High-definition Television - European HDTV Broadcasts

European HDTV Broadcasts

The first HDTV transmissions in Europe, albeit not direct-to-home, began in 1990, when the Italian broadcaster RAI and Japanese broadcaster NHK used the HD-MAC and MUSE HDTV technologies to broadcast the 1990 FIFA World Cup. The matches were shown in 8 cinemas in Italy and 2 in Spain. The connection with Spain was made via the Olympus satellite link from Rome to Barcelona and then with a fiber optic connection from Barcelona to Madrid. After some HDTV transmissions in Europe the standard was abandoned in the mid-1990s.

The first regular broadcasts started on January 1, 2004 when the Belgian company Euro1080 launched the HD1 channel with the traditional Vienna New Year's Concert. Test transmissions had been active since the IBC exhibition in September 2003, but the New Year's Day broadcast marked the official launch of the HD1 channel, and the official start of direct-to-home HDTV in Europe.

Euro1080, a division of the Belgian TV services company Alfacam, broadcast HDTV channels to break the pan-European stalemate of "no HD broadcasts mean no HD TVs bought means no HD broadcasts ..." and kick-start HDTV interest in Europe. The HD1 channel was initially free-to-air and mainly comprised sporting, dramatic, musical and other cultural events broadcast with a multi-lingual soundtrack on a rolling schedule of 4 or 5 hours per day.

These first European HDTV broadcasts used the 1080i format with MPEG-2 compression on a DVB-S signal from SES's Astra 1H satellite. Euro1080 transmissions later changed to MPEG-4/AVC compression on a DVB-S2 signal in line with subsequent broadcast channels in Europe.

The number of European HD channels and viewers has risen steadily since the first HDTV broadcasts, with SES's annual Satellite Monitor market survey for 2010 reporting more than 200 commercial channels broadcasting in HD from Astra satellites, 185 million HD-Ready TVs sold in Europe (£60 million in 2010 alone), and 20 million households (27% of all European digital satellite TV homes) watching HD satellite broadcasts (16 million via Astra satellites).

In December 2009 the United Kingdom became the first European country to deploy high definition content using the new DVB-T2 transmission standard, as specified in the Digital TV Group (DTG) D-book, on digital terrestrial television. The Freeview HD service currently contains 4 HD channels and was rolled out region by region across the UK in accordance with the digital switchover process, finally being completed in October 2012. However, Freeview HD has not been the first HDTV service over digital terrestrial television in Europe; for example, in Italy the Rai HD channel started broadcasting in 1080i on April 24, 2008 using the older DVB-T transmission standard.