Slowly but surely, HDTV is starting to appear in Central and Eastern Europe.
The news that Estonia’s Elion has added Voom to its programme line-up is a highly welcome development and one that is likely to act as a catalyst for the introduction of HD services in the Baltic Republics as a whole. Certainly in Estonia, Elion has been setting the pace for the last two years, being the first company to introduce digital cable TV services and then IPTV. Starman and STV, the country’s two leading MSOs, have been forced to react by themselves rolling out digital cable and – in the case of Starman – entering into a partnership with the transmission company Levira to launch a DTT service late last year. The latter, which employs MPEG-4 compression, certainly plans to offer HD sometime in the future.
Elsewhere, HD is already part of the media landscape in Poland following the launch of the DTH platform n last autumn and Canal+’s first HD channel in the country in December. This year will see the national commercial station Polsat launch its first HD channels and both TVP and TVN will surely not be far behind.
Developments look equally promising in the Czech Republic, where the Broadcasting Council (RRTV) has just licensed what will be the country’s first HDTV channel. It is probably now also only a matter of time before Russia launches its first HDTV service, with the DTH platform NTV-Plus the most likely operator.
Elsewhere, however, the picture is less promising. There is, for instance, no indication as yet when HDTV services might appear in such markets as Hungary and Romania, though in the latter an IPTV network in the capital, Bucharest, is understood to offer a limited service.
The general trend is nevertheless clear. HD has finally arrived in Central and Eastern Europe and the number of channels available to viewers is likely to grow considerably in the months to come. (CD)
