Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) and European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in February, 1998. This system transmits compressed digital audio, digital video and other data in an MPEG transport stream, using coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing modulation. It is also the format widely used worldwide for Electronic News Gathering for transmission of video and audio from a mobile newsgathering vehicle to a central receive point. It is also used in the US by Amateur television operators.
Television was introduced in Finland in 1955. Color television started in 1969 and was introduced gradually, with most programs in color by the late 1970s. All terrestrial analogue stations stopped broadcasting on 1 September 2007 after the introduction of digital television; cable providers were allowed to continue analog broadcasting in their networks until 1 March 2008.
Digital terrestrial television is a technology for terrestrial television where television stations broadcast television content in a digital format. DTTV is a major technological advance over analog television, and has largely replaced analog television broadcast, which had been in common use since the middle of the 20th century. Test broadcasts began in 1998 with the changeover to DTTV, also known as the Analog Switchoff (ASO) or Digital Switchover (DSO), which began in 2006 and is now complete in many countries. The advantages of digital terrestrial television are similar to those obtained by digitizing platforms such as cable TV, satellite, and telecommunications: more efficient use of radio spectrum bandwidth, provision of more television channels than analog, better quality images, and potentially lower operating costs for broadcasters.
Boxer TV Access is a Swedish brand owned by Tele2 AB providing pay television channels on the digital terrestrial television network in Sweden. Modeled on the British ITV Digital, it was founded in October 1999. Some channels on the Swedish DTT are free-to-air, but most of the channels require subscription from Boxer. Boxer has claimed to have around 500,000 subscribers by June 2016 when it was acquired by ComHem.
Malaysian television broadcasting was introduced on 28 December 1963. Colour television was introduced on 28 December 1978. Full-time colour transmissions were officially inaugurated on New Year's Day 1982. There are currently 16 national free-to-air terrestrial television channels in Malaysia and 3 national pay subscription television operators in Malaysia.
Television has a long history in Ukraine, where regular television broadcasting started during the Soviet years in 1951. However the first ever TV broadcast took place on 1 February 1939 in Kyiv. Since then TV broadcasting has expanded, particularly after the fall of Communism in 1989, and now there are many different channels and groups in the Ukrainian TV market.
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 are also available.
DVB-H is one of three prevalent mobile TV formats. It is a technical specification for bringing broadcast services to mobile handsets. DVB-H was formally adopted as ETSI standard EN 302 304 in November 2004. The DVB-H specification can be downloaded from the official DVB-H website. From March 2008, DVB-H is officially endorsed by the European Union as the "preferred technology for terrestrial mobile broadcasting". The major competitors of this technology are Qualcomm's MediaFLO system, the 3G cellular system based MBMS mobile-TV standard, and the ATSC-M/H format in the U.S. DVB-SH now and DVB-NGH in the future are possible enhancements to DVB-H, providing improved spectral efficiency and better modulation flexibility. DVB-H has been a commercial failure, and the service is no longer on-air. Ukraine was the last country with a nationwide broadcast in DVB-H, which began transitioning to DVB-T2 during 2019.
Eesti Televisioon (ETV) is an Estonian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by Estonian Public Broadcasting. It made its first broadcast on 19 July 1955.
Television in Germany began in Berlin on 22 March 1935, broadcasting for 90 minutes three times a week. It was home to the first regular television service in the world, named Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow.
DVB-T2 is an abbreviation for "Digital Video Broadcasting – Second Generation Terrestrial"; it is the extension of the television standard DVB-T, issued by the consortium DVB, devised for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television. DVB has been standardized by ETSI.
Television in Iceland is currently composed of the public broadcasting service of RÚV, five free-to-view channels and a number of subscription channels provided by private broadcasters. Broadcasts began in 1955 when the American Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) started an English-language television service broadcasting from Naval Air Station Keflavik, which operated until 2006. The first Icelandic-language television broadcasts started in September 1966 with the launch of RÚV, originally called Sjónvarpið. In 1986 the first privately owned TV station, Stöð 2, began broadcasts. In recent years the emergence of foreign internet streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+ has seen shift from domestic providers provide similar on demand streaming services such as Síminn Premium and Stöð 2+.
Digital terrestrial television in Estonia, was officially launched on 15 December 2006, when the operator Zuum TV launched its pay service on two multiplexes. Transmissions are made with MPEG-4 AVC compression using the DVB-T standard. A DVB-T2 standard-based network has been created for HD-quality TV picture transmission.
The Netherlands now has three major forms of broadcast digital television. Terrestrial (DVB-T), Cable (DVB-C), and Satellite (DVB-S). In addition IPTV services are available. At the end of the first quarter of 2013 almost 84% of the households in the Netherlands had some form of digital television.
Television in Belgium was introduced in 1953 and began with one channel each in Dutch and French. The country is heavily cabled, with 93% of households watching television through cable as of 2003.
Television is the most popular medium in Russia, with 74% of the population watching national television channels routinely and 59% routinely watching regional channels. There are 6,700 television channels in total. Before going digital television, 3 channels have a nationwide outreach : Channel One, Russia-1 and NTV.
Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) is both an industry standard and promotional initiative for hybrid digital TV to harmonise the broadcast, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), and broadband delivery of entertainment to the end consumer through connected TVs and set-top boxes. The HbbTV Association, comprising digital broadcasting and Internet industry companies, has established a standard for the delivery of broadcast TV and broadband TV to the home, through a single user interface, creating an open platform as an alternative to proprietary technologies. Products and services using the HbbTV standard can operate over different broadcasting technologies, such as satellite, cable, or terrestrial networks.
Currently, there are two primary satellite television providers of subscription based service available to United States consumers: DirecTV and Dish Network, which have 21 and 10 million subscribers respectively.
