Analogue TV Closedown in Paris Region

[jhalphen]

Hello to all,

Tonight, monday march 7th 2011 at midnight (UTC +1:00) all french TV transmitters have gone off the air in Paris and the surrounding ile-de-France area, ending 76 years of analogue television transmissions. SECAM, rest in peace.

During the night, Broadcast TV engineers and transmitter suppliers will be busy connecting the DVB-T exciters to the converted analogue and new digital transmitters.

Service is due to startup tuesday march 8th at 08:00 AM with the 6 legacy ex-analogue OTA channels, then throughout the day all 19 FTA channels will progressively come online.

By tuesday evening 20:00 PM the transition should be complete.

A re-scan of DVB-T tuners will be necessary because of multiplex channel allocation frequency shifts once the analogue service has closed. 12 million households in the Paris area are concerned.

The new spectrum will include 19x DVT-T SD 625/50 UHF channels broadcast in MPEG-2 plus 4x HD channels, 1080i/50 broadcast in MPEG-4.

All VHF Band I & III TV transmissions are terminated. Band III is to be reassigned to digital radio and services to mobile phones.

DVB-T and analogue SECAM L have coexisted in Paris since 2005. with the digital channel frequently co-channel sited alongside the SECAM transmission, the DVB-T signal was broadcast at a - 15dB power level to avoid interference. With the switch-off of analogue a considerable power increase of DVB-T will take place, the 19 transmitters on the Eiffel Tower being increased from 15KW EIRP to 50KW EIRP.

Final analogue switch-off for the entire country is planned for november 2011.

Except for a small ceremony at the Eiffel Tower tonight, no special event was planned.

Photos courtesy of Bruno Piffret, Paris vintage TV collector

Best Regards

jhalphen
Paris/France