Technology
UHF terrestrial broadcasting using DVB-T MPEG4 (also known as DVB-T HD), and currently covers 86 percent of the country's population. Only two towns with a population over 15,000 do not have terrestrial service – Whakatane and Blenheim (both towns can receive the service from Tauranga and Wellington respectively, but the signal is weak). Freeview's terrestrial transmissions are broadcast from Kordia's and JDA's transmitter towers.
Freeview uses the DVB-T standard for terrestrial transmission, as established in 2001 with NZS6610:2001, to avoid the multipath problem caused by New Zealand's rugged topography. ATSC, a rival standard that uses VSB modulation, which cannot handle multipath well, so it was not chosen.
Terrestrial Freeview|HD is broadcast in H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. This meant that people who took part in the Auckland digital trial using terrestrial DVB-T MPEG2 receivers needed to change their receivers to DVB-T MPEG4 in order to receive terrestrial Freeview. DVB-T MPEG4 is also known in some countries as DVB-T HD. MHEG-5 is used for the electronic programming guide.
Freeview Satellite uses the Optus D1 satellite to broadcast, on two transponders, leased from Kordia. The satellite transmissions are in DVB-S MPEG2. Freeview cannot easily move to MPEG4 broadcasting in the future as the codec is unsupported by a large number of the receivers in the installed base of Freeview Satellite receivers. Unlike the terrestrial service, the satellite service broadcasts a traditional EPG alongside the MHEG-5 EPG.
Freeview is discussing with Telecom about the provision of IPTV over ADSL.
Read more about this topic: Freeview (New Zealand)
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“One can prove or refute anything at all with words. Soon people will perfect language technology to such an extent that they’ll be proving with mathematical precision that twice two is seven.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)