The UK is set to be the first country to use the DVB-T2 standard when it creates a new Freeview HD service later this year. The first thing that everyone will notice is that existing DVB-T set tops cannot receive the signal and the general UK public will begin to search around once more to find the right kind of box to buy to view it with. The new set tops will also receive the older Freeview signals, but not the other way around.
When that begins to happen in earnest, a new retail brand will begin to appear in the UK, that of well established Pace, a set top maker that has a genuine global reputation and which is possibly the biggest set top maker in the world, give or take Motorola and Scientific Atlanta’s claim to such a title due to their dominance of US cable TV.
So far Pace is not really a consumer brand, but instead one of the companies which supplied pay TV operators such as BSkyB in the UK, and later companies like Germany’s Premiere (now renamed Sky Germany) across Europe and now the US, with deals with cable operators there, including the largest, Comcast with around 24 million customers. Most of these devices would have had the operator brand on the side, not the Pace brand.
Pace then went on to acquire the Philips’ set top operation, itself less reliant on operator purchases, and more reliant on a retail reach in the Freeview, Freesat and overseas free to air terrestrial TV markets.
So it wasn’t really a change in direction at this year’s IBC (International Broadcasting Conference) when Pace unveiled its next generation set-top box based on the DVB-T2 transmission standard.
DVB-T2 can squeeze more channels into the existing 8 MHz radio spaces reserved for Freeview style services, and by increasing the power output on a number of existing multiplexes for Freeview, the UK regulator Ofcom has put forward a plan to squeeze all of the standard definition channels out of one chunk of spectrum, and then fill it with a handful of HD channels.
Originally this was all meant to happen in 2009 but has been pushed back to the ‘first half’ of 2010, Pace is getting ready and racing to be the first device in the shops to support the new HD services. Pace has a strong reputation in Cable, satellite and IPTV set tops for HD programming, including HD digital video recorders like Sky Plus. Pace says that this will be available through retailers at the market launch of the service next year.
Freeview has said that it will reach 50% of the UK with HD coverage in time for the soccer World Cup which begins in June 2010, a process which involves buying new equipment to attach to existing TV broadcasting antennas around the country.
Commenting on the new DVB-T2 box, Mathias Hautefort, President of Pace France said; ‘The launch of DVB-T2 represents an important transition for DTT broadcasting in the UK and a hugely exciting step forward for digital consumers. Through our partnership with Freeview we are bringing a next-generation set-top box to market that will be a key component in unlocking the power of Freeview HD in the home.’
Pace will launch it first in the UK, but then deploy it in other countries as they begin using the new standard. We would expect France, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy to be among the first countries outside the UK to use DVB-T2.
‘With HD Ready TV penetration at around 12 million homes already in UK and with growing consumer expectations from TV generally, we fully expect that DVB-T2 will help drive widespread HD adoption,’ continued Hautefort.
Yes and he may be right of course, but in Freesat, the free satellite service which needs a satellite dish as well as a compatible TV set, and which currently boasts 140 TV channels, a number of them HD or with HD promised to come, it may end up being a fight between the two UK free to air platforms. Right now though Freeview has well over 10 million homes while Freesat, launched much later, has well under 1 million.
Pace will follow up on this first product, which is just a tuner and decoder for DVB-T2, with a DVR recorder version, so that programs can be stored from the new service and viewed later.
Pace first demonstrated DVB-T2 set-top box technology working at last year’s IBC so it was always going to be an early contender with a finished product. Other players likely to race Pace are Korean company Humax and Japan’s Panasonic which have both been active in Freesat.
Freeview HD will give viewers HD channels from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and S4C in Wales in addition to more than 50 Freeview channels in standard definition. Capacity has also been provisionally reserved for Five to launch its proposed HD channel from late 2010. Some early transmissions of Freeview HD have been agreed in London from December this year and in other major cities (Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds/Bradford and Newcastle) ahead of the World Cup in June 2010.
The final UK roll-out schedule ‘ which would make Freeview HD available to up to 50% of homes by the World Cup next year and to around 98.5% of households by the end of switchover in 2012 ‘ is currently being finalised.