Grüezi mitenand!
*Whew*, that was a lot....
On Tue, 27 Jan 2009, Tobias Stöber wrote:
> ... and sorry Barry that I've to correct you on some parts of your> summarization ;) I hope you don't mind.
No worries. I've tried to give a view that an outsider coulduse to better understand the situation and place a logic ontothe channel assignments, as it is a bit more detailed than thesituation in, say, Switzerland. Or France.
> > exist national public service, regional public> > service,national/regional private commercial, and local broadcasters.> > So what do you mean with local broadcasters? Or what is the difference in> regional private versus local?
Local broadcasters here would include, as examples, HH1, onlyavailable in the Hamburg region, or perhaps some of what canbe seen in Leipzig, though that appears not to be included inthe .pdf file frequency list. Likewise I'd include thedifferent services which can be seen via DVB satellite makingup FrankenSat and the like -- simply because I'm not familiarenough with them and their reach -- I'd assume TRP is availablein Passau, but not throughout Oberbayern, for example.
By a region, I mean either a Bundesland, as opposed to thosewhich cover just a large city (Berlin, HH, Bremen...) or alarge part thereof. For example, RTL has available a servicefor Austria and the german part of Switzerland, and for HH SHand HB NDS available via satellite, as does Sat1 with servicesSAT1 National, SAT1 NRW, SAT1 NS/Bremen, SAT1 HH/SH,SAT1 RhlPf/Hessen, and for Bayern, Test BY. (info may be somemonths out-of-date)
Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with the multitude ofprivate broadcasters out there and their coverage areas, dueto receiving satellite signals, which lack most of these.Only occasionally will something catch my interest -- forexample, was tm3 a local München service, which happened tobe available nationally before it perverted into Neun Liveand wormed its way into DVB-T multiplexes? And likewise, theservice which Hornauer took over before finally sputtering offsatellite after a shell game into Austria, whose original nameI can no longer remember...
> The stations must also be licensed in one of the federal states and are> required to broadcast are local/regional programme there(!), which results in> the fact, that on DVB-T (and before on analogue TV) there are programmes> targeted to the region and which are not available on satellite TV. For RTL in> Niedersachen/Bremen there is a programme called "Guten Abend RTL" between> 18h00 and 18h30, or on Sat.1 there is then a programme called "Sat1 - 17.30> live NDS/Bremen" between 17h30 and 18h00.
Actually, these services are now available nationally (and througheurope) via DVB-S. Earlier, these were sent at least in part vialow-bandwidth transponders in the style of SNG feeds; today theymake use of dynamic PMT switching within a full-bandwidth multiplex, in the same way that WDR in particular switches to itsmany regions for part of the day.
> There are then also some special local DVB-T phenomena, like radio stations> over DVB-T in Berlin or special projects like the private "Leipzig 1" -> multiplex which experiments with a small cell SFN nework of low-power> transmitters within a very small area (area of the city of Leipzig) with 6> transmitters in that (Leipzig-Mitte, Leipzig-Messe, Leipzig-Grünau,> Leipzig-Markkleeberg and Leipzig-Lößnig). This project does include TV and> radio stations (Leipzig Fernsehen, Infokanal Leipzig, BBC World, Bibel TV,> Radio Horeb, Radio Leipzig).
If I remember, there is also an occasional multiplex in, if Iremember, Nürnberg... I do need to look more in detail at theseprojects.
What I do notice is that in the frequency list, Leipzig includesonly the three PSB multiplexes, including one on VHF channel 9,which eventually should be moved, I would expect.
Also of note is that the dvb-apps scanfile for Leipzig does notinclude the frequency for that low-power network. I think Ineed to do some homework...
> > The practical example of this would be that while onecan see the same> > content via ZDFmobil anywhere, theso-called ARD multiplex may> > contain, by region, EinsPlusor EinsFestival, or perhaps in that> > region, that regionalmanager's so-called ``Dritte'' (third, after ARD> > beingfirst and ZDF being second) programme.> > Not correct, the ARD-Das Erste multiplex does NOT contain regional ("third")> programmes! There is always a seperate multiplex for the "third" programmes.
I hate to disagree, but Brandenburg appears to mix rbb-Brandenburgwith ARD, with the `dritte' multiplex containing `arte'; this isalso the same for Berlin and rbb-Berlin -- I'm not sure if the PMTswitching is used here to make the Brandenburg and Berlin localprogramming available through the entire area for the few hoursper day when they differ.
Similarly in Bremen, Radio Bremen TV is found where one normallywould see one of the EinsFoo digital services.
Hessen is the most obvious example, and the first I came acrosswhen researching frequency plans based solely on offline sources(teletext services). ZDF lists its nationwide transmitter sitesand some details, in ten subpages of teletext page 779. ARD doesnot have this info anywhere I've seen, but instead the regionalDritte programme teletext service lists frequencies, typicallyfor the `dritte' as well as the ARD multiplexes. In the case ofNDR, this is on four subpages of page 667, but here only listsone of the two non-ZDF public frequencies.
