Tech
Freeview, New Zealand's non-profit provider of free to air digital television services, has commenced transmissions on digital terrestrial today ahead of a full launch on April 14.
The Freeview consortium, which is made up of key broadcasters including Television New Zealand and MediaWorks, already offers a bouquet of free to air channels via digital satellite, in competition with established pay television provider Sky. Both the digital satellite and digital terrestrial offerings will be branded with the Freeview name.
75% of New Zealand's population will be covered by "Freeview UHF" - the version offered terrestrially - while 100% will be covered by the satellite service.
New Zealand plans to switch off the country's analogue terrestrial television broadcasts by 2012, at which point Freeview will be the sole provider of television on digital terrestrial. Most channels are available on both terrestrial and satellite. However, high definition services will only be available on the terrestrial platform, which uses the more efficient MPEG-4 compression codec in comparison to the MPEG-2 already in use on Freeview's digital satellite service.
To coincide with the launch of Freeview, TVNZ has launched two digital-only services: TVNZ 6, offering children's, family and arts programming, and TVNZ 7, a 24-hour news channel.
The Freeview consortium, which is made up of key broadcasters including Television New Zealand and MediaWorks, already offers a bouquet of free to air channels via digital satellite, in competition with established pay television provider Sky. Both the digital satellite and digital terrestrial offerings will be branded with the Freeview name.
75% of New Zealand's population will be covered by "Freeview UHF" - the version offered terrestrially - while 100% will be covered by the satellite service.
New Zealand plans to switch off the country's analogue terrestrial television broadcasts by 2012, at which point Freeview will be the sole provider of television on digital terrestrial. Most channels are available on both terrestrial and satellite. However, high definition services will only be available on the terrestrial platform, which uses the more efficient MPEG-4 compression codec in comparison to the MPEG-2 already in use on Freeview's digital satellite service.
To coincide with the launch of Freeview, TVNZ has launched two digital-only services: TVNZ 6, offering children's, family and arts programming, and TVNZ 7, a 24-hour news channel.
More: Tech, Terrestrial TV
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