Digital terrestrial television in the United Kingdom
Digital terrestrial television in the United Kingdom encompasses over 100 television, radio and interactive services broadcast via the United Kingdom's terrestrial television network and receivable with a standard television set. The majority of digital terrestrial television (DTT) services, including the five former analogue channels, are broadcast free-to-air, and a further selection of encrypted pay TV services (such as Racing TV) are also available.
The digital broadcasting technology adopted in the UK is the
In the UK, the switchover from analogue to digital TV started on 17 October 2007 and was completed on 24 October 2012. Each group of regional transmitters had its analogue broadcasts switched off at a certain point between those dates.
Receiving and recording
Digital Terrestrial Television is commonly received by means of a compatible set-top box or integrated digital television (IDTV), connected to an appropriate receiving antenna. In most cases, reception is possible using aerials originally used for analogue television.
Transmissions may be recorded in many ways – such as via the connection of a set-top-box to an existing 'analogue' video or DVD recorder, or by the use of newer models of such recorders which have built-in digital tuners. However, the most common option is by the use of set-top-boxes which incorporate a hard disk drive, and allow the recording of the digital signal directly to disk, for later replay. Recording on such boxes, known as Personal Video Recorders or PVRs, is more convenient, as programmes may be easily selected for recording from an on-screen programme guide, with no need to specify explicit start and end times for recordings, and no need to program more than one piece of equipment.
Many television services which incorporate DTT channels in their service offering – e.g. Top Up TV,
There also exist a variety of solutions to enable the viewing and recording of DTT programmes on personal computers, with various TV cards or USB tuners available for use with a variety of software packages, including MythTV and Windows Media Center. Most cards or tuners include their own software in the package also.
Features
Digital Terrestrial Television provides many more channels. For some viewers it offers much improved reception compared to analogue broadcasts (although these had been entirely discontinued in the UK by 2012), including 16:9 anamorphic widescreen. A number of interactive services are also offered.
An eight-day Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) is available and allows viewers to see programme descriptions and broadcast times well in advance. PVRs will make use of this facility allowing recording timers to be set. This Eight-Day EPG was not an original feature of the Digital Terrestrial system, therefore some early receivers, such as receivers originally made to operate with the ONdigital service, will only display details of 'now and next' programme information.
A fourteen-day Top Up TV EPG was an alternative which was available to TUTV-branded PVRs.
History
Development and launch
Digital terrestrial television launched in the UK on 15 November 1998, just after
The
The BBC made some use of its multiplex for three of its then four new television services;
Channel 5 sold its half of Multiplex A to the owners of the other half of the multiplex, S4C, who set up a subsidiary called
While the BBC was seemingly concerned with delivering a service of good technical quality, other broadcasters chose to deliver a larger number of channels rather than optimise service reliability and picture quality.[4]
ITV Digital
ONdigital had problems from the start, and renaming the service
Freeview
As ITV Digital had collapsed, the rights reverted to the regulator and the ITC invited bids for the space on Multiplexes B, C and D. The Freeview consortium was formed by the BBC, transmitter company
The BBC controlled one Multiplex (B) for its own services, and Crown Castle/National Grid the other two (C & D) for commercial services, though the Community Channel also operated on Multiplex B. The BBC's second multiplex has allowed it to televise BBC Parliament where it had previously only been available in sound, allowed BBC Knowledge and its successor, BBC4, to stop renting space from SDN for coverage, and allowed for special video screens in its interactive service BBCi, for use during sporting events such as
On 11 October 2005, ITV plc and Channel 4 joined the Freeview consortium and in the same year ITV plc also bought SDN and as such they gained control of Multiplex A.
