[linux-dvb] Upcoming DVB-T channel changes for HH (Hamburg)

[hermann pitton]

Hi,

Am Dienstag, den 27.01.2009, 09:30 +0100 schrieb Tobias Stöber:
> Moin, moin,
> 
> ... and sorry Barry that I've to correct you on some parts of your 
> summarization ;) I hope you don't mind.
> 
> BOUWSMA Barry schrieb:
> > Certainly. Just as a background, for the one or zero persons who
> > care,the situation in germany can be vaguely described thus: There
> > 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?
> 
> >  In general, the local and private broadcasters focus theirattention
> > on large markets (Berlin, Frankfurt/Main, Hamburg,München, and so
> > on), and are not to be found so much outsidethese limited regions --
> > with exceptions, like in Oberbayernfrom the Wendelstein, but while
> > the public service broadcastershave a remit to reach the general
> > population, the privatebroadcasters have chosen to focus their
> > financial investmentin those markets where they can reach a larger
> > audienceshare for little investment.  That is, the RTL and
> > Pro7Sat1families can be seen in, say, Hamburg, but far from
> > thesemetro areas, you are pretty much limited to a subset of
> > thepublic broadcasters.
> 
> That is partially correct. The real reason is in the structure and 
> history of the German broadcasting market and the introduction of DVB -T 
> services in different stages.
> 
> After the World War II the western Allies decided to organise 
> broadcasting similar to that of the BBC (and also a bite like networks 
> in the US) and give West-Germany a structure of federal states, which 
> became responsible for broadcasting. Therefore the national government 
> in Berlin is in most parts not responsible for broadcasting (apart from 
> public service that is financed from there like Deutsche Welle radio & 
> tv). The idea behind that was, that the broadcasters should be free from 
> interference from the government and managed as an independent public 
> service.
> 
> All decisions and legislation have to be made in the 16 federal state 
> parliaments (and sometimes the Bundestag to), e.g. the 
> "Rundfunkfinanzierungsstaatsvertrag" (State Treaty on the Financing of 
> Broadcasting).
> 
> This law btw required people living in Germany to pay a broadcasting fee 
> if they possess a radio oder tv set. This fee is use to finance the 
> public-law broacasting services (like the stations organized in the ARD, 
> ZDF, national radio service Deutschlandfunk/Deutschlandradio  and some 
> other institutions). You'll be charged for the possession, nit for 
> actually listening or viewing these stations. I won't go into detail...
> 
> First their existed only the federal public-law broadcasting system, 
> where a broadcasting institution was responsbile for one (or sometimes 
> more) federal state(s) / Bundesland. Apart from the where national radio 
> stations like Deutschlandfunk ... as we talk about DVB-T I will from now 
> one skip info on radio.
> 
> These stations all are organised in the „Arbeitsgemeinschaft der 
> öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland“ 
> (ARD) and have their own local programme (often refererred as he "third" 
> programme (das Dritte) and also contribute to a national programme 
> called "Das Erste" (oder sometimes also called "ARD").
> 
> The leading role for a specific programme contribution rest with a 
> specific broadcaster (sometimes this changed between them). For 
> instance, the newscast "Tagesschau" or "Tagesthemen" are produced in 
> Hamburg and the station in lead is NDR. The political magazine "Report" 
> is produced and lead be either Bayrischer Rundfunk (BR), then called 
> "Report München" or SWR, then called "Report Mainz". The magazine "FAKT" 
>   is produced by MDR etc. pp.
> 
> Later there was a national TV service establised, the ZDF with its 
> headquarters in Mainz and local studios in every federal state. This is 
> also resembled in the name "Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen" (second German TV).
> 
> East Germany had a state controlled national service before 1990, with 2 
> TV programmes and adopted the federal system after reunification. East 
> and West Berlin were served by SFB (Sender Freies Berlin) For the 5 new 
> federal states the NDR took over Meckelnburg-Vorpommern (as it was 
> already responsible for all other coastal regions in Niedersachen, 
> Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein), Brandenburg became the ORB 
> (Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg), later merged with SFB to now RBB, 
> and the three other federal states are served by MDR (Mitteldeutscher 
> Rundfunk).
> 
> There are then other public-law TV stations which result from 
> cooperation between broadcasters, e.g. KiKA (children channel, coop of 
> ARD and ZDF), 3sat (coop of ARD, ZDF, ORF from Astria and SRG swiss TV), 
> arte (coop between ARD, ZDF and France television) etc. or are part of 
> additional or digital bouqets (like ZDF.info, ZDF.doku, phoenix, 
> Eins.extra etc.).
> 
> Interestingly there was the situation, that if you had only analogue 
> reception, you had to pay for e.g. 3sat and arte (broadcasting fee), but 
> could not receive them, because the were mostly broadcasting via 
> satellite or cable tv! This changed with switchover to DVB-T as they are 
> part of the relevant multiplexes.
