The Digital Terrestrial Television or DTT It continues to be one of the main free entertainment alternatives for Spanish homes. A service that will undergo an important change at the beginning of this year 2024 to improve the image and sound quality received in our homes.
Specifically, as the BOE officially published a few months ago, the regulations for DTT require this year that all channels must evolve their broadcasts to high definition (HD). before February 14, 2024 mandatory.
What does this mean? Well then Since this date The current DTT stations that broadcast in SD (which right now are still a few) will stop working and all television channels will be converted to HD, which will mean a new blackout if we are not prepared at home.
How to know if my TV is compatible with the new DTT in HD
Image: Four
To watch DTT in high definition starting in 2024, therefore, we will need a television. that supports HD resolutionsomething common if we bought our TV a few years ago, but it was not present in some models that are more than a decade old that we can still have working at home.
Furthermore, it may be the case that we have an old TV compatible with “HD” or “HD-Ready” images in terms of the amount of resolution of its pixels, but that They do not have an HD tuner insidesomething common in the first plasma and LCD models until 2006-2008.
So, how can I know if my TV is compatible with the new HD DTT that will be mandatory from February 14, 2024? Well, there are several ways to find out, some easier than others.
Image: Giga TV
For example, we can look at the technical specifications of the TV or the external decoder that we are using right now to watch DTT to make sure that have an HD tuner compatible at least with the standard DVB-T working over H.264/MPEG-4 AVCand if possible DVB-T2 type compatible with video codecs H.264 and H.265.
These specifications are usually indicated in the instruction manual, on the box that the TV came with, or even in the form of stickers placed on the body of the screen itself. Some models even have a logo printed on the body of the device with the DVB standard with which they are capable of working, although it is not always reliable since some models say that they are only DVB when in reality they also support DVB-T2.
What can we do to know if my TV or receiver is compatible without looking at the specifications? Well, a simpler way is check if we are already receiving a channel that broadcasts in HD. Currently, many of the main ones already issue in this resolution, as is the case of those of TVE, Antena 3, Cuatro, Telecinco or La Sextaalthough they also have their equivalent in SD.
Therefore, what we can do is put on some of these channels, especially Antena 3, Cuatro and Telecinco, since TVE does not specify that they are in HD, and look both in the channel logo and in the channel indicator menu itself. the broadcast that an “HD” appears next to the channel's usual logoas we can see in the attached images.
Image: Telecinco
Several cases can occur here:
- If we can already see any of these channels with the “HD” logo and we receive them well, showing the image and sound correctly, it means that our TV or receiver will be at least compatible with the standard DVB-T working over H.264/MPEG-4 AVC of current broadcasts, so we can continue watching the channels without buying anything else.
- Another case is that when changing channels in the OSD menu on the screen or in the programming guide the channel appears with the name “HD”, for example “Telecinco HD”, but then when you go to that channel the image it stays black even though the sound works. In this case our TV or receiver will not be able to decode the video and we will have to buy a new external model if we want to continue using the same TV.
- In case no matter how much we search let's not find any of these channels with the “HD” logo, not even in the name of the channel that appears in the OSD menu, will mean that either our TV or receiver is not compatible and that is why it cannot find them, or that we do not have them tuned to our list. If the latter is the case, we can try to retune to see if they appear and check again.
Cover image | PXHere
In Xataka Smart Home | One month until the DTT blackout: how to update your old TV so you can continue watching the channels in 2024