Ceske Radiokomunikace (CRa) has become the first company in Central Europe to undertake DVB-T2 tests with the new HEVC compression codec.
According to Michal Bures, who is heading up the Ultra HD trial for the Czech transmission company, they already show that it is possible to achieve savings compared to the current bitstream using MPEG-2.
This means that in future it will be possible to distribute three TV channels in Ultra HD or 10 in HD on one DVB-T2 multiplex.
In the case of SD, it will be possible to distribute up to 40 channels, compared to the eight currently via a DVB-T MPEG-2 multiplex.
Marcel Prochazka, director of regulation and strategy at CRa, added that the migration to DVB-T2 with HEVC will enable the development of entirely new types of services for TV viewers.
Besides increasing the number of channels in higher quality, it will allow for mobile TV reception and the interconnection of TV with internet services.
It is assumed that DVB-T and DVB-T2 will operate in parallel with each other for several years, and negotiations as to when DVB-T2 can be introduced are currently being undertaken with the Czech Telecom Office (CTU).
The DVB-T2 tests are being undertaken with the support of Sony.
