Digital TV in the country
In most apartments and even private houses within the boundaries of any even a small city, there are almost no problems with the quality of television signal reception, since cable television is almost everywhere. In most multi-apartment buildings in cities with a population of over a million, there may be several cable TV operators, which gives residents a pretty good choice.
But as you move away from the city center, the availability of high-quality cable TV is gradually "reduced to nothing". And outside the city, as a rule, cable TV completely missing.
Therefore, summer residents, for the most part, are content with the fact that they watch from the strength of several channels of on-air television, which they manage to catch on. And image quality often leaves much to be desired. Especially if the summer cottage is located far from the radiating terrestrial television station, then on the TV screen you can see a lot of interference from "snow" to "streaks" and black and white instead of color.
In most of the territory of Russia, terrestrial television is still transmitted in analog format. This method of signal transmission has one significant drawback: the signal-to-noise ratio drops sharply with distance from the emitter.
Noise (interference) with the distance from the television center begins to more and more prevail over the main signal. This just manifests itself in the appearance of "snow" on the screen. If the cottage or village is very far from the transmitting station, then the noise will eventually interrupt the signal completely, and it becomes impossible to watch TV channel at all.
Now the country is introducing digital TV signal transmission, and over time it is planned to completely abandon the transmission of television programs in analog format.
What are the advantages of digital TV over analog TV?
The transmission of a signal "coded in digital" compared to the direct transmission in analog format gives several advantages:
- Improving the noise immunity of the transmission and recording paths of television signals.
- Reducing the power of transmitters.
- Significant increase in the number of TV programs transmitted in the same frequency range.
- Improving the quality of image and sound in TV receivers.
- Creation of TV systems with new standards of image decomposition (high-definition television).
- Creation of interactive TV systems, when using which the viewer gets the opportunity to influence the transmitted program (for example, video on demand).
- "Start of Transfer" function.
- Archive of TV programs and recording of TV programs.
- Transmission in the TV signal of various additional information.
- Choice of language (more than usual two) and subtitles.
- Expanding the functionality of studio equipment.
- Possibility of adding to radio multiplexes
But there are also some limitations:
- Fading and scattering of the picture into “squares” with an insufficient level of the received signal, the data is either received with 100% quality or is restored, or is received poorly with the impossibility of recovery.
- Almost complete fading of the signal in a thunderstorm.
- Even a transmitter with a power of 10 kW and a height of a transmitting antenna of 350 m provides reliable reception at a distance of 50 km, and as a result, the need for a larger number of transmitting centers than with analog TV (more frequent location of transmitting antennas).
Since we are discussing from the point of view of an ordinary user, basically only image quality, then we can single out only one main feature of digital terrestrial TV in front of outdated analog:
Digital TV is very resistant to interference. To do this, the signal is encoded with some redundancy. The digital tuner will produce a perfect picture even in the presence of a large amount of interference. And he will do this until the signal-to-noise ratio drops to a minimum, when the signal comes already completely on the verge of the capabilities of the equipment.
That is, in analog broadcasting, as the signal level drops, you will see the picture worse and worse. In digital broadcasting, you won't notice a signal drop until the tuner is no longer able to recover the lost pieces of the picture, and it "splits into squares" and then completely disappears.
Types of digital television
According to the transmission channel, digital TV can be divided into four types:
- Cable (DVB-C)
- Terrestrial (DVB-T2)
- Satellite (DVB-S)
- Internet TV (IP TV)
We will not consider cable TV and IP television in the country because of their great rarity. But satellite and terrestrial digital television broadcasting in the country is relevant.
Moreover, satellite DTV has been used by consumers for quite a long time, and in especially remote areas there are no alternatives to it at all. We will consider it in our separate article.
But terrestrial DTV began to enter the life of gardeners and summer residents relatively recently. Let's talk about it in more detail today.
