As you have been able to see all this time, in your list of channels you will find multiple of them working at HD resolution, while many others are still in SD (standard) definition. This is normal, since today, not everyone has a television capable of playing HD content. For these people, things will start to get complicated soon, because SD channels will disappear from January 1, 2023.
This is a measure collected in the BOE, more specifically in the National Technical Plan for Digital Terrestrial Television. This means that 2022 will be the last year in which we can see channels that are not in HD on DTT.
The plan we mention, and what has been public since June 25, 2019 makes it clear:
“All television channels, whatever their scope of coverage, must evolve their broadcasts to high definition before January 1, 2023.”
DVB-T2 and the adoption of 4K to DTT channels
Before that date mentioned, the holders will be able to choose to upgrade their channels to high definition, since otherwise, their broadcasting will cease. This will accompany the new DVB-T2 standard, also known as TDT2, which it will increase the bandwidth and proposes the arrival of 4K channels to our country.
DVB-T2 will make better use of the full spectrum offered by new technologies, since with the disappearance of SD channels, there will be more space for HD broadcast. Codecs such as H.265 will be key to the possibility of offering a higher bitrate thanks to its compression techniques, which already offer some streaming services. Although everything points to We still have a few years to make the leap to this new standard.
In 2024 it is also expected that the ASTRA 1P and ASTRA 1Q satellites, both commissioned by the SES company, begin to take orbit, with countries such as Germany, France and Spain being the main beneficiaries of this. These satellites, together with the new decoding devices that include the new DVB-T2 standard, will sooner rather than later we can have 4K channels and more space for HD broadcasts.
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