What They Say
The UK’s DTG, which coordinates the development of digital TV in the UK, has published its new requirements in version 12.5 of its D-Book. A mark of progress in the market is that Standard Definition (SD) set profiles will be dropped and all future sets will have to be able to support HD content.
What We Think
The DTG has done a good job in the UK, delivering interactive digital TV functionality that was popular with users and worked in practice. It has evolved from an original system MHEG) that was pioneering and simpler than the original concepts used in the rest of Europe . However, as the technology has got more sophisticated, continental Europe widely adopted the HbbTV system and DTG has worked to merge its own systems with HbbTV.
HDTV has taken a very long time to become the standard, from the early days of Muse analogue TV back in the 1980s. But it is now ‘the standard’. Since I got HD, I have hated watching SD, and even my wife, who has poor vision and cares little for video quality, notices and complains about SD these days! (BR)
