And yet it moves. In the now sensational wait for the publication of the new RAI service contract in the Official Gazette, after the political announcement of the signature with great fanfare in January, Rai is starting to move to achieve the objective of turning on the first MUX in DVB-T2 by the beginning September. This is what the service contract prescribes and this is what Rai plans to do, even slightly anticipating the legal deadlines: the switching on of the Rai MUX B in DVB-T2 is currently confirmed for next 28 August. For the moment, the composition of this MUX is not yet known, except for the fact that there will certainly be the Rai 1 HD, Rai 2 HD and Rai 3 HD channels in simulcast to try to mitigate reception problems in some areas due to management in DVB-T of a frequency plan clearly designed to be exercised in DVB-T2. Understanding which channels will only be broadcast on T2 becomes decisive for understanding what push there could be on the sale of TVs and decoders: let us remember that according to the available statistics, the range of TVs in the homes of Italians that are not yet suitable is in the order of tens of millions of pieces, while the TV market has slowed down further and is approaching 3 million units per year rather than 4.
The first temporary and experimental activations will take place in the next few days: in fact, on the night between Monday 27th and Tuesday 28th May, MUX B will be broadcast in DVB-T2 in some RaiWay systems. This is only a test to verify that the behavior of some equipment is as expected but, as it does not concern all the systems, it will not yet be used to understand whether the propagation and interference of the signals will be largely constructive, as expected.
From the first rumours, it seems that Rai’s intentions are to configure its MUX to obtain a useful bandwidth of around 37 mbits/second, a sensational leap compared to today’s low 20 in DVB-T. With this surplus of bandwidth, it could also be that Rai decides to do a lot of “simulcast” and therefore repeat various channels already present on other MUX, without reserving exclusive channels for T2, which instead would be decidedly desirable and consistent with the political rationale of the provision of turning on a Rai MUX in T2: to be a stimulus for the adoption of compatible reception equipment. In this regard, a good way to check if your TV is compatible with the upcoming DVB-T2 is to try tuning in to channel 558: this is Rai Sport HD encoded in HEVC. If you can see, everything is ok, since all HEVC TVs are also compatible with DVB-T2.
