Today new DTT transmitters in Northern Germany have been switched on in the regions of Lüneburger Heide and Wendland. Two multiplexes with public broadcasters Das Erste, ZDF, Phoenix, arte, EinsExtra, NDR Fernsehen Niedersachsen, WDR, MDR, hr, 3sat and KiKa (and ZDF Dokukanal in channel sharing) are now available to viewers north of Hamburg. Until now […]
DTT extends to Alsace
The French region of Alsace, where the French border crosses over to Germany and Switzerland, is to be upgraded to digital television services in October. The French TNT (Tele Numerique pour Tous will be available to 80% of the population following transmitter work that will take place between October 15 and 31. Frequency agreements have […]
Stockholm throws digital switch
Stockholm has become the latest Swedish city to make the move to switch off its analogue TV broadcasts. The transmission company Teracom switched off the transmitter at Nacka, which serves the capital, at 09.45 this morning. Engineers are working through the day to optimize the signal and by 18.00 this evening leaving SVT2 and TV4 […]
German DTH market turns digital
The German DTH market is turning digital, but analogue receivers are still being bought. “Last year about 200,000 of these receivers have been sold, the year befiore it was over 350,000,” according to Wolfgang Elsäßer, managing director of Astra Deutschland in German press reports. Last year over two million digital receivers were sold, up 7.3% […]
Swiss to launch ‘shared’ HD channel in 2007
Swiss public broadcaster SRG SSR will launch a ‘shared’ HD channel before the end of this year to be in time for HD coverage of the Euro 2008 championship to be held in Switzerland and Austria. The new dedicated HD channel will show movies, sports and other HD programming in French, German and Italian simultaneously. […]
Telecom Italia in DTT rethink
Telecom Italia Media’s chief executive Antonio Campo dall’Orto has warned that the Italian government’s decision to delay analogue switch off from 2008 to 2012 had led the group to “re-think its DTT strategy.” Already the depreciation of the existing DTT network, purchased in 2005 and upgraded over the last year at a cost of over […]
PlusTV launches twin card pack
Finland’s PlusTV is launching a new twin card package that will allow subscribers to the DTT package to extend their viewing to any TV in their possession. In addition to the main smart card, which uses the Conax conditional access system, subscribers will be able to acquire three twin cards per household. According to research […]
Clover’s Week: Piling on the pressure
Broadcasters and manufacturers are pressing the case for terrestrial HD spectrum. Julian Clover reports from the DTG Summit Almost every television set on sale in the major high street stores is now described as ‘HD Ready, the industry standard set to ensure common specifications for the high definition format. The problem is that while the […]
Qatar starts DVB-H broadcast
DVB-WORLD DUBLIN – Qatar is the first country in the Middle East to commercially offer Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld (DVB-H) later this year. The service has been on a trial since December. Qtel Executive Director (Wireless) Sheikh Fahad bin Jassim al-Thani told Gulf Times that the service provider was in talks with vendors to […]
Canal launches entry level digital pack
CanalSat is introducing a new digital package replicating the French DTT line-up. The new service will go live on June 15 using the Astra satellite network at 19 degrees East and will carry 18 of the channels included on the ‘TNT’ system. The pack is designed to supplement the largely metropolitan coverage of the existing […]