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| Industry | Digital TV, technology, television, standards |
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| Founded | 1995 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom, Vauxhall, London, England |
Area served | UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ghana and Europe |
Key people |
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| Website | dtg |
TheDTG (Digital TV Group) is the association forBritishdigital television broadcasters and annually publish and maintain the technical specifications fordigital terrestrial television (DTT) in the United Kingdom, which is known as theD-Book[1] and is used byFreeview,Freeview HD,FreeSat andYouView. The association consists of over 120 UK and international members[2] who can participate in DTG activities to varying degrees, depending on their category of membership.
The DTG is the UK's centre for digital media technology. Since 1995, it has been vital to the distribution of TV in the UK – digital TV, interactive TV, the digital TV switchover, on-demand TV, HDTV and UHD TV. The DTG supports the development of pay-TV and other platforms.
The DTG was formed in 1995 by theBBC,BSkyB,BT Group,Channel 4,ITV,NTL Incorporated,Pace andSony to set technical standards for the implementation of digital terrestrial television in the UK.
From these initial eight members, the DTG has grown to include over 120 UK and international members and played an important role in the success of the UK television industry.[3]
The DTG, working with its members, has identified six priority television technologies. These are:
The DTG is a membership association with four categories of membership:[10]
The DTG owns and operates DTG Testing, anISO 17025 accredited test laboratory in Central London.[11] DTG Testing ensures that digital television products in the United Kingdom conform to the D-Book specification[12] – a requirement of obtaining theFreeview trade mark licence.[13]
DTG Testing also provide access to:
The first edition of the DTG D-Book was written in 1996 when DVB-T was new and untried. From the outset, the D-Book was an implementation guideline and referenced fundamental standards where possible. But many of the component parts of the document had not then achieved stable international standards and the UK implementation was, therefore, reproduced in full.In subsequent editions, it has become possible to reference ETSI or other standards and the previous D-Book section simplified. However, the D-Book as an implementation guideline has become more important as non-UK based manufacturers have sought to introduce products to the UK market.
DTG Testing Ltd was established as an independent testing facility where manufacturers can bring prototype products for verification of their interoperability. Many manufacturers, both small and large, have discovered the advantage of revealing problems at this stage, rather than when they have large numbers of products in the shops or in peoples homes.As the complexity of the platform increases, the importance of interoperability and test and conformance is bigger than ever. The success of Freeview and Freeview Play continues and is largely down to the reliable products and services on the UK DTT platform.
The D-Book has successfully introduced High Definition and DVB-T2, in addition to supporting the transition of the DTT Platform out of the 700 MHz band which is planned for completion in 2020. D-Book 9 introduced HbbTV references for Freeview Play and the MHEG to HbbTV transition which included the introduction of support for HEVC and High Dynamic Range (HDR) for IP delivered services.D-Book 10 continued to support the developments of products and services with the introduction of Single Frequency Network (SFN) support for the migration of COM 7&8 T2 multiplexes into the 700 MHz band. In addition, through an analysis of broadcaster requirements, we removed HD/SD LCN switching and Broadcast Record lists.
D-Book 11 adopts a number of corrigenda to D-Book 10, defining the profile of UHD to be supported in compatible receivers for broadcast and bringing the HbbTV requirements up to date with recent work by the HbbTV Association and DVB. In recognition that Standard Definition receivers are no longer provided with a Trade Mark License in the UK, the SD receiver and recorder profiles have been removed and the chapter describing SCART and HDMI connectivity have been removed. Additionally, in the RF chapters (9 and 10), 700 MHz coexistence testing has been adopted in place of the 800 MHz coexistence testing to reflect future spectrum allocations. Overall the number of RF tests has been rationalised, by removing tests no longer required due to developments in receiver design.[citation needed]
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