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.
Televisió de Catalunya is the public broadcasting network of Catalonia, one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain.
Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Everyone TV. The service was formed as a memorandum in 2007 and has been marketed since 6 May 2008. Freesat offers a satellite alternative to the Freeview service on digital terrestrial television, with a broadly similar selection of channels available without subscription for users purchasing a receiver.
Digital terrestrial television in Australia commenced on 1 January 2001 in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth using DVB-T standards. The phase out of analogue PAL transmissions began on 30 June 2010 and was completed by 10 December 2013.
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compression techniques to reduce the size of each individual program stream, and multiplexing to combine them into a single signal. The practice is sometimes called "multicasting".
Animax is an Asian pay television channel owned by KC Global Media Asia. The channel was originally owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, and took its name from the Japanese satellite TV network; which was then-majority owned by subsidiary Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan. The channel would be sold to its current owners on January 1, 2020.
DTMB is the digital TV standard for mobile and fixed devices, developed in the People's Republic of China. It is used there and in both of their special administrative regions, and also in Cambodia, the Comoros, Cuba, East Timor, Laos, Vietnam, and Pakistan. In Pakistan, as part of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor Project, ZTE Corporation will provide Pakistan Television Corporation collaboration across several digital terrestrial television technologies, staff training, and content creation, including partnerships with Chinese multinational companies in multiple areas, such as television sets and set top boxes, as a form of "International Cooperation".
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.
There are four major forms of digital television (DTV) broadcast in the United Kingdom: a direct-to-home satellite service from the Astra 28.2°E satellites provided by Sky UK, a cable television service provided by Virgin Media ; a free-to-air satellite service called Freesat; and a free-to-air digital terrestrial service called Freeview. In addition, an IPTV system known as EE TV is provided by EE. Individual access methods vary throughout the country. 77% of the United Kingdom has access to HDTV via terrestrial digital television. Satellite is the only source of HDTV broadcast available for the remaining 23%.
High-definition television in the United Kingdom is available via cable, IPTV, satellite and terrestrial television. The first high-definition broadcasts began in late 2005 and since then the number of channels available to view has grown to a maximum of 87 that can be viewed on pay-TV service, Sky.
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.
Digital television in the United States is available via digital terrestrial television (DTT), digital cable, satellite television, and IPTV providers.
Television in Portugal was introduced in 1956 by Radiotelevisão Portuguesa, which held the nationwide television monopoly until late 1992. Regular broadcasting was introduced on March 7, 1957. Colour transmissions were introduced on March 10, 1980.
Television in Peru has a history of more than 60 years. There are 105 television broadcasters in Peru, 22 of which are in Lima. In regard to television receivers, in 2003 there were 5,470,000 — that is 200 televisions for every thousand inhabitants. The number of cable subscribers was 967,943 in 2011.
ATSC 3.0 is a major version of the ATSC standards for terrestrial television broadcasting created by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC).
High-definition television in Australia is available via cable, IPTV, satellite and terrestrial television. The first high-definition broadcasts began in 2001 and since then the number of channels available to view has grown to a maximum of 27 that can be viewed on pay-TV service, Foxtel.
Television in Catalonia, in reference to the autonomous community of Spain, is made up of television channels broadcast exclusively in Catalonia, whether for the whole of Catalonia or for certain regions and counties, as well as state-wide Spanish channels, which may or may not have disconnections from the general feed with exclusive programmes for Catalonia.
Brunei: Radio Television Brunei began incoporating HD channels by 2010 [5] and fully migrated all its channels to HD digital service on 1 January 2018. [6] 
Singapore: On 10 June 2006, Singapore became the first country in Southeast Asia to begin trials of high-definition television service, involving MediaCorp and cable provider StarHub. The beginning of the trials coincided with the 2006 FIFA World Cup, with StarHub launching HD service for 1,000 participants. It would carry all matches from the tournament in HD, and then two HD trial channels afterward. MediaCorp would launch its terrestrial trial service just over a week later 18 June, carrying a part-time service in prime time with a mix of original and acquired HD programming and films (some of which simulcast from Channel 5), with its inaugural broadcast featuring the film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. [7] [8] On 11 November 2007, the trial service was relaunched as HD5, an HD simulcast of Channel 5. MediaCorp also tested interactive television. In June 2012, after a trial conducted by Mediacorp and StarHub in Ang Mo Kio and Bedok, the Media Development Authority officially announced that Singapore would adopt the DVB-T2 standard, with Mediacorp aiming to make all seven of its free-to-air channels available in digital by the end of 2013, with Channel 5, 8, Suria, and Vasantham also being in high definition. The member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed to complete their transitions by 2020. As of April 2024, All the Singaporean native channels are now in high definition.
