The situation of DTT in our country is bizarre to say the least…and those of us who pay for it end up being users who cannot enjoy television in the quality and conditions that would be expected from a first world country in the middle of 2022.
Terrestrial Digital Television may suffer a new turn of events that make it clear that it is a constant “where I said, I say, I say Diego”. At the same time that the obligation to broadcast HD DTT has been delayed and will no longer be next year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation encourages televisions to experiment with Ultra High Definition.
Without HD in 2023
The deadline for all DTT channels to start broadcasting in high definition was just at the end of this year and some channels did not want to wait and began to make the leap to high definition. The new Royal Decree extends this period until February 14, 2024 so that all television channels evolve their broadcasts to high definition and stop broadcasting in the standard format (or SD).
This extension that the government seeks to give to DTT channels that still broadcast in standard format is due to the exceptional situation resulting from the pandemic, which has slowed down the renewal of the park of television sets adapted for high-definition DTT broadcasts. With this new Royal Decree, we will still have to wait more than a year to be able to start seeing the DTT channels in a quality that they should already have.
The Ministry encourages testing DTT 4K
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation encourages televisions to experiment with DTT in Ultra High Definition. Antonio Fernández-Paniagua, Deputy Director General for Planning and Management of the Radioelectronic Spectrum of the aforementioned ministry, will be one of the featured speakers at the eighth edition of the 4K HDR Summit, which will be held from November 14 to 18 at the National Pole of Digital Contents, in Malaga and where he will explain the situation of Digital Terrestrial Television in Spain and, hopefully, shed some light on the future.
Fernández-Paniagua will give the keys to everything regarding the situation of digital terrestrial television in Spain, in particular, its evolution to HD and the measures for a future transition to Ultra High Definition, as stated in the National Technical Plan for Digital Terrestrial Television, published in the BOE on June 25, 2019 and whose modification to include the extension for the mandatory nature of HD is underway.
In addition, according to the provisions of the PTN-TDT, all television channels, whether local, regional or national, “have to evolve their broadcasts to high definition before January 1, 2023, although it has been taken the decision to, by means of another Royal Decree, extend this period until February 14, 2024”, acknowledges Fernández-Paniagua. “Despite the existence of this deadline, any operator may decide to evolve beforeas long as it is notified to the administrative authority that granted the audiovisual title for the broadcast of said channel”.
As regards experimental broadcasts in UHD in Spain, “they have been authorized in practically all the provincial capitals and in some additional important cities. All this is aimed at making an evolution to high definition on the established dates and preparing a future evolution both to UHD and to more efficient transmission technologies such as DVB-T2”.
