Europe's First HD Channel Gets Trial Run

[Gregg Lengling]

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Europe's first high-definition television channel went on the air over the weekend with a trial broadcast of music and sports programming. Only next year is the technology set to go mainstream.




Europe's shift to the sharper images and clearer sound of high-definition TV is moving much slower than in the United States, where several million HDTV sets are already in use.


While the U.S. government has mandated a switch from analog to digital TV signals, which make high-definition broadcasts possible, Europe has yet to enact such rules.


The new HDTV channel, Euro 1080, broadcast live coverage Saturday from the World Athletics Final in Monaco and the "Night of The Proms" concert in London to an audience of journalists and TV executives in Amsterdam.


The official launch of the channel, owned by the Belgian company Alfacam, is slated for January. The name Euro 1080 refers to the number of lines in the image, double the quality of "low-definition" regular TV.


Viewers will receive four to five hours of daily programing, ranging from the Euro 2004 soccer championships to Vienna's annual New Year's concert.


The broadcasts will be free, but the equipment certainly won't.


While the quality is undoubtedly superior, viewers must purchase a new television set, ranging from $1,800 to $4,000, and a set-top box receiver costing up to $550.


Although the prices have been dropping about 15 percent each quarter, it's unclear whether the cost is low enough to attract Europe's 380 million television viewers. So far, HDTV sets haven't sold well, mainly "because there's no content," said Euro 1080's technical manager, Jacques Schepers.


Industry analyst Vamsi Sistla of Allied Business Intelligence described the dilemma as "a classic chicken-and-egg problem."


"If you don't have the content, people aren't going to fork out a few grand for the set," he said. So, while broadcasters wait for viewers to buy sets, viewers wait for content, which is more costly when shot in high definition.


In the United States, about 2.5 million digital TV sets — most were HDTV-equipped — were sold last year, and the average retail price dropped to $1,688 from $3,147 in 1998, when only a few thousand were purchased, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. No figures were available for European sales.


Part of the reason for the greater U.S. popularity is cheaper sets, and most major American broadcasters, such as HBO and ESPN, offer considerable high-definition programming, a trend echoed in Japan, Korea and Australia.


The fragmented European broadcast market and linguistic diversity have been largely to blame for the slow growth.


Euro 1080 will initially serve 30 countries with programs of minimal spoken content that easily cross borders, such as music and sports. A second channel will broadcast to movie theaters or sports bars where audiences can watch the Olympics or a Rolling Stones concert.


Euro 1080 produces 10 to 12 high-definition programs per month, and plans to supplement those offering with programs from the United States and Japan.


The channel still has some hurdles to clear. Sistla, the analyst, estimates that cable TV companies need to spend about $1,000 per subscriber to upgrade their equipment for HDTV — costs the European cable industry cannot afford.

[The Law]

Euro 2004 in HD w00t!

....since we can't even watch the games in SD since we don't get em (well, those of us w/out Sat. dishes)

Maybe ESPN will bring the games over for us footie fans.  And mAAAYYYbeee World Cup 2006 will be HD.

And what about the Premiership games in HD - come on Fox Sports World - there must be a way!

aaahhh, one can but dream.....

[kjnorman]

Being British I must say that the thought of Euro 2004 in HD would be appealing.  But football (err, soccer) is a very rare sport over here, even though it is played by 99.9% of the world's countries....

[The Law]

...but...growing immensly.  HD could very well bolster support since many people watch HD simply because it's in HD.

MLS has some games in HD (ESPN, I believe).  If some Euro 2004 matches are HD, that would certainly capture the attention of the fledgling HD markets in Europe.  The Premiership would be a fantastic place to push out cameras.  I would imagine, it's much cheaper to produce more soccer games than, say, an NFL game since you don't need all those camera angles (player cam, field goal cam, overhead wire cam, ump cam, hot chick reporter cam, picture of stickers on side of horse trailer cam).  Once that's done, I wonder how difficult it would be to send the signal over Sky's network.

As far as being rare....there are 100's of teams in the Milwaukee area with thousands of players.  It is one of the highest played sports in the U.S (not to mention oldest sports in the U.S.) - except, of course, professionally.  The folding of the women's league doesn't help - (though, admittedly, I don't much watch it - unless the Nat'l team is on hand to dish out a good thrashing)

What we need is more tours!  Man U sold out every venue they played at this summer - including Seattle Seahawks' stadium which the Seahawks have yet to sell out in three years.  One of the games had 80,000 seats filled!

It's all in the sponsorship and marketing models which do not bode well in the U.S' TV Commercial dependencies.

Film it in HD....and they will come

[kjnorman]

Originally posted by The Law
As far as being rare....there are 100's of teams in the Milwaukee area with thousands of players.  It is one of the highest played sports in the U.S (not to mention oldest sports in the U.S.) - except, of course, professionally.

I was meaning professionally.  I know it is quite active at the amateur level but that has not materialised much at the pro level unfortunately.

Originally posted by The Law
It's all in the sponsorship and marketing models which do not bode well in the U.S' TV Commercial dependencies.

Yep, I do not think most footie teams would take well to the idea of time outs to allow TV adverts to be shown :rolleyes:.   American football seams to be a sport that was made for (commercial) TV in mind, where as soccer most certainly was not; the TV companies came second and had to find a way to fit around the game.  Not the game around them....

Anyway I'm not an avid footie fan, I just used to watch England - Scotland matches (always good for old rivalries) and the odd world cup or Euro cup game.

Kerry

[AndrewP]

MLS is on HDNet. Looks excellent!

Andrew

[The Law]

and check this out: MLS Gets an Injection of Cash

great for soccer in the U.S.!