Comment by quink
2 years ago
France is doing terrestrial UHD on DVB-T2, a 2008 standard, with HEVC for the Olympics: https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=R9&liste=1&live=1...
There's no major obstacle that I know of that wouldn't make DVB-T possible for HEVC for an even closer analog to the ATSC 1.0 situation, except there's no point as Europe is now broadly speaking on a high level of DVB-T2... it having been a standard since 2008 after all.
Here's an application note by a reputable vendor doing UHD with HEVC on DVB-T2 with real products they are shipping: https://scdn.rohde-schwarz.com/ur/pws/dl_downloads/dl_applic...
It dates from 2014. And the main reason it hasn't become popular is because Europe has an extremely high level of cable and satellite penetration. Switzerland no longer has terrestrial television at all for example, with some curious minor exceptions where terrestrial distribution to end-users isn't actually the goal - it's for foreign cable companies to legally rebroadcast a freely received signal on their own networks. That's right, terrestrial television exists solely as a facilitator for a legal loophole.
The whole ATSC 3.0 discussion and its DRM and personalised ads has set back innovation in technology standards for a decade. That said, the false choice between either expensive paid cable or terrestrial is probably just as much to blame.
That said, Australia, ironically being one of the most terrestrial TV countries on the planet despite its low density, did trials of DVB-T2 with UHD and HEVC way back in 2018. But it hasn't eventuated into anything further, probably because the apps are taking over and happen to also carry with them DRM and personalised ads.
And as an extra note, DVB-T2 HEVC at HD resolutions is uncommon but definitely in use in places across Europe: https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=MUX-M1-D4&liste=1... https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=NET-21&liste=1&li... https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?lang=en&liste=2&live=... https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?lang=en&liste=2&live=... and in fact in some it's all that's left for terrestrial television because of the aforementioned predominance of IPTV, cable, and satellite.
And just found out Spain has HEVC UHD DVB-T2 as well, without anything too obvious that it's still a test: https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=ESP41&pid=40003&l...
For some sense of completeness' sake, the terrestrial signal of Rai 4k is a 720p terrestrial channel advertising that Rai 4k can be streamed over the internet with HbbTV, so that doesn't count.
Somewhat interesting is that Brazil has been testing ATSC 3.0 with LCEVC on VVC.
And VVC is another codec that many in the EUR are testing with DVB-T2.