Berlin the first place on Earth to switch off Analogue TV

BrianD

According to The Wall Street Journal, Berlin has become the first city in the world to switch off analogue TV. Viewers without cable, satellite or a digital set top box (priced between €88-€279) now have blank screens. The number of channels that are now available has risen from 12 to 27. The freed up airspace (35MHz)will now be used for "innovative wireless" services such as voice services and datacasting providing a competitive alternative to local fixed line phone services.

Mike 1972

They had a crazy number of services some of them inherited from the old East Germany and even some from the days when Berlin was divided in four (RIAS)

Plus there were all those "Forces" station (AFN/AFRTS, BFBS, TSS etc)

Mossy Monk

i am all fpr the closure where their is a replacement

DTT for terrestrial, digital cable for cable etc.

somehow i think i will be a long time waiting for this in Ireland

byte

Ireland may get into the papers too, for being the LAST country to introduce DTT (of any sort) :rolleyes:

Smeagol

Ireland may get into the papers too, for being the LAST country to introduce DTT (of any sort)

Most likely, and if they do, it'll probably gonna cost us. It's like motorway toll, first they build them with our taxes and later you have to pay for using them, on top of your motor tax. In the Netherlands btw. they scramble their DVB-T programs, and you need to pay for a card. In Germany it was partly funded by the gouvernment much to the annoyance of the cable companies, who now have started to sell pay-tv in their networks.
So, in the meantime I have to stick to Freeview from the norse and hope that the brits switch off their analogue pretty soon so that I can pick up all muxes

Mike 1972

In the Netherlands btw. they scramble their DVB-T programs, and you need to pay for a card

Is this to prevent people in Germany or Belgium watching or is it as a replacement for the TV licence which has been abolished over there ?

Smeagol

It's all about making money, they charge on cable, so they charge on DVB-T, too. I guess that Ned1,2+3 will be fta, once all transmitters carry DTT (atm it's only Ned2 thats free) but for RTL 4, RTL 5, SBS 6, NET 5, Veronica, Canal+ etc. you have to pay to get a card.

lawhec

DTT in the Netherlands is a Pay TV operation, with only one or two channels in the clear. NOS 2 is one of them.

As Mike points out, Berlin's political past meant they had a number of frequencies to work with. That was the reason why the German government chose the Berlin/Brandenburg area because of the sheer amount of frequency clearance. There's two multiplexes in VHF Band III and four on UHF. The signals are so strong there's been reception reports of the service in Denmark! All of this was indeed aided by Federal government funding, but the Cable companies really had no comeback as they themselves were heavily funded by government funding when they were set up. Indeed, IIRC Germany is the only county in Europe where the broadcaster PAYS to be on a cable network! Hence why cable there is quite cheap.

Mike 1972

Id love to be a TV dealer in East Berlin.
I mean a few years ago all the East German TV transmitters were changed from SECAM to PAL
now its all getting changed again to digital