Digital switchover

The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover or analogue switch-off, is the process in which analog television broadcasting is converted to and replaced by digital television. This primarily involves the conversion of analogue terrestrial television to digital terrestrial. However, it also involves analogue cable conversion to digital cable, as well as analogue to digital satellite.

In many countries, a simulcast service is operated where a broadcast is made available to viewers in both analog and digital at the same time. As digital becomes more popular, it is likely that the existing analogue services will be removed. In some cases this has already happened, where a broadcaster has offered incentives to viewers to encourage them to switch to digital. In other cases government policies have been introduced to encourage or force the switchover process, especially with regard to terrestrial broadcasts. Government intervention usually involves providing some funding for broadcasters and, in some cases monetary relief to viewers, to enable a switchover to happen by a given deadline.

The switchover for individual countries varies; in some countries it is being implemented in stages as in India and the United Kingdom, where each region has a separate date to switch off. In others, the whole country switches on one date, such as the Netherlands, which switched off all analog services on 11 December 2006. Some countries has the different switch off dates for each channel, such as China which CCTV channels 1-5 will be switched off first.

Purpose of the transition
Almost all analog formats in current use were standardised between the 1940s and 1950s and have had to be adapted to the technological innovations since then. Initially offering only black and white images with monophonic sound, the formats have had to be modified to broadcast in colour and with stereo sound, SAP, captioning, and other information all while being backwards compatible with televisions unable to use the features. Additionally, engineers have had to implement these protocols within the limits of a set bandwidth and the tolerances of an inefficient analogue format.

However during this time, the application and distribution of digital communications evolved. Digital television transmission more efficiently uses the available bandwidth and can easily integrate other digital services. While analog video and audio broadcasts can not efficiently include other digital services, it has the advantage of greater area coverage due that fact that a degraded signal can still be usable to a fringe user while a digital one will just drop-off.


 * For the end-user, digital television has potential for resolutions and sound fidelity far higher than that of analogue broadcasts. It is also possible to offer far more channels by way of digital multiplexing, and subchannels, distinct simulcast programming, from the same broadcaster. However most free-to-air broadcasters do not have the finances to operate multiple channels with the same quality of content on all channels, also the more channels provided has the impact of decreasing the bandwidth available to the existing channel(s) meaning overall lower picture quality due to compression artifacts and non-proportional anamorphic widescreen digital scaling.


 * For government and industry, digital television reallocates the radio spectrum so that it can be auctioned off. In the subsequent auctions, telecommunications industries can introduce new services and products in mobile telephony, wi-fi internet, and other nationwide telecommunications projects.


 * Impact on public-access television, decreased allocations available, expensive digital equipment cost replacement and lower broadcast area coverage due to digital drop-off.

Transitions completed

 * Netherlands: moved to digital-only broadcasting on Monday, 11 December 2006. The switch-off was helped greatly by the fact that about 80% of Dutch households subscribe to cable systems, which continued to use analog distribution, and thus their old tuners continued to be useful. Like Germany, Sweden and Japan, the Netherlands still has a high number of analogue cable viewers and therefore a switchover to Digital broadcasting is unlikely to happen in the near future.
 * Sweden: The switch-off of the analogue terrestrial network progressed region–by–region. It started on the island of Gotland on Monday, 19 September 2005, and was completed on Monday, 29 October 2007, when the last analogue SVT1 transmitters in Blekinge and western Scania were shut down. Like the Netherlands, Germany and Japan, cable distributors continued broadcasting analogue television. Cable broadcasters continue to broadcast in analogue (like the Netherlands and Germany), so therefore a cable switchover is unlikely to happen in the near future.
 * Germany: started the switch-off in the Berlin area, beginning on Friday, 1 November 2002 and completing on Monday 4 August 2003. "Simulcast" digital transmissions started in other parts of the country in an effort to prepare for a full switchover. The switch-off of terrestrial analogue transmitters was completed on Tuesday 25 November 2008, except one main transmitter in Bad Mergentheim, which was shut down in June 2009. Analogue satellite receivers were still used by 6% of households in 2010 - the highest in Europe. The analogue satellite transmissions were switched off on Monday 30 April 2012, being the last in Europe. However, analogue cable is still used by about 30% of the population and 55% of all cable broadcasts, so therefore a cable switchover is unlikely to happen in the near future.
 * Isle of Man: switched off all analogue services on Thursday 16 July 2009.
 * Denmark: switched off all analog services at midnight on Sunday 1 November 2009.
 * Norway: The switch-off of the analogue transmissions started in March 2008 and was completed on Tuesday 1 December 2009. Norway started its DTT service on the Saturday 1 September 2007.
 * Belgium: Media regulations are under regional legislation. Flanders switched off analogue television on Monday 3 November 2008, while in Wallonia, all analogue services were switched off on Monday, 1 March 2010, making Belgium a country completely serviced by a digital signal. However, analogue cable is still used by many cable subscribers, so therefore a cable switchover is unlikely to happen in the near future.
 * Spain: The switch-off of the analogue terrestrial transmissions was completed on Saturday 3 April 2010. The switch-off was successful, as about 70% of Spanish television transmissions are terrestrial, so it was easy for people to just switch to the digital signal. Spain started its DTT service on Wednesday 30 November 2005.
 * Jersey and Guernsey switched off their analogue signals on Wednesday 17 November 2010.
 * Malta terminated all analogue services on Monday, 31 October 2011. The switch-off was originally planned for Wednesday 1 June 2011 but was delayed for unknown reasons.
 * France switched off all analogue services (terrestrial, satellite and cable) on Tuesday, 29 November 2011. This included overseas departments and territories such as Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Wallis and Futuna.
 * United Kingdom: Digital terrestrial broadcasting began in the UK on Sunday 15 November 1998 with the launch of the ONdigital, later renamed ITV Digital and now Freeview. The transition from analogue and digital to digital-only terrestrial signals started on Wednesday 17 October 2007 with the Whitehaven transmitter in Cumbria, and followed a transmitter switchover timetable, implemented by region. The first constituent country to switch off all its analogue signals was Wales on Wednesday 31 March 2010 and the last region to switch off its analogue signals was Northern Ireland on Wednesday 24 October 2012. Analogue cable broadcasts ended in January 2012, with Milton Keynes still relying on analogue cable, which the town will not get an analogue switch-off. Analogue satellite was discontinued on Thursday 27 September 2001, making the UK and Ireland the first countries in Europe with digital-only satellite.
 * Ireland: Digital television was launched in Ireland as Saorview on Friday 29 October 2010. At launch it had 5 standard-definition channels and 1 high-definition channel. The analogue service was terminated on Wednesday 24 October 2012 and will be replaced by a second multiplex for Saorview. A small number of low power independent analogue re-broadcast systems (often termed 'deflectors') on UHF are still on air in parts of Ireland and six remain licensed until the Monday 31 December 2012. There has been no date released for the shutdown of analogue cable, and many major cable companies (e.g. UPC Ireland) are still actively offering analogue. Analogue satellite was discontinued on Thursday 27 September 2001, making the UK and Ireland the first countries in Europe with digital-only satellite.
 * Gibraltar: Analogue transmissions ceased in December 2012.
 * Singapore: Analogue transmission switchover to digital began in 2007 and was completed by January 2011.

