KEY POINTS:
Everywhere you turn at IFA this year there are devices on show that have integrated digital TV tuners built into them. They particularly catch my attention because the options for picking up our fledgling digital TV service are currently limited. If the line-up at IFA is anything to
go by, that is soon to change.
At IFA there's a big push from the likes of Samsung, Panasonic and LG to showcase so-called iDTV - integrated digital TV sets that do away with the need for a set-top box receiver as the digital tuner is built into the TV itself. Samsung's M8 LCD TV, which was launched in April has an mpeg4 decoder so can pick up HD content broadcast terrestrially. Most of the iDTV sets on show at IFA have HD tuners - they'd be able to pick up Freeview when the terrestrial service starts here.
Freeview kicked off in New Zealand in May and since then, 20,000 people have bought receivers, brining to 40,000 the number of homes able to pick up the free-to-air channels beamed from the Optus D satellite which Sky TV also uses to broadcast its channels.
Next March, Freeview will begin terrestrial broadcasting of its channels, giving consumers the option of picking up the signal using an antenna that picks up a signal from a broadcast tower rather than the satellite. There's no huge advantage to doing so, but Freeview plans to upgrade the terrestrial service to allow for broadcasting in high-definition which means those with HD-ready TVs will eventually get broadcasts in better picture quality than we currently enjoy.
At the moment, Freeview has certified two satellite receivers for the service and there are numerous others available on the grey market. But because we're using the same digital TV standards employed in Europe - DVB-T and DVB-S, there's a good chance we'll soon be offered some decent gear to receive digital TV.
At IFA Toshiba showed some pretty cool system-on-chop technology which builds digital TV receiver and tuner card onto one chip, reducing considerably the size of the hardware needed to pick up digital TV. Eventually, the receivers are likely to be standard features of most LCD monitors, TVs, laptops and even mobile phones.
I also had a decent look at the range of digital TV tuner products available from German company Hauppauge, which has a fantastic product in Eye TV 2. It's only available for Macs but has some of the best digital TV software I've seen including electronic programming guide, viewing interface and video editing software into a program that's been modelled on iTunes. There's not much talk here of the digital tuner being developed for the Playstation 3, but the Blu-ray Disc Association people at IFA are excited about it, as they believe it will give people more of an incentive to shell out for a PS3 and therefore watch Blu-raz movies on the PS3's HD drive.
There's also stacks of digital radio product on show here, which will also become relevant to us as broadcast network operator Kordia gears up to take radio broadcasts digital too. I know Freeview is currently talking to the big TV makers about getting supply of iDTVs lined up for the terrestrial launch next year. Here's hoping some of the cool kit I've seen here will make it down under.