Latvia digital-terrestrial makes progress

Latvian telco Lattelecom’s digital-terrestrial TV service has attracted 30,000 homes to date, the company has announced.

Lattelecom anticipates that approximately 170,000 homes out of the 220,000 that currently rely on analogue transmission will have made the switch to digital-terrestrial by the time Latvia switches off analogue services on June 1. Digital switchover will be completed in the capital Riga by April 1, when LTV1 and LNT cease to transmit in analogue. Commercial channel TV3, however, has yet to fully commit to the digital-terrestrial platform.

Separately, TV technology company Grass Valley has revealed that it is enabling Lattelecom’s contractor, Latvia State Radio and Television Center (LVRTC), to make the switch from analogue to digital transmission by installing an advanced DVB-T network that features encoding, multiplexing, and nationwide distribution technology and systems from Grass Valley.

In the country’s central headend in Riga, ViBE EM2000 SD MPEG-4 encoders and NetProcessor 9030 systems are being installed to prepare the signals for transmission to the LVRTC’s regional centres via an SDH network. The headend will also provide the required single frequency network (SFN) adaptation. Seven regional centres will host ViBE EM2000 encoders for encoding of regional programmes and NetProcessor 9040 systems to provide programme seamless splicing with regional programmes as needed.