For Hessen, the frequencies listed on teletext page 399 is thatof the multiplex shared by ARD and hr-fernsehen, and apparentlythere is only a third service available, making far more bandwidthavailable for better video quality, or, say, additional AC3 andnarrative audio channels.
The situation is now better than it was years ago, with page 642in hr-text listing the frequencies in use by the third multiplexas well as the programming (shared by four programmes, usuallyPhoenix and three out-of-region public-service broadcasters).
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the entire area appears to be coveredby only two multiplexes, with ARD sharing space with three regionals, and nowhere are Phoenix, arte, and the like to befound. Interesting -- I learn something new each day.
Also in the Saarland, SR takes the place in the ARD multiplexof EinsFoo.
Anyway, it might be interesting for me to learn how things havechanged in the distribution of programming since the rolloutof DVB-T and the adoption of fibre networks and such. I haveread that apparently the regionalisation of the ARD programmehas suffered, with local mascots such as Onkel Otto, and Äffleund Pferdle having disappeared as the source is taken fromsatellite. Time to figure out how I can book myself into sometours behind the scenes...
> > Now, while ZDF has a unified national service, the sameis not> > necessarily true for what you can receive ina selected Bundesland.> > For example, in Hessen, dependingon where you are, you may be able to> > receive the localprogramming from the nearest Bundesland; in the> > southof Bayern you can see SWR Baden-Württemberg but temporarilynot> > Hessen (or the DVB-H which replaced it), while inthe north you will> > instead see `mdr', although you mayhave previously received SWR,> > which is the reason thatBad Mergentheim in BaWü, near the border,> > will need itsown DVB-T transmitter sometime this year.> > I don't get this info or what you want to really say into my head. So what's> your point?
Heh, good question... I wish I could remember writing that...
I think my point was to try to say that one nationally-availablemultiplex carries the same programming. The (usually) two otherpublic multiplexes do not, when seen from a national perspective.(The ARD multiplex in, say, Hamburg, is not the same as the muxin Baden-Württemberg (EinsExtra v. EinsPlus) or Hessen (where hris included.) However, while one of these multiplexes is thesame throughout all sites in Hessen, the third multiplex in thecase of Hessen exists in four slightly differing flavours.
In Baden-Württemberg, all three multiplexes do carry the samecontent throughout the entire Bundesland, but this generalobservation does not always carry over to other regions.
> > So, anyway, there's been forces to cause merging of thedifferent> > regional broadcasters; NDR covers severalBundesländer, with Radio> > Bremen retaining a bit ofindependence; > > Radio Bremen is independent! But, because it covers a very small area,
Well, yes. I was looking at it as seen from a content pointof view, where apart from the logo, there exists very littlereason for me to choose it over the higher bandwidth availablefrom PIDs starting with 2600 via satellite...
> > leaving most of the land by area dependentupon satellite reception> > for these programmes.> > See first part. A part from sat reception there is also a widespread coverage> with cable.
How extensive is the penetration of cable? My experience isthat at least in some areas, apart from larger towns, manyplaces have no access to cable. This is in contrast with, say,Switzerland, where cable is available in what superficiallyappear to be sleepy farming villages and is in fact the mosthighly-used means of distribution.
These same areas are also out of range of the Telekom DSLservice, so with no cable, and no easy high-speed internetin communities of thousands, one wonders how people live...
> The problem as such is, that in topographically flat areas like say Hamburg it> is difficult to sort out what stations you receive from what transmitter site> when actually using DVB-T.> > This may also be true for areas, where the borders of different federal states> meet, because you do not only receive your areas programmes and transmitters> but also other sites.> > To really verify those information you would have to rely on "official"> documents and maybe have access to a directional antenna (aerial), where you> could try to "locate" (or at least determine a direction) from where you> receive the mux.
I need to parse some NIT table data again. The last time Idid that, the information contained within was incorrect forthat particular DVB-T site. For a DVB-H multiplex, I just got the coördinates of the box in which several transmitterswere located, and no clue apart from the direction of myreceiving antenna which it might have been. This would alsodepend on whether use is made of a SFN.
> > If I ever get around to a more detailed study of eachBundesland, I'll> > offer more feedback, although I haven'treceived any concerning my> > proposed enhancements to B-Wsome months ago, so it may not matter...> > Well, the only I can do is, offering you my help on the areas that I live and
Much appreciated. I used to travel a lot more, but that wasbefore getting old and taking an interest in digital broadcastdistribution. I tend to focus more on the technical side, andhave less interest in politics and the like, as you couldclearly see from how badly I botched the description I triedto give.
> http://www.dvb-t-nord.de/empfangsgebiete/media/111108_h_bs_parameter.pdf> It does also contain information which out-of-area transmitters can be> received.
Interesting. The first example of such a thing which I'veseen :-)
Maybe I need to spend some more time on this here Internetthing. Who knows, maybe I'll learn something...
Uf Wiederluegen,barry bouwsma
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