Digital television in the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom now has four major forms of broadcast digital television (DTV), a direct-to-home satellite service provided by British Sky Broadcasting (commonly known as Sky) or Freesat, digital cable television services provided by Virgin Media and WightCable, and a free-to-air digital terrestrial service called Freeview. In addition an IPTV system known as BT Vision is provided by BT. Individual access methods vary throughout the country. For most UK viewers, Sky, Virgin Media cable or Freesat are the only sources of HDTV broadcast available in their area and both come at a price over and above their standard TV packages.
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[edit] Major forms of broadcast DTV
[edit] Terrestrial
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 standard definition—576i in the UK—many using an anamorphic widescreen format.
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 higher subscription fees that Sky Television and the Cable networks demanded. 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 five 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 PVRs, and its limited channel space. Now over 100 programs are broadcast overnight and added to the box's hard disk, 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. The pilot paved the way for full switch-over to digital television signals throughout the United Kingdom by the Government's deadline of 2012.
The year 2005 also saw the announcement by Ofcom of 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 three public service multiplexes will be the same as that enjoyed by the current analogue TV stations, while the three 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, 2005. [1].
See Digital switchover in the United Kingdom.
[edit] Freeview HD
The BBC already produces some programmes in high definition 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".[1]
There are no immediate plans to launch HD 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. However, no special provision is being made by Ofcom for HDTV, and broadcasters will have to bid against other uses for the frequencies during the Digital Dividend Review.
The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five ran terrestrial HDTV trials involving 450 homes in the London area during June-December 2006 on locally unused frequencies [2]. As part of this trial, the BBC broadcast BBC HD free to air. The trial homes received an HD-capable set-top box; the services could also 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 H.264 decoder.
[edit] Cable
Digital Cable in the United Kingdom is available through Virgin Media and several local cable companies.
Trials of the UK's first HDTV service began on 2 December 2005. Telewest, a cable TV company now part of Virgin Media, distributed HDTV programs to 400 customers in the south London area. Following the merger of NTL & Telewest and the creation of Virgin Media HDTV was rolled out across the network, including former NTL areas. The service is provided via a personal video recorder, branded as V+ and formally know as TV Drive.[2]
[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 theoretically 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.
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. Sky also offers a free-to-air version of its regular Sky Digital service known as Freesat from Sky. Freesat from Sky provides a non-subscription card for public service broadcast channels Channel 4 and Five, however Film4, Film4+1 are free-to-air.
On 12 July 2006, the BBC and ITV announced a free-to-air satellite service as a competitor to Freesat from Sky, to be temporarily called Freesat.[3] It will be available around Autumn 2007.[4] The service will cover all BBC and ITV digital TV channels, plus interactive services, radio channels, and other channels. It is being touted as the satellite equivalent to Freeview, especially for areas unable to receive the Freeview DTT service.[5]
[edit] High-definition
High definition is currently at an early stage of development in the UK. The vast majority of channels have so far remained SD and only the very largest channels have so far moved, or contemplated moving, to HD.
[edit] Free-To-Air
The BBC has launched its own high-definition service called BBC HD which is currently available via Digital Satellite. Rather than simulcasting one of the corporation's existing channels, the channel broadcasts for several hours per day and broadcasts a selection of its high-definition programming.
BBC HD is also available on Virgin Media. The BBC Trust has given provisional approval for a BBC HD channel, which would be broadcast on satellite, cable and DVB-T.[citation needed]
During 2006, ITV trialled its high-definition service ITV HD. This trial was a Digital Terrestrial trial which broadcast only from the Crystal Palace transmitting station in London. The channel is currently off-air and is expected to launch nationwide on Digital Satellite from Spring, 2008.[citation needed]
[edit] Free-To-View
Channel 4 launched a high-definition simulcast, Channel 4 HD of its main channel on digital satellite in December, 2007. It also took part in the terrestrial trial mentioned above. The channel is expected to change to being free-to-air some time in 2008, once its current exclusive deal with BSkyB has expired.[citation needed]
[edit] Subscription
Sky HD offers three HD sports channels, three HD movie channels, and several other subscription HD channels, such as Discovery HD.
Sky Digital, there are BBC HD, Channel 4 HD, Sky One HD, FX HD, Sky Arts HD, Luxe.tv HD, Sky Premiere HD, Sky Movies HD1 & 2, Sky Sports HD1,2 & 3, Rush HD Discovery HD, National Geographic Channel HD, The History Channel HD & Sky Box Office HD1 & 2. With MTV HD, Ultra HD & ITV1 HD to come in the near future.
Public consultation on the Trust's provisional conclusions on the proposed BBC HD service] ended on 23 October 2007. [6]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ BBC NEWS | Entertainment | TV and Radio | BBC to trial high-definition TV
- ^ Virgin TV
- ^ BBC and ITV to start Sky TV rival. Retrieved on 2007-11-30.
- ^ Freesat 'delayed to autumn 2007'. Retrieved on 2007-11-30.
- ^ Q&A: Freesat. Retrieved on 2007-11-30.
- ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consult/open_consultations/hdtv_consult.html
[edit] External links
- High Definition for Europe - a progressive approach, article from the EBU technical review
- Government
- Freeview
- Top Up TV
- Virgin Media
- Sky Digital (BSkyB)
- OFCOM digital switchover proposal
- Digital UK
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