Top Up TV
The space ITV Digital had rented on other multiplexes initially became empty again, but some were rented out to allow new channels to launch. In May 2004 Top Up TV was launched to provide subscription content in hitherto unused space on multiplex A, rented from
In October 2006, Channel 5 launched two new free-to-air digital channels,
On 19 April 2006, Ofcom ruled that, on request of each
During the consultation, 9 of the 12 responses from broadcasters were in favour of removing the restriction. These included the BBC. The BBC agreed that the digital television market had changed substantially since 2002, and that Top Up TV probably could not afford the current cost of DTT slots anyway. The BBC suggested that the deregulation should be conditional on a number of further changes to regulation. These included that Ofcom changes the transmission mode of broadcast on all multiplexes from 16
Out of the three that opposed, one was Channel 4, which has been putting in place a portfolio of free-to-air channels, among them Film4 which was made free-to-air across all platforms on 23 July 2006. Channel 4 argued that the number of free channels available has been the major driving force behind the massive success of the platform – there are now more than 10 million Freeview boxes in use.
A number of broadcasters requested that their replies were kept confidential. These include ITV and BSkyB. However, it is believed that ITV opposed the plan and BSkyB supported it.[7] In addition to replies from broadcasters, there were 21 replies from individuals. Of these, 20 opposed the change.
The channels on Multiplexes B, C and D are those owned by the Freeview consortium and include the three Sky channels on the platform and the UKTV channels. However, Ofcom believes that in the short to medium term, it is unlikely existing free-to-air channels will convert to pay TV. This is because, firstly, Multiplex B is run by the BBC, which is not expected to request the removal of the free-to-air requirement. Secondly, due to the nature of the contracts the channel broadcasters hold with multiplex operators and content providers, it is unlikely a channel will be able to change to pay TV.
It was announced on 8 February 2007 that BSkyB intended to withdraw Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News from the platform in the summer of 2007. BSkyB had said that it intended to replace them with 4 of its subscription channels. It also said that it would use an alternative (
2008 update issues
During 2008, a rolling programme of transmitter updates caused approximately 250,000 set-top boxes to stop working. Freeview had warned consumers in advance of the update, which was phased over a three-month period.[10] The problem affected a specific range of older units, and was caused by an increased Network Information Table (channel list) exceeding the memory available in some set-top boxes. This had been part of the specification that was available and implemented in the very early OnDigital boxes, but not in those using the SetPal chip set.[11] Affected consumers were advised to buy new set-top boxes.
Digital switchover
Summary
The UK Government's intention was that
The digital switchover process involved discontinuing analogue terrestrial TV broadcasts, which in some areas allowed for greater signal strength and/or better coverage of digital multiplexes. The process concluded on 24 October 2012, when digital switchover completed in Northern Ireland (the same day as the Republic of Ireland also completed its digital switchover[13]).
In areas where analogue signals had terminated, older receiving equipment was likely to require replacement or upgrade. This process was subsidised by the UK Government for those on low incomes. Contracts for this operation were awarded to BSkyB in the Border Television region. Upgrading of analogue receiving equipment required a Freeview set-top box (or other DVB-T capable digital receiver). Where an analogue TV recording device was in use this ideally would require a separate Freeview set-top box, to replicate the previous functionality of recording and watching different programme sources.
History
The progress towards digital switchover in the UK was long. The then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Chris Smith, announced in 1999 that the Government's intention was to achieve switchover "between 2006 and 2010". Work started in earnest with the setting up of the Digital Action Plan, a body working across industry, government and consumer groups to advise on the best way to meet the switchover target date.
By 2003, however, it was becoming clear that switchover could not start by 2006. In particular, the decision taken by the
On 15 September 2005, addressing the Royal Television Society in Cambridge, Smith's successor at the DCMS, Tessa Jowell, announced the go-ahead for switchover in the UK, coupled with support measures to ensure the disadvantaged are not left behind.[14]
On the day after Jowell's speech, an independent not-for-profit company, Digital UK (now Everyone TV), was established to co-ordinate the switchover process. Set up by the broadcasters and the commercial multiplex operators, Digital UK was required to co-ordinate the project and ensure that the public are kept informed about progress.
