus in 2002.

The case of digital terrestrial television is very alike to the failure of ITV Digital in the United Kingdom. Digital terrestrial television was introduced in the country by the pay per view platform Quiero Television. In May 2002, state wide operators were required to start broadcasting in DVB-T. Yet, Quiero TV ceased transmissions in 2002 after a commercial failure . Unlike the UK, the three and half multiplexes left by the platform were not reassigned to other operators, and so 5 channels were squashed into a single multiplex.

On November 30, 2005, Digital Terrestrial Television was relaunched as a free service with 20 channels and 14 radio stations, along with 23 regional and local language channels in their respective areas. Currently about 80% of the population can receive DTT, and this figure is expected to reach 90% by 2008. The channels are broadcast simultaneously with the analog signal and each multiplex has a minimum of 4 channels each. Aragón Televisión is using spare bandwidth in its own digital multiplex to broadcast a test HD stream.

[edit] Cable

Digital cable is slowly replacing the aging analogue service of the major cable provider Ono.Telecable, a cable ISP operating in Asturias has begun trials for 100 mpbs services. A HDTV bouquet is planned to be launched after the end of the tests.

[edit] Satellite

Digital satellite services has existed since 1997 from Astra and Hispasat -satellites. The Digital+ pay platform has carried some HDTV tests on Astra in June 16 2005. They consisted of some clips from Canal plus best known programs, such as "lo más +", "Las noticias del guiñol", "La hora wiki", and "código cine". No formal plans for HD services have been announced yet, although unofficial sources point out that a HD bouquet could be launched in late 2006.

[edit] IPTV

Telefónica will also begin trials of VDSL services up to 52 Mbit/s. The company might introduce HDTV in 2007 by upgrading its ADSL pay TV service Imagenio to VDSL. Currently, there is a limited trial in Telefónica's I+D labs.

[edit] Sweden

[edit] Terrestrial

In 1996, the Swedish parliament decided that terrestrial digital broadcasts (DVB-T) were the future of terrestrial broadcasting. The government presented its proposition to the parliament in March 2003. In the early summer of 2003, the parliament committed to a plan where the analog terrestrial broadcasting would be shut down in February 2008. As of May 2004, 23% of the population had access to equipment for receiving digital broadcasts. The digital broadcasts cover 90% of the population, and the plan is to cover 99.8% before the termination of the analog network.

All channels are free to choose whether they want to be encrypted or free-to-air, except for the channels from Utbildningsradion and Sveriges Television and the TV4-channel which must be free-to-air. As of May 2005, most Swedes can receive about 25 channels through the terrestrial network, but only about eight of them are free-to-air. To watch encrypted channels, a decryption card from Boxer TV Access is needed.

The analogue shutdown began 2005-09-19, when the analogue transmitters covering the island of Gotland went offline. Two more main transmitters (in Gävle and Motala) were shut down later in 2005. The remaining transmitters will shut down at set dates[4] spread over the following two years. The shutdown of the Malmö transmitter scheduled at 2007-10-15 ends the transition, leaving all terrestrial broadcasts digital.

The decision to cancel analogue broadcasts does not necessarily affect cable television, whose viewers for the most part can continue without digital set-top boxes beyond 2008.

The parliament and the ministry of culture determine what channels are allowed to broadcast digitally. The level of governmental control has generated some controversy.

In December 2005, Swedish state-owned transmitter operator Teracom presented terrestrial HDTV broadcasts using the MPEG-4 encryption standard.

Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT) announced in February 2006 that they intended to broadcast the 2006 FIFA World Cup in HD. The World Cup will be broadcast in HD in a joint channel from SVT and commercial TV4. It would be available nationwide from the Canal Digital satellite platform and free-to-air from selected terrestrial transmitters.

After the World Cup, SVT intends to start a separate HD channel named SVT HD.

[edit] Satellite

Canal Digital is also available in Sweden, and so is C More HD

[edit] United Kingdom

The UK has three major forms of digital television, a direct-to-home satellite service provided by British Sky Broadcasting (commonly known as Sky), digital cable television services provided by NTL, Telewest, and WightCable and a free-to-air digital terrestrial service called Freeview. It should be noted that having merged with Telewest, NTL is now also in the process of absorbing Virgin Mobile as well as preparing HDTV services.

[edit] Terrestrial

Main article: Digital terrestrial television in the United Kingdom

The initial attempt at launching a digital terrestrial broadcasting service, ONdigital (later called ITV Digital), was unsuccessful and the company went into liquidation. Some observers have argued that this failure stemmed from the Government's eagerness in having sold off too much TV spectrum to launch Channel 5 (the last UK terrestrial analogue channel), and ONdigital's short-sightedness in over-extending its use of available bandwidth: using poor signal encoding to maintain compatibility with early set-top boxes, optimising their broadcasts for capacity rather than reliability, and cramming too many channels into the available bandwidth.

ITV Digital was replaced in late 2002 by Freeview, which uses the same DVB-T technology, but with higher levels of error correction and more robust (but lower-capacity) modulation on the "Public Service" multiplexes in an attempt to counter the reception problems which dogged its predecessor. Rather than concentrating on Pay TV services, Freeview uses the available capacity to provide a free-to-air service that includes all the existing five free-to-air analogue terrestrial channels and about twenty new digital channels. All services are transmitted in SDTV mode.

