Ofcom unveils plans for high definition terrestrial TV

July 20, 2007 – The UK’s broadcasting and telecoms regulator Ofcom has revealed its plans for high definition TV delivered through regular TV aerials, according to news portal Tech.co.uk

The regulator reportedly said that it is possible to deliver four dedicated high definition channels over the existing digital terrestrial television (DTT) network, without the need to take extra parts of the radio spectrum.  Ofcom is expected to enforce a reshuffling of the existing DTT capacity, and a partial move to MPEG-4 and/or DVB-T2 video compression for the new services.

These plans will come as a blow to the backers behind the HDForAll campaign, which include broadcasters BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five as well as Dixons, Sony, Comet and Samsung.  These backers hope to use parts of the spectrum currently being used for analogue TV, which will be freed up when the digital switchover is complete is 2012, to deliver high definition content through Freeview.

The old analogue TV spectrum is now likely to be auctioned off to the mobile phone networks so they can deliver mobile TV, quicker mobile Internet connections and new features.