Local television broadcasters, including the BBC and ITV, actively encouraged viewers to upgrade to digital television. UK broadcasters were also under additional pressure to complete migration before the
Digital rollout
The British Government gave
In October 2007, following a 15-month publicity and information campaign, and an early digital launch in August by Channel 5,[16] the Whitehaven, Eskdale Green and Gosforth transmitters switched off analogue signals on the BBC Two frequency, and began broadcasting a temporary digital service for the main channels. On 14 November, all analogue signals were switched off, and the permanent three-multiplex digital service began (albeit with Channel 5 only on the Whitehaven transmitter, until 2009). Unfortunately, as had been feared, a small number of homes among the hills, which had received "fuzzy" analogue signals, particularly in Eskdale, were unable to receive a decodable Freeview signal.[17] The only other serious problem resulted from the "rescan" command in some models of set-top box defaulting to frequencies used by the nearest main transmitter, instead of the strongest digital signals; this could be overcome by using the "add channel" option to select channels one-by-one, and in the long term by corrections to the boxes' software.[18]
In November 2008, the full rolling programme started in the
Many decisions had to be made, including what to do about people who may find the new technology confusing, or who have no desire to receive more than the four or five channels they originally had, and who may have been reluctant to buy a digital box to view the free channels. The government arranged for the BBC to administer a
Another issue was that the "98.5 per cent of the population" availability target could only be achieved "via rooftop aerials",[19] while Section 134 of the Communications Act 2003 sets out the principle "that no person should unreasonably be denied access to an electronic communications network or to electronic communications services".[20] This is taken to mean that everyone has the right to mount a television aerial on their roof.[21] Ofcom allocated frequencies for groups of households to provide "self-help" relay transmitters at their own expense (for analogue broadcasts there were some 200 of these, serving around 13,000 households), but suggested that in such cases, terrestrial TV may no longer be the most cost-effective solution.[22]
The switchover process
After several months of press publicity, leaflet drops, public meetings etc., captions started appearing on analogue broadcasts from the affected transmitters, warning viewers that the analogue service would shortly be switched off and that they would need to take action (for Whitehaven, the first large area to switch over, the captions started appearing some 5 months before the BBC Two analogue service was switched off (ITV & C4/S4C) page 284 made it possible to determine whether they were likely to need a new aerial or a signal amplifier to receive digital transmissions.
Next, detailed information booklets were delivered to all households in the area (including many on the fringe who may have been receiving their TV from other transmitters- hence the importance of the on-screen warning captions). Two or three months later, the first stage of the switchover began with the analogue
Three multiplexes (BBC A, D3&4, BBC B) are for public service broadcasting and are broadcast from all transmitter sites. They contain around 25 TV channels, half a dozen radio stations and half a dozen text/interactive services. These include all the television channels from the BBC, some from ITV and Channel 4, Channel 5 and S4C (in Wales only). The other three multiplexes (SDN, Arqiva A, Arqiva B) are broadcast from main transmitter sites only and are operated by their respective commercial licence-holders. To reflect the slightly changed roles, the multiplex names were also changed:[25]
Old multiplex name | New multiplex name | Owning company |
---|---|---|
1 | BBC A | BBC |
2 | D3&4 | Digital 3&4 |
A | SDN | S4C Digital Networks (ITV plc) |
B | BBC B | BBC |
C | Arqiva A | Arqiva |
D | Arqiva B | Arqiva |
Post-switchover
The adoption of the technically superior DVB-T format occurred in each region at the date of switchover. This resulted in no reception for viewers with older '2k' only equipment, such as former ONdigital/ITV Digital boxes, and other incompatible IDTVs and set top boxes.[26]
In the Meridian and Anglia regions, transmitters formed a single-frequency network when they were converted to all-digital operation.[27]
Alternative post-switchover multiplex designations were used on internal documentation by the BBC switchover contractor Arqiva,[28] but changing the designations of the multiplexes requires changes to legislation[2] and to the multiplex licences issued by Ofcom and is not in the current draft.[29]
When digital switchover was complete, two new sub-bands of the
- Mobile Television services
- wireless (mobile) broadband services
- wider coverage for advanced services in remote and rural areas
- more multiplexes carrying more channels
- high definition (HD) services
The clearing and re-allocation of these channels of the spectrum for other services caused some controversy within technical industries, such as
Further re-allocations of the other freed analogue television channels have not yet occurred, but when implemented will require legislation changes. It is likely that if they are sold commercially, they will not only attract interest, but may be bought for millions of pounds due to the high demand for spectrum throughout most of Europe. Ofcom have published further information about the auctioned channel in an announcement on their website.