> 
> Later in the 80ies regulation allowed for privately owned TV station 
> which then formed. Today their are 2 large private broadcasting networks:
> 
> RTLGroup: RTL, RTL II, VOX, SuperRTL and others
> ProSieben-Sat1: ProSieben, Sat.1, Kabel Eins, N24 and others
> 
> 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.
> 
> http://www.rtlregional.de/
> http://hannover.1730sat1.de/
> 
> The private stations emerged before German unification, therefore they 
> were only present in western Germany and West-Berlin. After unification 
> they did - to my knowledge - not offer analogue service in Eastern Germany.
> 
> When the switchover from analogue to digital started, it began in 
> metropolitan area like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and parts with more 
> population like e.g. Hannover/Braunschweig or Cologne, Düsseldorf etc.
> 
> In all these areas there are at least the following multiplexes:
> 
> * "ZDF Digital" with ZDF, 3sat, KIKA and ZDF doku (time sliced, calles 
> "Partagierung" in German) and another programme, mostly ZDF infokanal
> 
> * "ARD/Das Erste" with Das Erste, arte, phoenix and one of the digital 
> ARD programmes like Eins.festival, Eins.extra etc.
> 
> * "Dritte" (third programme multiplex) with the main third channel of 
> the relevant area (e.g. NDR in Niedersachsen/Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein 
> and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, RBB in Berlin and Brandenburg, MDR in 
> Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt and Thürigen and so on) and 3 other programmes 
> of the surrounding federal states / public-law broadcasters of ARD
> 
> * RTL-Group: RTL, RTL II, VOX and SuperRTL
> 
> * Pro7-Sat.1 Group: Pro7, Sat.1, Kabel Eins and N24
> 
> * at least one multiplex for other and regional private broadcasters, 
> which may contain all sorts of stations with space for at least 4 
> programmes/stations, maybe more if they are time sliced
> 
> Nationswide this often contains ComedyCentral and an example for a time 
> sliced space is DMAX + Bible Channel in Niedersachen.
> 
> The introduction of DVB-T was in part funded with public aid money. The 
> EU commission criticised this as an illegal grant in respect to the 
> fact, that also private broadcasters like RTLGroup and Pro7Sat1 got 
> their expenses reimbursed.
> 
> So the real reason for RTLGroup and Pro7Sat1 to not be present in DVB-T 
> regions that where switches in later phases of switchover are:
> 
> - stopped funding (means costs would have risen)
> - lack of interest (fewer viewer in rural areas compared to metropolitan 
> areas)
> - stations were only required to be present where the were licensed and 
> had analogue service before
> 
> Therefore we have large areas where they are not present (whole Eastern 
> Germany except Berlin, at lot of the south of Germany and rural parts of 
> large states like Niedersachen (Lower Saxony) and Nordrhein-Westfalen 
> (Northrhine-Westphalia) ... e.g. Cologne and Düsseldorf are have 
> RTL/Pro7 and Müsterland in NRW or Oldenburg in Niedersachsen hove not.
> 
> 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).
> 
> More info on that can be found on the website of Sächsische 
> Landesanstalt für privaten Rundfunk und neue Medien (SLM).
> 
> http://www.slm-online.de/psk/slmo/powerslave,id,231,nodeid,231.html
> 
> Maybe there are other such projects, that I don't know of, because I am 
> mainly interested in the area, where I live, work and travel, which is 
> mostly Niedersachen and the North, Sachsen-Anhalt, Sachsen, Thüringen, 
> Berlin and Brandenburg ;)
> 
> > Of the national and regional public broadcasters, the DVB-Tsituation
> > can be pretty much described as thusly... There is a truly national
> > broadcaster, the second germanbroadcaster, ZDF, which has a multiplex
> > known as ZDFmobilwhich is available nationally, and is identical
> > whetherreceived in Flensburg or Passau (hey, no heckling, that wasa
> > beloved train ride for me years ago). The other nominally national
> > broadcaster, ARD, known as thefirst german broadcaster ("Das Erste"),
> > suffers regionalisationboth through a local identity in a particular
> > Bundesland,as well as a regional DVB-T multiplex management that
> > doesnot always translate well to match those of neighbouringlands. 
> > This regionalisation is due to sub-management by a thirdparty, which,
> > perhaps as a super-regional manager, isresponsible for more than one
> > Bundesland (for our originalcase of Hamburg, this would be NDR,
> > together with itsdaughter Radio Bremen).  These `third parties'
> > takentogether form that first german broadcaster, as well ashaving
> > their own distinct regional identities.
> 
> See above, I am no sure about ZDF mux to be identical in the whole of 
> Germany but for Hamburg ONLY NDR is responsible and for Bremen and 
> Bremerhafen ONLY Radio Bremen is responsible.
> 
> As DVB-T is regarded, there are work group in which alle partner, say 
> public-law and private broadcasting stations, the local media 
> authorities (Landesmedienanstalt) and the technical service providers 
> are present, which decide about technical parameters, transmitting sites 
> and parameters etc.
> 
> For all other corrections see my first part of the intro ;)
> 
> > 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.

