HDTV Terrestrial Trial

[MonsieurBond]

All the threads which cover digital TV trials and HDTV trials seem to be over 2 years old and/or dead, so I thought I would create a new one.

Croker in first HD terrestrial transmission

The first High Definition (HD) terrestrial broadcast of an Irish sporting event takes place this afternoon [Sunday 15th July 2007].

While digital broadcasts are common on satellite and cable, the Leinster Football Final between Laois and Dublin at Croke Park will be the first such transmission terrestrially.

The broadcast is a trial to prepare for the eventual end to analogue due by 2012 under EU plans.
...
This broadcast is the second phase of the HDTV trial and involves some of the 500 households in counties Dublin and Louth issued with special equipment since last March.

From tomorrow [Monday 16th July 2007] they will be a able to access a specially created channel containing HD content content from RTÉ, TV3 and TG4.

Full article .

• Does anyone on AAM know anyone who is participating in this trial?

• I wonder if my dual analogue & DVB-T tuner card will work for this? I suppose there is some encryption token reader device required.

• I wonder how this fits in with NTL's for-ever-upcoming-and-never-released HDTV service? (And yes I know that NTL and Chorus are supposed to be rebranding. As long as the websites remain branded separately, i.e. as long as UPC see fit not to call them by their new names, I don't see why anyone else should!)

• Is now a bad time to buy a digital tuner card, or subscribe to Digital TV?

 

[CCOVICH]

Don't know anyone participating and I wasn't offered-was it restricted to the Louth/Meath area, or did I just imagine it?

 

[MonsieurBond]

Don't know anyone participating and I wasn't offered-was it restricted to the Louth/Meath area, or did I just imagine it?

Not sure.

Some related blogs:

[broken link removed]
(also on Sunday Business Post [broken link removed])

(BTW, I should probably have created this thread under TVs rather then IT, Broadband. Ooops.)

 

[tallpaul]

Regardless of the HD trial, does anyone not think it a scary thought that with less than five years to go to the end of analogue in the EU, we have no once-off payment digital television service in this country such as Freeview??

RTE and others would want to start pulling the finger out on this...

 

[legend99]

Regardless of the HD trial, does anyone not think it a scary thought that with less than five years to go to the end of analogue in the EU, we have no once-off payment digital television service in this country such as Freeview??

RTE and others would want to start pulling the finger out on this...

Thats because RTE signed up with bloody Sky - no disrespect to Sky, but I shouldn't have to pay them to recieve RTE just because I live in an area with brutal UHF coverage.

 

[Alias]

Regardless of the HD trial, does anyone not think it a scary thought that with less than five years to go to the end of analogue in the EU, we have no once-off payment digital television service in this country such as Freeview??

RTE and others would want to start pulling the finger out on this...

AFAIK, it's not 5 years until they have to have HD TV, it's five years for Digital TV. Free to air Digital TV has been piloting for a while now. Freeview, likewise isn't necessarily HD, but it is digital. It's expected that Digital TV be in place before HD can be rolled out