European DVB-T is a bit of a mess at the moment. Lots of countries have fairly old DVB-T SD services using MPEG2 and now everyone seems to be implementing different ways of doing HD. All agree on AVC, but some are using DVB-T and some DVB-T2. It's going to take a few years for everything to settle down and in the meantime there is going to be huge confusion as to what box supports what countries.
For example, most Irish televisions are tagged DVB-T / "Freeview" compatible, but DTV hasn't even officially launched in Ireland, and when it does its going to broadcast all SD & HD channels encoded with AVC. The result is virtually no existing television or set top box will work in Ireland. Only a small number of this year's crop of TVs do support AVC but nobody seems to be going out their way to highlight this. There is going to be a huge amount of confusion and anger surrounding Irish DTV if / when it finally launches.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DrXym @ Jun 27th 2009 6:39AM
European DVB-T is a bit of a mess at the moment. Lots of countries have fairly old DVB-T SD services using MPEG2 and now everyone seems to be implementing different ways of doing HD. All agree on AVC, but some are using DVB-T and some DVB-T2. It's going to take a few years for everything to settle down and in the meantime there is going to be huge confusion as to what box supports what countries.
For example, most Irish televisions are tagged DVB-T / "Freeview" compatible, but DTV hasn't even officially launched in Ireland, and when it does its going to broadcast all SD & HD channels encoded with AVC. The result is virtually no existing television or set top box will work in Ireland. Only a small number of this year's crop of TVs do support AVC but nobody seems to be going out their way to highlight this. There is going to be a huge amount of confusion and anger surrounding Irish DTV if / when it finally launches.