March 31, 2004 saw the return of a limited pay-television offering to the digital terrestrial platform with the launch of Top Up TV. This new service is designed to appeal to those who do not want to pay the high subscription fees that Sky Television and the Cable networks demand. The service carries some of the UK’s most watched channels including the Discovery Channel, UKTV Gold, Discovery Real Time, British Eurosport and Cartoon Network. The 10 channels are split into 5 different slots and broadcast for only part of the day. In October 2006, Top Up TV became Top Up TV Anytime, taking advantage of the increase in the popularity of PVR's, and its limited channel space. Now over 100 programs are broadcast overnight and added to the boxes hard drive, so that it may be watched at any time. Channels that joined the service include MTV, Nickelodeon and Hallmark Channel.

2005 saw the first areas of the United Kingdom losing their analogue signal in a pilot test. The residents of Ferryside and Llansteffan in Carmarthenshire, Wales who had not already upgraded to digital television were given a free set-top box to receive the Freeview television service, which includes Channel 4 (previously unavailable terrestrially from transmitters in Wales) and S4C~2, which broadcasts sessions of the National Assembly for Wales. Digital transmissions for this pilot commenced in December 2004, at which time a message was added to the analogue picture advising viewers that the analogue services would end in February 2005. If the pilot is a success it will have paved the way for switch-over to digital television signals throughout the United Kingdom by the Government's unofficial deadline of 2012.

The year 2005 also saw the announcement by Ofcom about the proposed analogue switch off plans for the UK. It is proposed that the switch off will progress on an ITV region by region basis starting in 2008 starting in the Border Television region and ending in the Channel Television region in 2012. The coverage of the 3 PSB multiplexes will be the same as that enjoyed by the current analogue TV stations, while the 3 commercial multiplexes will cover approximately 90% of the UK population. To improve long standing interference issues in the Meridian and Anglia franchise areas a small number of new transmitters will be brought into service when those regions are converted in 2010 and 2011. These plans were confirmed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Tessa Jowell, on September 15. [5].

See Digital switchover in the United Kingdom

[edit] Freeview HD

The BBC already produces some programs (mostly documentaries) in HD for foreign markets, such as the USA and Japan. The Corporation intends to produce all its programmes in HD by the year 2010, and to broadcast all of its channels in HD "as soon as practical" ([6]). See also

There are no immediate launch plans for HDTV versions of the Freeview and Top Up TV digital terrestrial television services, because there is no spare bandwidth available nationally. This may change after the UK's analogue television signals are switched off (currently scheduled to take place on a regional basis between 2008 and 2012), but that requires the release of spectrum by Ofcom.

The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five will be running terrestrial HDTV trials involving 450 homes in the London area during June-December 2006 on locally unused frequencies [7]. As part of this trial, the BBC is already broadcasting BBC HD which is free to air but cannot be received by any set-top boxes currently commercially available. It can however be received and played back by a PC equipped with a DVB-t card that is within range (as the broadcast is not encrypted) using a software h264 decoder.

[edit] Cable

Trials of the UK's first HDTV service began on 2 December 2005. Telewest, a cable TV company now part of NTL, distributed HDTV programs to 400 customers in the south London area. On 10 March 2006 NTL confirmed that HDTV was available nationally in the former Telewest areas. The service is provided via a personal video recorder, branded as TV Drive, and costs GBP 10 per month on top of Telewest's top TV package, or GBP 15 per month on top of lower tiers.

[edit] Satellite

On November 1, 2005 ITV turned off encryption on all of its satellite based signals, following the lead from the BBC. These transmissions are on a limited spotbeam which is aimed primarily towards the United Kingdom, via the Astra 2D satellite located at 28.2 degrees east. This theoreticaly limits reception to the UK, Ireland and Iceland, allowing ITV to fulfil licensing agreements with content producers. However, many people report successful reception of these signals from across Europe by using larger dishes.

Details on tuning all Free-To-Air BBC and ITV stations, including a how-to for the Sky Digibox are available here [8]

Sky HD is offered by BSkyB in both the United Kingdom and Ireland as an add-on to their existing Sky Digital subscription service. The BBC is broadcasting BBC HD as a free to air channel from the Astra 2D satellite, and the channel can be viewed for free with suitable satellite reception equipment. There are additional equipment and subscription charges for HD from Sky TV but they are broadcasting an increasing number of channels in the HD format.

[edit] Retail stores

In the summer of 2005 some UK electrical retailers began running in-store HDTV (1080i) demonstrations using a high definition demo video produced by LG Group. Others chose to use HDTV (720p) demonstrations from BSkyB.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] HDTV

[edit] By country

[edit] Czech Republic

[edit] Regulators and organisations

[edit] Denmark

[edit] France

[edit] Finland

[edit] Italy

[edit] Regulators and organisations

[edit] Broadcasters and DTV Channel operators

[edit] Sweden

[edit] Switzerland

[edit] United Kingdom

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../d/i/g/Digital_television_in_Europe_f363.html"