Terrestrial digital television in the country
The terrestrial digital television broadcasting network in the Russian Federation is still in the process of being built and available so far mostly near major cities. But it already covers a significant part of the suburban areas. Therefore, the issue of connectivity has become very relevant in recent times.
How to connect to the terrestrial DTV?
If you want to try connecting digital television in the country, first you need to determine does your site fall within the coverage area of one of the DTV transmitting antennas. The location of the site will determine how your TV receiver will catch the digital signal.The most reliable way to find out is to interview your neighbors in your summer cottage, perhaps some of them are already watching TV channels in digital form. Then you can be completely sure that "the signal reaches you."
If no one in the area has heard of digital TV yet, then you need to try to find out if your site falls within the boundaries broadcasting radius of the local radiating DTV station.
Coverage
The broadcasting radius of a DTV station usually lies within 20-50 km, depending on the terrain and building density. On average, about 30 km is reception area.
Each region has its own local organization - on-air DTV operator, which is responsible for building and maintaining the network. On their website you can usually see the locations of broadcast stations and even coverage maps. Or you can get information from them by phone or in writing.
The DTV network in the Russian Federation is being built by the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network.
Each region has a division of this organization.
You can call and find out everything by phone numbers in your region from the page.
If you are lucky and you found out that your dacha is located in the “numbers” broadcasting zone, then it's time to decide on necessary equipment to receive DTV.
Equipment
So, you already have a TV in the country, a plot in the DTV broadcasting area. We proceed to the installation of digital television in the country. What else is needed to receive a signal? At least you need an antenna.
Antenna for receiving digital television
Universal MV / UHF antenna for digital TV reception
If a digital TV tower is nearby, then it is enough and indoor antenna. I will say even more, I personally confidently caught the DTV signal in the city of Ufa on a meter-long piece of wire.
If not everything is so perfect with the signal level, then you will need to install an antenna in the country to receive digital channels. Now most antennas on the market are well suited for this, as they support reception of signals in the decimeter range (UHF / UHF).
For example, you can put the antenna "GAL", "Locus", "Zenith", "Meridian", "Ether", etc. I bought my antenna in Auchan for 1000 rubles.
If you know the exact location of the DTV tower, then everything is simple: direct the antenna on her and everything. Usually this is enough to catch the signal and watch digital TV without any problems.
If the exact direction is not known, then you need to gradually turn the antenna until you find the best position. Most digital set-top boxes have signal level and quality indicator, which is displayed on the TV screen, and by which you can find the best position of the antenna. They usually do this together: one person turns the antenna, the second monitors the signal level.
When you have found the maximum possible signal level and the antenna is installed in the right direction, you need to search for channels on the set-top box.
Setting up digital television in the country
The easiest way is to find the “Auto search for channels” item in the set-top box menu, and then the set-top box will do everything by itself: it will find all available digital channels and number them in order.
List of digital terrestrial television channels
Now the fun part: what channels does digital tv show for free?
Since my dacha is in the suburbs of Ufa, and I am writing from my own experience, it means that I am considering digital terrestrial television in Ufa. But as far as I understand list of channels throughout Russia will be the same with rare exceptions, so the information will be useful to everyone, and not just the residents of Bashkortostan.
At our dacha, TsTV shows 20 channels: 10 on each multiplex.
List of digital television channels
Here full list of channels in Ufa:
1 | "First channel" |
2 | "Russia 1" |
3 | "Match TV" |
4 | "NTV" |
5 | "Petersburg-5 channel" |
6 | "Russia K" |
7 | "Russia 24" |
8 | "Carousel" |
9 | "Public Television of Russia" |
10 | "TV Center - Moscow" |
11 | REN TV |
12 | "SAVED" |
13 | "The first entertainment STS" |
14 | "Home" |
15 | "TV-3" |
16 | Friday |
17 | "STAR" |
18 | "WORLD" |
19 | "TNT" |
20 | "Muz TV" |
I hope I helped you understand all the nuances of digital TV. If you have any questions, write, I will definitely try to help you.