Spain is planning to upgrade its digital terrestrial television platform to enable ultra-high-definition services. All terrestrial broadcasts will switch to more efficient DVB-T2 transmissions with high efficiency HEVC encoding, enabling them to upgrade to Ultra HD pictures. UHD is now available on digital terrestrial television in France but there are no plans to upgrade the platform further in the United Kingdom.
The announcement follows a meeting in July with sector stakeholders in Spain. The changes are confirmed in a Draft Royal Decree published by the Spanish Government, which will be open for a brief public consultation. Details are available from the Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Public Service. The timeline for the transmission transition is expected to be released in 2025.
The aim is to futureproof the TDT digital terrestrial television network to DVB-T2 transmissions.
There will be two phases of deployment, In the first phase one of the multiplexes will be upgraded to DVB-T2 and UHD channels will be simulcast. Once certain thresholds have been reached, all the digital multiplexes will be upgraded.
Most televisions sold across Europe within the last decade support the DVB-T2 standard and HEVC compression, although some older products will become obsolete.
Standard definition broadcasts on digital terrestrial television have been phased out and since February 2024 all digital terrestrial television broadcasts are in high definition.
Spanish public service broadcaster RTVE launched a full UHD version of its main channel L1 to viewers across the country, although it is currently broadcast using the original DVB-T standard.
France has also launched a regular UHD service on DTT. Other countries, including Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands have switched to DVB-T2 and HEVC.
In the United Kingdom, broadcasters seem to be more interested in investing in online services. Although the United Kingdom implemented DVB-T2 on two multiplexes in 2019, offering channels in the high-definition, there are no free-to-air channels available in UHD and there are no plans to increase the number of HD channels available on the terrestrial platform.