Transitions in progress

 * United States: On Monday, 8 September 2008, Wilmington, North Carolina became the first city in the United States to fully switch over from analogue to digital broadcasts. All analogue signals were terminated at noon. This switchover was a test by FCC to make further improvements to the transition process before the whole nation was switched over to digital. Having moved the deadline from Tuesday, February 17, 2009 (some stations still chose to shutdown on that date), all VHF transmissions (stations 2–13) and most full-power UHF analog transmitters were shut down on or by Friday, 12 June 2009, with the exception of "nightlight" analog stations (which broadcast a video on how to set up a digital TV or purchase a DTV set-top box) and LPTV transmissions. "Nightlight" broadcasts were shut down on Friday, 26 June 2009. Television transmission on channels 52 to 69 was required to cease by 31 December 2011, to allow FCC to commence with the first phase of VHF/UHF TV spectrum allotment for other services.  LPTV transmitters (primarily local-only television stations, as well as TV station translator/repeaters in rural communities) will be forced to convert to digital or shut down by Tuesday, 1 September 2015.
 * Hong Kong's analogue broadcasting was planned to be switched off by 2012. However, it has been postponed until the end of 2015.
 * Indonesia's analogue television is currently being phased out in a process that began in 2012 with the Java and Riau Islands. It will take two years before it's switched off nationwide, which is scheduled for 31 March 2014 with using Japanese ISDB standards and blue screen like it shows. As far as March 2013, the DVB-T2 broadcast still in the trial stage. The government, along with television broadcaster and electronic manufacturer (especially who produce television set and Set-Top-Box) is waiting for Digital Television Kick-Off, which scheduled in mid-2013.
 * Canada: Canada's DTV transition was completed in 28 mandatory markets on Wednesday, 31 August 2011. Some CBC analog transmitters in mandatory markets were permitted to operate for another year, and transmitters outside mandatory markets were given the option of converting to digital, or remaining in analog. The CBC decided to shut down all (more than 600) of its remaining analog transmitters on Tuesday, 31 July 2012, without replacing them. Also on 31 August 2011, all full-power TV transmitters had to vacate channels 52 to 69. There does however remain a very small number of community-based transmitters; see Digital television in Canada

Not yet started

 * Malaysia: The first roll-out of DTTB services is expected to be in the third quarter (Q3) of 2014, for a start in a few test areas, while full nationwide coverage to an estimated 98% populated areas is slated by the end of the analogue-digital simulcast period It is expected that Malaysia will terminate analogue signal for good at 12 June 2015 except TV9 Malaysia for using DTV Nightlight video by NAB with Melayu Subtitle in upper part and English is under part, spoken at Malaysian language like in NAB DTV Video in NBC4 New York, will repeat with 2 same language (Malaysian and English) until 26 June 2015.
 * Thailand: Information Ministry was planning to shut down the country's analogue television system in phases beginning from 2010 and finishing with the country exclusively broadcasting in DVB-T2 in 2015. Due to the political problems, it was delayed several times and has officially launched in February 2011 and will be available nationwide in 2015. The switchover will be done in 2016.