Vodafone Deutschland is testing an accelerated TV signal distribution of German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF during the European Football Championship 2024, enabling DVB-C cable households to cheer for goals faster than viewers using other TV reception infrastructures.
To reduce the time delay between the TV picture and the action in the football stadium, Vodafone has changed the TV signal contribution to its cable network in recent months. “The ARD and ZDF signals now reach the two TV centres in Kerpen and Frankfurt-Rödelheim via fibre optic networks and no longer via satellite,” said Guido Kneuper, TV technology expert from Vodafone Engineering. “The uncompressed TV signal from the studios of the TV broadcasters is now used unchanged in signal processing.”
The result: a time advantage of up to two seconds for cable TV compared to DTH satellite reception, according to Vodafone, citing measurements by market research company veed analytics (see chart). The previous low-latency leader, DTH satellite, slipped to second place. The DTT infrastructure DVB-T2 is in third place, five seconds behind the ‘boosted’ cable TV signal. According to the measurements, waipu.tv was the fastest internet TV provider, seven seconds behind cable TV, followed by other OTT services with a considerably higher latency.
The accelerated signal distribution currently works for Das Erste HD and ZDF HD on Vodafone’s DVB-C cable network in 13 federal German states. For technical reasons, the former Unitymedia coverage areas of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Baden-Württemberg are not yet included. According to Vodafone, work is underway to introduce the service in these states.
The ‘booster’ will, however, not remain active permanently. As a Vodafone spokesperson explained to Broadband TV News, this is a pilot project limited to the period of the European Football Championship 2024.
Update, 14 June, 13:30 CEST: The accelerated signal distribution speed is now available nationwide across Vodafone’s footprint in all 16 German federal states, a company spokesperson confirmed to Broadband TV News.
