[SteveMcK]

The French regulatory authority has jiust given the go-ahead for 6 new HD digital terrestrial channels:

• Chérie HD (Chaîne féminine du groupe NRJ)
• 6TER (Chaîne familiale du groupe M6)
• TVous la diversité (Chaîne du groupe Diversité TV France)
• L'Equipe HD (Chaîne de sport du groupe Amaury)
• RMC Découverte (Chaîne documentaire du groupe Nextradio TV)
• HD1 (Chaîne dédiée au cinéma et à la fiction du groupe TF1)

should be on-air from end-2012. That will more than double the number of terrestrial HD channels, and they are also supposed to be available via the various cable, DSL and satellite operators.

[Franglais]

Are these going to be FTA or PPV?

[marceljack]

Originally Posted by Franglais

Are these going to be FTA or PPV?

These 6 new HD channels will be FTA and in DVB-T / H264 on two new muxes named R7 and R8.
They are due to start in december 2012 with an initial coverage of 25% of the population which will go to 50% by mid 2013.
They should have the same coverage as the existing muxes (97%) by the end of 2014.
It is now expected that MPEG-2 SD DTT transmissions should cease by the end of 2015.

[reslfj]

Originally Posted by marceljack

These 6 new HD channels will be FTA and in DVB-T / H264 on two new muxes named R7 and R8.
...
It is now expected that MPEG-2 SD DTT transmissions should cease by the end of 2015.

It was the plan to use DVB-T2/MPEG-4 for these HD channels, but then DVB-T2 was postponed until the MPEG-2 shutdown in late 2015.

It will be interesting to follow as in early 2015 chips for the new video compression standard - HEVC - should be available in production volumes.
Timing the MPEG-2 shut down with the general availability of DVB-T2/HEVC STB's and IDTV's would make a lot of sense and save the viewers in France a lot of money.

Lars

[pinkteddyx64]

France will probably be the first ever country in Europe to convert from DVB-T to DVB-T2 with us being the second country in Europe to convert from DVB-T to DVB-T2!

[marceljack]

Originally Posted by pinkteddyx64

France will probably be the first ever country in Europe to convert from DVB-T to DVB-T2 with us being the second country in Europe to convert from DVB-T to DVB-T2!

France has made the mistake to start HD transmissions too early on the TNT (in 2008) in DVB-T shortly before the DVB-T2 spec was finalised.

It's a pity, especially now that the UHF band gets smaller and smaller for TV broadcasts.
It is likely now that the next step will be DVB-T2 / HEVC and that France will skip the intermediate step of DVB-T2 / H264 because there are too many HDTVs unable to receive DVB-T2 in the field.
So far there are still no TVs with DVB-T2 in the french shops.