How did New Zealand become the first country to launch nationwide DVB-I?
Freeview New Zealand plans to launch a nationwide DVB-I platform before the end of 2026. The service will let viewers watch free-to-air television over broadband without an aerial while keeping the same channel numbers and programme guide they already use.
Why the market conditions lined up
Freeview already manages the national channel line-up and logical channel numbers across both DVB-T and DVB-S platforms. It also handles EPG data for both. The organisation had also invested in a nationwide live streaming platform and HbbTV services. DVB-I therefore felt like a natural evolution rather than a completely new platform. New Zealand has a relatively small broadcasting market. Strong relationships exist between broadcasters and manufacturers. High broadband connectivity covers most of the country. Connectivity is high. These factors let the team focus on building the service list registry and integrating it with the existing HbbTV platform.
The hardest problem was simultaneous development
The biggest challenge was that everyone was developing at the same time. Freeview was building a nationwide service list registry and extending its HbbTV platform to support
The sources this article was written from
- "DVB announcement
https://dvb.org/news/new-zealands-journey-to-the-nationwide-launch-of-dvb-i-services/"