OFCOM released their consultation of the future of the 600 MHz and 700 MHz UHF bands beyond 2018 on 16 November 2012.[34] This document recommends that the 600 MHz UHF band is allocated to DVB-T2 MPEG-4 Freeview HD services and Whitespace services, allowing a future migration of the existing 700 MHz Freeview allocation to 700 MHz mobile data services (synchronising the bandwidth usage with many other markets in Europe and globally).
Digit Al
Digit Al is a robot character created for Digital UK in 2005, by
Digital Self-Help Relays
Terrestrial analogue relay stations have been repeating TV signals to areas not covered by broadcaster-owned transmitters since the Independent Broadcasting Authority started licensing them in 1980. Recently self-help groups have had to look into upgrading their old analogue transmitters to digital ones. The first digital self-help relay was installed at Ladram Bay, Devon by Stuart Harse and Liam Kelly (broadcast engineers from Bristol). The system was designed by Mike Rea of Taylor Transmitters, Oldham UK. The Ladram Bay TV repeater broadcasts all six mux signals from the Stockland Hill transmitter.
Post-switchover reorganisation and HD
This section needs to be updated.(August 2011) |
In March 2006, the development of a new second generation digital terrestrial broadcasting standard,
The BBC, ITV, Channel 4, S4C and Channel 5 agreed with the regulator
From 27 October 2009, Multiplex B (PSB3) was cleared of SD channels in post DSO areas, which were moved to Multiplex 1 (PSB1). In pre DSO areas, Multiplex B continued to carry BBC Four, BBC Parliament, CBeebies, BBC Radio Stations and 301 until DSO. Former streams of 302 and News Multiscreen on Multiplex B were sublet to broadcasters other than the BBC for pre DSO areas only, and were not available at all in post DSO areas because of the new DVB-T2 HD multiplex as replacement.
On 3 April 2008, Ofcom published its final decision for the HDTV transmission format: DVB-T2 and MPEG-4.
List of digital terrestrial channels
Multiplexing
The multiplexes
Mux name | Operator | Broadcast mode | Bit-rate | Notes | Non-exhaustive list of channels[43] | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
pre-switchover | post-switchover license name | post-switchover operating name | pre-switchover | post-switchover | pre-switchover | post-switchover | |||
Multiplex 1 | PSB1 | BBC A | BBC | 16-QAM | 64-QAM | 18 Mbit/s
|
24 Mbit/s | Carries all non-HD BBC channels | BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, BBC News |
Multiplex 2 | PSB2 | D3&4 | Digital 3&4 (an ITV / Channel 4 consortium) |
64-QAM | 64-QAM | 24 Mbit/s | 24 Mbit/s | ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV2, E4, Film4 | |
Multiplex A | COM4 | SDN | SDN (owned by ITV plc) |
64-QAM | 64-QAM | 24 Mbit/s | 24 Mbit/s | Quest, QVC, Drama, 5USA, Legend, Great! Action | |
Multiplex B | PSB3 | BBC B | BBC | 16-QAM | 256-QAM | 18 Mbit/s | 40 Mbit/s | HD services. Transmits MPEG4 data using DVB-T2 (rather than MPEG2/DVB-T as used on other multiplexes). |
BBC1 HD, BBC2 HD, ITV HD, Channel 4 HD, Channel 5 HD |
Multiplex C | COM5 | ARQ A | Arqiva | 16-QAM | 64-QAM | 18 Mbit/s | 27 Mbit/s | Pick, Challenge, Sky Arts, Food Network | |
Multiplex D | COM6 | ARQ B | Arqiva | 16-QAM | 64-QAM | 18 Mbit/s | 27 Mbit/s | Ideal World, Yesterday, HGTV |
Mux name | Operator | Broadcast mode | Bit-rate | Notes | Ceased | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
License name | Operating name | |||||
COM8 | ARQ D | Arqiva | 256-QAM | 40 Mbit/s | HD services, MPEG4 | 22 June 2020 |
COM7 | ARQ C | Arqiva | 256-QAM | 40 Mbit/s | HD services
MPEG4 DVB-T2 |
30 June 2022 |
In 2014, Ofcom decided to reallocate the frequency band used by COM7 and COM8 to make it available for mobile communications[citation needed]. This project, known as "700Mhz clearance", was intended to be complete by the second quarter of 2020;[44] as of June 2020[update] the switch-off is largely complete but the remaining transmitter changes are postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[45] Channels broadcast on the COM8 multiplex were cleared by Arqiva on 22 June 2020, with some services moving to broadcast from COM7 or PSB3.[46]
