The Swiss public broadcaster SRG SSR plan to have six HD channels on air by 2012, according to local news reports. To this end, it will lease additional transponder capacity on the Hot Bird position.
At the moment the country has a single HD channel called HD Suisse, with programming contributed by the various regional language broadcasters.
In a letter to Swiss retailers, SRG SSR said it hopes the industry will only sell reception equipment capable of receiving DVB-S2/MPEG-4 signals. By 2015, the broadcaster hopes to end all simulcasting.
The six channels will be the two French language channels, TSR 1, TSR 2 the two German language channels SF 1, SF zwei and the two Italian language channels RSI LA 1 and RSI LA 2.
The current HD showcase channel HD Suisse will cease broadcasting by that time. Simulcast will only end on satellite; the public channels will remain available in standard resolution on the DTT network and on cable.
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