Andorra: The first HD channels in Andorra were those offered from Spain, namely TV3, LaSexta, Telecinco and Antena 3. [9] The country's own channel, Andorra Televisió, started broadcasting in HD on 30 September 2019. [10] [11] Regarding the switch-off, most Andorran channels switched off their SD signals in the country on 2 February 2022, with the exception of a few standard definition-only international channels such as Portuguese channels RTP International and TVI International. [12] [13] [14] 
Italy: The first HD broadcasts in Italy took place in February 2006, during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, when RAI experimentally broadcast some of the events in a 1080i signal. [15] In 2008, RAI broadcast the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament in high definition under a test channel called Rai Test HD (later Rai HD ) in the areas of Turin, Rome, Milan, Aosta and Sardinia. Rai HD was closed in favour of simulcast HD versions of the channels on 25 October 2013. Following the switchover to DVB-T2 on 8 March 2022, [16] the HD versions of Italian channels were moved to the top of the list, while the SD versions were positioned from 500 onwards. [17] Channels still broadcasting in SD began to be shut down on 21 December 2022, [18] with the total closure taking place on 1 January 2023, [19] [2] although many channels still carry the HD identifier in their logos. Rai 3 took until May 2023 to be moved to position 3, due to difficulties with regional broadcasts, with the SD version being replaced by Rai News 24 HD. [20] [21] 
Spain: The first television channel to test HD in Spain was Aragón TV, and the first fully HD channel was Televisió de Catalunya's TV3 HD. On 19 June 2009, Televisión Española launched a high-definition channel, first in Valladolid, then in Barcelona and finally statewide, under the name TVE HD. [22] Regarding private broadcasters, the first HD simulcasts were launched by Telecinco on 20 September 2010, [23] followed by Antena 3 on 28 September [24] and La Sexta on 1 November. In April 2016, the first channels with just a high-definition feed began to appear: Atreseries and BeMad TV, as well as the public broadcasts of Real Madrid TV. Originally, the Spanish government planned to require all standard definition broadcasts to cease on 1 January 2023, along with Italy, but the decision was postponed. [25] On 17 January 2023, a decree issued by the Ministry of Digital Transformation set the final closing date at 14 February 2024. [26] [27] The first channel to shut down its SD broadcasts was Extremaduran channel Canal Extremadura on 15 January 2024. It was followed by Canarian Televisión Canaria and all the Catalan channels from Televisió de Catalunya, which did so the next day. [28] [29] [3] TVE closed all its SD channels on 6 February, coinciding with the launch of its 4K channel, TVE UHD , [30] [31] while Telemadrid and the Basque channels from ETB did the switch-off on 8 February. Most regional channels carried out the switch-off on 12 February, with the exception of La 7 in Murcia, which did so on the 13th, just one day before the full closure of SD signals. [29] Most private channels cut out SD signals on 14 February. SD-only channels, such as Boing, Disney Channel, DMAX and DKiss, switched their feeds to HD. [32] 
Catalonia: The HD version of flagship public channel TV3 was launched on 23 April 2007, being fully implemented in March 2011. [33] On 30 October 2023, channels 3/24, SX3, Esport3 and El 33 started broadcasting in HD online, through the 3Cat platform. In January 2024, Televisió de Catalunya announced the shutdown of all SD signals would take place on 16 January, with the SD version of TV3 being shut down and all the other channels automatically switching their feeds into HD. [34] [35] [36] [28] The Balearic channel IB3, which until then had only broadcast in poor SD quality due to the limited space left in the multiplex, also made the switch to HD on the same day. [3] The switch-off of SD television caused queues and shortages of adapters and television sets across Catalonia. [37] 
