Graham Plumb BBC (another red tie person) explained that one current DVB-T multiplex will be ‘cleared’ and some reorganisation will be done to allow DVB-T2 multiplexes, which will include 8Mbit/s HDTV services. Do the people who have already bought DVB-T DTT sets know and mind? . Existing DVB-T sets will, it seems, be able to receive all the programmes they do at the moment, so perhaps not. For further channels, you will need a DVB-T2 receiver. Transmitters after switch off will be higher powered- and so there is a job to be done in the transmitter network. A new UK ‘D-book’ has been agreed in the DTG group (useful to get hold of that from Simon Gauntlett?). Is 1080p/50 broadcasting possible? Yes, but not in the timescale (what a pity, this will be the last chance for at least a decade, n’est pas?).
Has the UK made ’sensible’ decision? What do you think?
11/03/2009 at 09:44
Yes, as mentioned yesterday, D-Book 6 was published on Friday last week. It contains significant enhancements over previous D-Books (the E-Book was based on D-Book 3 many years ago) including DVB-T2, HD video, surround audio, HD subtitles, HD MHEG, MHEG interaction channel including streaming video, HDMI guidelines, DVB-SSU support and the DVB-SI to hold the whole thing together.
It is available now to DTG members on the website and for more information, please contact the DTG office.
11/03/2009 at 09:45
As mentioned by Ulrich Reimers, one wonders whether the exceptional performance of T2 in SFNs can be exploited in the UK’s proposals. We heard from Graham that they are following the GE06 plan and the requirement there – but there’s so much possible when you deploy SFNs in T2 …… I wonder what will happen in other countries?
11/03/2009 at 09:46
I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but could T2 be the answer to terrestrial digital television in Latin America?
11/03/2009 at 10:00
Can non DTG members get a copy? How should they go about it?
11/03/2009 at 10:24
The challenge of introducing a national SFN network in a country where the UHF bands are already full of analogue and existing DTT transmissions is in achieving a clear national channel – it requires a number of staged and progressive re-tunes in each region – costly in terms of information/publicity management and disruptive for existing DTT viewers. The UK approach of clearing an existing T1 multiplex is non-disruptive. Also nationsl SFN networks do not work for regional broadcasters, but regional SFNs strengthen coverage in the region – as used in New Zealand when it launched Freevie HD on DTT last year (MPEG-4 over T1 with MHEG-5)l
11/03/2009 at 10:52
We do hope to be able to publish wider than the DTG membership eventually, but at this stage, given the likely clarifications up to launch, we are restricting it to DTG Members only.