Spanish HD on DTT
May 25, 2010
From David Del Valle in Madrid
Spain has paved the way for the launch of HDTV on DTT with Government approval of a Royal Decree to govern the new services using the standard H.264/MPEG 4.
To promote HDTV, the law obliges manufacturers to equip TV sets of more than 21 inches with an integrated HDTV set-top-box. Currently, in Spain there are 3 million HD-ready TV sets with more than 95 per cent of all TV sets of over 26 inches including an integrated HDTV tuner.
According to the latest report from DTT Association Impulsa TDT, DTT currently has coverage of 98.5 per cent for private TV and 98.8 per cent for public TV. Over the last 5 years, 33.5 million DTT boxes have been sold in the market. Francisco Ros, State Secretary of Telecommunications, said that the main future challenges of the DTT market is Pay DTT and the convergence between DTT and the Internet.