Skip to main content

digital terrestrial television: why & when in Turkey?

I have been writing on Digital Terrestrial Television, in Turkish, for a while. I have been blogging since 2004 and have posted more then 1200, 80+ are on DTT. It seems that I have to keep posting. This time I will try something different. I will post in English. Hope this post will help the progress of DTT. 

FTA Satellite is the market leader

First of all I want to discuss about the need of DTT. Because as the DTT progress fails, people had to choose other ways of TV reception, mainly DTH satellite. Nowadays if you ignore the presence of digital cable and IPTV, which of both add up just 10%, people in Turkey are watching the TV signal which they receive over satellite. As I have posted on previously the FTA is another dominant of the TV market in Turkey. PayTV is just 27%, if we take the total number of houses as 20M, which may be more than 20M. People tend to think this FTA offers will last forever. So they believe that there is no need to build a new DTT network, which would offer much less, in terms of total number of TV channels, when compared with FTA satellite. 

There are garbage channels in FTA satellite

If you talk with people you will easily find out that although they have plenty of choice, they tend to watch 10-15 mainstream TV channels. This is, actually, quite obvious. Because the duration of daily tv reception is limited. Hence, it is impossible to, even just, zapping of the all FTA satellite channels in one night. One another reason of people's limited choice is that although there are more then 500 channels, most of them are just "garbage" channels. Some of which are build to sell a specific product, some of which are local content. So the comparison of DTT and FTA satellite, in terms of total number of channels does not make sense. 

DTT In door mobile reception

DTT, is the only technology that gives you the chance to have in door mobile reception. With choosing right parameters it is possible to receive the TV signal with a small antenna on your portable device in your room. It is, I believe, one of the most important advantage of the DTT. It would be possible to watch TV in kitchen without the need of cable mass. You would be able to take your tablet and walk out to balcony with your favorite show on your mobile device. 

Energy saving on transmitter sites

Although it is being claimed that no one is receiving TV through the analog terrestrial television (the traditional roof top antenna solution), the broadcasters keep operating the analog tv transmitters, which consume electricity. With Analogue Switch Off, there will be great amount of electricity cost saving, as many channels would be transmitted with just one transmitter and as the devices are brand new with high efficient technology. The investment of DTT network will pay itself in time. I did not make a calculation on the duration of this payment, but I believe it is not more then 10 years. 

A new option for IPTV: DTT + OTT

With the availability of robust DTT, it would be possible for IPTV to offer the most of linear TVs through DTT and non-linear TVs and some linears through OTT. By that the total need for the bandwidth of IPTV, will decrease. Also the need for high capacity servers would decrease. Hence the cost of operation of each customer would decrease. Then, the IPTV solution may become cheaper. 

Frequency wars: 800+ is for 4G, what about 700+

Analogue TV is being broadcasted over UHF band frequencies. The upper portion of the band is very valuable for mobile operators. When they can take the use of the 700+ band, their total cost of operation would decrease and service options would vary. This is one another important factor of DTT transition. By the way it is quite important to note that 700+ band is not left to telecom sector all over the world. Recently in Korea it was announced that the 700+ band would be used for UHD 4K DTT transmission. That is also an important answer to the ones that claim DTT is an old fashioned offer which can not support UHD 4K. Personally I believe UHD 4K over DTT is not so meaningful. But technologically it is possible and Korea showed that. 

Consumer Electronics (CE) Manufacturers

There are some important player in CE sector in Turkey: Vestel, Beko, Neta. They will have chance to offer DVB-T2 HEVC sets, which I believe, will be the new standard for DTT in Turkey. It is the announced standard for the new DTT network of Germany and would be the standard for the new comers and new upgrades. This lateness of Turkey would open a window of opportunity for the local CE manufacturers. 

Legally it is possible to re-tender for DTT frequencies

After the unsuccessful attempts, it is legally possible to re-tender for the DTT frequencies. If the Supreme Council (RTUK) decides to change the standard from DVB-T2 MPEG 4 to DVB-T2 HEVC, the total number of channels in each MUX would increase, hence this will may decrease the licencee fee for each TV channel. Another option is to upgrade the broadcast quality from SD to HD for all channels in the DTT, which sounds quite meaningful with some government support for the receivers & TV sets. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments will appear after approval, which may take time :)

Popular posts from this blog

e-interview with Ad Signal

Q1. Could you kindly provide a succinct overview of your company and the solutions showcased during IBC 2023? Ad Signal was founded to address the need for fast, accurate and independent linear advertising. However, we have become so much more than that. Our sustainable fingerprinting technology now underpins a suite of products designed to deeply understand the content you hold, saving cost and carbon in the process. We showcased three key SaaS products at IBC 2023: Match  Using our environmentally friendly fingerprinting technology, Match lets you quickly deduplicate your content regardless of format, codec and resolution. It also allows you to run AI on your content with >25x the granularity but 25% of the cost and carbon.  Harmonise Further expanding on the uses of our fingerprinting technology, Harmonise creates a genealogy of content, improving edit and rights management workflows, and ensuring you always know where every shot and second of audio originated Compose ...
Post a Comment
click to read more...

e-interview with Cuebric

1. For the readers of TVTechTR, I kindly request a brief introduction to Cuebric. Cuebric is an elegant, intuitive tool that helps users create, segment, and dimensionalize scenes, allowing them to go From Concept to CameraTM in minutes. Through the power of artificial intelligence, Cuebric creates an entirely new way of working, one that transcends what was once possible, allowing storytellers to achieve new levels of productivity while maintaining cinematic quality. Cuebric has been welcomed and used by creators from all backgrounds, including filmmakers at prominent studios and leading VFX companies. More information online at www.cuebric.com 2. Could you please elaborate on the innovations that the collaboration between Cuebric and Disguise will bring to the industry? Additionally, is it possible to integrate Cuebric with native game engines? Plug & Play 3D uses advanced algorithms and machine learning techniques to turn image layers into near-3D assets, automatically mapped to...
Post a Comment
click to read more...

e-interview with Varnish Software

Q1. Could you kindly provide a succinct overview of your company and the solutions showcased during IBC 2023?   Varnish Software is a leader in caching, streaming and content delivery software solutions. Our software helps content providers of any size deliver lightning-fast, reliable, and high-quality web and streaming experiences for huge audiences. With over 10 million deployments, including over 20% of the world’s top websites and leading video service providers, our technology is relied on by millions of organizations across every industry, with customers including Hulu, Emirates, Tesla, Sky, Migros, CBC and Future Publishing. Varnish Software’s latest solutions are designed to optimize every layer of content delivery, from traffic routing and management all the way to content storage and access. Some of our new and latest solutions showcased at IBC include: ● Varnish Enterprise 6 with the upgraded Varnish Controller 5.1 and Traffic Router   is the industry’s most feat...
Post a Comment
click to read more...