France: Historic Day Today

[jhalphen]

Hello Gentlemen,

Just tootin' the horn here, but today at 15:30PM French local time (GMT + 1) France was the first country to enter Free Terrestrial HDTV broadcasting using MPEG-4 technology.

6 channels are available as of today, with many more later.

The signal is broadcast in UHF Band IV/V (470-860 MHz) alongside the old SECAM L signal.

France selected MPEG-4 as the 1080/50/i signal occupies the same Multiplex channel bandwith as an SD 625 signal.

Some sites (sorry, in French) about the event:

http://www.lesnumeriques.com/news_id-6519.html

http://www.tvnthd.com/V2/pages/286/index.php

For once we're not 10 years behind everyone else ...

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France