Use of multiplexing technology
This section needs additional citations for verification. (December 2013) |
Each multiplex is an error-protected
- a number of services use the same bandwidth at different times. For example, CBeebies and BBC Four currently use the same space in their multiplex, with CBeebies broadcasting from 6 am until 7 pm and BBC Four from 7 pm.
- some multiplexes allocate more bandwidth to services, providing a smaller number of higher-quality services.
- The bitrates out of the same portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, but require a stronger signal for good reception. The modulation schemes used in the UK are, in order of bandwidth efficiency, each with a progressively higher bitrate, at the cost of progressively higher likelihood of signal degradation:
- By late 2009, multiplexes 2 and A used 64-QAM and were consequently more prone to poor reception, while the other multiplexes used 16-QAM. At switchover the transmission mode was changed from 16-QAM to 64-QAM on Multiplex 1 (PSB1),[25] increasing the effective bandwidth of the multiplex. The switch to 64-QAM mode also provided extra bandwidth on Multiplexes C (COM5) and D (COM6).
- By late 2012, the digital switchover was complete, with all DVB-T multiplexes using 64-QAM. The switchover allowed the transmitters to broadcast at a higher power level, reducing the likelihood of reception errors when receiving 64-QAM encoded broadcasts.
- Multiplexes can make use of a higher bitrate at one instantand this can result in the bitrate allocated to another channel in the same multiplex being reduced if the second channel is currently transmitting pictures which are easier to encode, with less fine detail.
Improvements in compression technology
Developments in
As the number of homes receiving digital terrestrial grew, the interest in new channel capacity increased. In 2005, the auction for two new slots on National Grid Wireless multiplex D resulted in broadcasters bidding high prices to gain bandwidth. ITV won the bidding for the first slot (on which it launched
Later compression technology, implemented in
The BBC, which ultimately broadcast high-definition television on Freeview in the DVB-T2 format adopted in 2009, initially considered an alternative method utilising spare capacity at night to allow the download of high definition programmes for later replay. In addition the BBC's Research and Development team invented a transmission method that doubles the effective bandwidth that could currently be delivered by each multiplex using "spatial multiplexing". While conventional analogue and digital terrestrial television signals are transmitted either vertically or horizontally polarised (providing protection against interference from other distant signals which may be transmitted on the same frequency, but will usually be planned to use the opposite polarisation), the proposed technique would have involved using the same frequency to transmit two different signals at once, one vertically and one horizontally polarised. A special receiving aerial, containing both vertically and horizontally polarised elements, could receive both signals simultaneously and feed these to a suitable set top box, but would require new transmitters and receiving equipment and aerials; the technique was ultimately not adopted.[citation needed]
See also
- Digital television in the United Kingdom
- Top Up TV
- BT TV
- Freesat
- High-definition television in the United Kingdom
- List of British television channels
References
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External links
Official sites
- Digital Switchover UK
- BBC – Digital – Homepage
- BBC – Digital – Switchover
- Freeview official site
- Top Up TV
- DigitalUK
- Ofcom's list of the current licensed digital television services
- Digital TV Consumer test reports UK Government-funded website to support Digital Switchover