That is not fully true yet either and Barry is correct for Frankfurt
Rhein/Main and others.

Das Erste:602000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:101:102:1
hr-fernsehen:602000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:401:402:65
arte/EinsFestival:602000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_2_3:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCHY_NONE:201:202:70
rheinmaintv:818000000:INVERSION_AUTO:BANDWIDTH_8_MHZ:FEC_2_3:FEC_1_2:QAM_16:TRANSMISSION_MODE_8K:GUARD_INTERVAL_1_4:HIERARCH

If you look at the patch Christoph has created now,

http://linuxtv.org/hg/dvb-apps/rev/98d3c06e5ef9

even Berlin has "Das Erste" and "RBB" on the same multiplex.

It seems we can say that there are separate muliplexes for
regional/third programs of other states/Bundeslaender, but the ARD "Das
Erste" multiplex often contains the "third program" of the
state/Bundesland where the transmitter is located.

> > In other words, nationally, one can receive the ZDFmultiplex, plus
> > two others, which will depend on howthe regional management has
> > decided to configure theirmultiplexes.  Services such as Phoenix and
> > `arte' willbe available nationally, while the `dritte' multiplexwill
> > contain a selection of out-of-area regionals ofinterest due to
> > geography or whatever.
> 
> Correct. The out-of-area third programmes are selected due to georgraphy 
> and the fact, that a lot of people may work and or live in another 
> federal state (Bundesland) adjunct to the area.
> 
> So in the NDR area of Hannover/Braunschweig there is NDR + MDR, HR and 
> WDR (which are the federal states, that border in this area.
> 
> > 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?

I guess they else can't receive SWR anymore in that region.

> > Now, anyway, for the zero readers who care, that's mysummary of
> > german public broadcasters approach to DVB-T.I'm happy to be
> > corrected, because I'm an outsider.
> 
> Well, hope I could clear some facts, although I am also an outsider.
> 
> > 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, 
> therefore has a small budget (which results in Radio Bremen to get money 
> from the ARD's compenmsation fund) it is wise to closely cooperate with 
> NDR.
> 
> It would be - just my opinion - a good idea, that the few very small 
> public-law broadcasting institution like SR (Saarländischer Rundfunk) 
> and Radio Bremen merge with others.
> 
> For instance, there was the time, where a merger of Berlin and 
> Brandenburg (as federal states) were discussed (which later did not 
> happen, I don't want to discuss that further). But it had the effect, 
> that ORD and SFB merged to RBB, which is resonable, because a lot of 
> people commute between Berlin and its surroundings.
> 
> > SWR has engulfed SWF and
> > pretty-much-identical-save-for-a-few-half-hour-bits-here-and-thereprogramming
> > can be seen on SWR-RP, SWR-BW, and evenSR from the Saarland.  This
> > can probably be seen bylooking at the different frequency plans,
> > although Iam too lazy and disinterested to do so now.  Anyway,the
> > Genève frequency allocations look to be based ongeographical
> > locations, independent of the regionalbroadcast administrator
> > responsible.
> 
> Well maybe, I don't know a lot about that.
> 
> > What am I saying by all this tripe?  Well, there is aregional
> > frequency allocation that is presently usedby the public service
> > broadcasters, but so far hasseen spotty adoption by the local and
> > commercialbroadcasters apart from a handful of larger metroregions,
> > 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.
> 
> > Now, as far as changes since Nov.2008, when a good numberof
> > government drones were running about proclaiming thatthe digital
> > switchover was complete, well, they weren'tquite right, but anyhow...
> >  There haven't been, as far as I know, any changes sincenovember.
> > There are planned changes to one multiplexfrequency in Aalen (BW) and
> > introduction of a new DVB-Tsite in Bad Mergentheim (BW) and
> > Garmisch-Partenkirchen(BY), if not more, and eventually, abandoning
> > presentVHF frequencies, seen in Berlin, parts of Bayern, and asnoted,
> > Hamburg, for example.
> 
> 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.
> 
> > 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 travel in.
> 
> On the webpages of the different projects there are often very recent 
> and detailed technical information, which are sometime hard to find 
> within the website.
> 
> The web pages and pdf files at dvb-t-nord.de are updated regularly and 
> seem (as much as I could check) to reflect the current status of 
> transmitters and parameters, e.g. Braunschweig (Brunswick) area again:
> 
> 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.
> 
> Maybe you'll really have a deeper look because "DVB-T Nord" also covers 
> Hamburg and the whole NDR/Radio Bremen area.
> 
> Regards, Tobias
> 

Cheers,
Hermann