RTE has appointed Sweden’s Teracom to test the receivers for its free-to-air DTT platform that has been named Saorview. Discussions with Teracom stretch back to the ill-fated bid by Boxer subsidiary Boxer to run the pay-TV multiplexes on the Irish DTT platform. Broadband TV News understands that RTE wanted to act as the gatekeeper for its FTA channels and joined the Scandinavian technical group NorDig.
RTE has subsequently become an active member of NorDig and will use the NorDig unified receiver specification for DVB-T, adding the MHEG-5 middleware that is also used in the UK. Using the NorDig specification should help to bring down the costs for receiver manufacturers while tapping into Teracom’s facility that already serves the Boxer affiliates in Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
Plans for Boxer to also use MHEG-5 itself have been put on ice following the withdrawal from the licensing process in April 2009.
Subsequently the Eircom-backed OneVision consortium was awarded the commercial DTT contract. The lack of movement has put back the official launch of DTT services, but these are now said to be making progress.