New digital television DVB-T2 - what awaits us?

Everyone has probably already heard that the terrestial television standard in Poland will change, but here's a quick refresher. A new digital television standard will be implemented in Poland in the second quarter of 2022. Many are wondering whether they will have to replace their old TV and what to do if they don't want to buy a new one. Will the audio and video quality improve? And where does this change come from, considering that the standard was already changed in 2013? All these questions will be answered in this article.

Let's start with the reason for this change. The main reason for this change is the introduction of 5G mobile telephony! The partial change in television frequencies will improve the development of 5G. To be precise, the 700 MHz band (694 - 790 MHz) will be made availabe as television will be broadcasted in the 470 - 694 MHz band. This is possible thanks to a new, more efficient encoding standard.

Frequency Refarming

Well, maybe in more detail. Introduction of a new DVB-T2 standard requires so-called frequency refarming. And what is this "frequency refarming"? At this point it is best to give the floor to the Emitel company, which is responsible for implementing the new standard:

Refarming means the need to move terrestrial TV multiplexes from the 694-790 MHz frequency band to the lower 470-694 MHz band. This is because European Union countries are required to free the 700 MHz band for mobile operators (5G services), and also because of the transition to DVB-T2/HEVC broadcasting announced in 2022.

In a nutshell, to implement mobile telephony in 5G standard it is simply necessary to make room for it in the 700 MHz band. And at the moment this band is occupied by terrestrial digital TV, so the TV has to be moved to another frequency range. Thanks to this procedure the band will be freed up for 5G mobile telephony.

As we all know, the current standard of terrestrial television broadcasting in Poland is DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial). It is based on MPEG-4 (H.264/AVC) video coding and Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) audio coding. The TV set or the tuner (decoder) working in the DVB-T standard can reproduce the image in much better quality (even HD) than analog television. The same applies to sound, which is multi-channel.
The new standard of digital terrestrial television broadcasting - DVB-T2 - makes it possible to watch television programmes in even better quality than before, and additionally with extremely economical use of the available bandwidth
(frequency). This makes it possible to receive a greater number of TV programmes in very good quality.

The change of digital terrestrial television broadcasting standard from DVB-T to the more efficient DVB-T2 with HEVC codec is being implemented across Europe. Of course, Poland also participates in the modernization of the broadcasting standard. The transition to DVB-T2 will be carried out in four stages in different areas, and generally by the end of 2022, we should be enjoying the new broadcasting standard.

What is a Multiplex (MUX)?

Simply put: TV programs are transmitted in certain groups (packages) called multiplexes A MUX is the space of just one group of frequencies called a TV channel. In the past, only one analogue TV channel could be transmitted within a single TV channel. With the advent of digital terrestrial television, a whole package of TV programmes is transmitted within the same TV channel, together with a package of additional services such as soundtracks, teletext, audiodescription for the visually impaired, captioning for the hearing impaired, electronic programme guide, on-screen subtitles, automatic programme search, programme on/off time setting and many others.
At the moment there are 5 multiplexes available in Poland, numbered 1,2,3,4 and 8. It is also important that the programmes in MUX 4 are encoded and available for an additional fee.

The change to DVB-T2 includes four nationwide multiplexes (1,2,3,4), which are broadcast in the UHF band (470 - 790 MHz). At the moment we do not know the date of adaptation of MUX 8, which is broadcast in VHF band (174 - 230 MHz).

Probably everyone is asking themselves at this point what are the benefits of moving to DVB-T2? Apart from freeing up bandwidth for the 5G mobile network, of course.
Well, the transition from DVB-T to DVB-T2 is all about the new broadcast standard - HEVC. And here are just some of the benefits that the change to DVT-2 brings:

• The ability to broadcast all programs in HD.
• The ability to add new programs due to the increase in "multiplex capacity" from 24.88 Mbps to about 40 Mbps; this is due to the fact that the new HEVC codec (H.265) allows to transmit almost twice as much data in the same channel, compared to the old AVC (H.264).
• The HEVC video codec used in DVB-T2 is more efficient, i.e. provides better compression of the signal with the same or similar image quality.
• The audio codec AC3 allows the transmission of multi-channel sound (e.g. Dolby Atmos).

As a quick recap. What to do in a situation when you have an old TV set? Will you have to buy a new one or is it enough to just change the decoder? Everything depends on what financial means we have to invest of course. Therefore, we can buy both a new TV set and a decoder, but we have to remember about some important parameters:
1. HEVC (H.265) codec support.
2. Dolby Digital Plus (AC3) codec support.
3. Support for HbbTV version 2.0.1 or better.
4. The same connector as the TV set, e.g. HDMI (in the case of a decoder).
The third parameter responsible for compatibility with HbbTV 2.0.1 is not required to receive "regular", non-hybrid TV. It applies only to the so-called Smart TVs, i.e. those TV sets that have the possibility of connecting to the Internet.
And that's it my dear readers. If you are looking for a suitable device to receive the new digital terrestrial television based on the DVB-T2 standard, we invite you to our store.

Author:
Leszek Blaszczyk