Well now yes. This morning RTVE turned off the SD channels of DTT and launched La1 UHD nationally on regular broadcast. If you have an old television that does not support HD channels, this morning you will have found that you cannot see the RTVE channels. And if you have a modern television you will see that all the national television channels are already marked as HD. You may even get a surprise, as happened to me, and the La1 UHD channel has appeared on the grid without having to retune the television, which makes me think that they have taken advantage of some of the frequencies that were already in use. .
As we have already been saying in recent days, RTVE planned to turn off its SD channels in the early hours of February 6 (night of the 5th to the 6th). After detecting some technical problems, the date was postponed one day. But in the early hours of February 7 it could not be done either, so Cellnextelecommunications and broadcasting infrastructure operator contracted by RTVE to broadcast its channels, announced that it was being postponed again, this time without a specific date.
The failure of RTVE to turn off the SD channels due to, quote verbatim, “an unfavorable scenario”, created a lot of confusion regarding the blackout of SD DTT. Had it been a specific failure? Could the blackout be carried out before February 14, the deadline that the government had set for all channels to become HD? What exactly had happened? Well, the last question did not receive an answer. But finally the DTT SD blackout took place tonighta few days before the deadline.
RTVE's SD channels have passed away. Welcome La1 UHD!
By surprise?, Tonight RTVE has blacked out its SD DTT channels. La 1, La 2, Teledeporte, Clan TVE and Canal 24 Horas can no longer be seen on SD signal. Furthermore, and in parallel, with the disappearance of SD emissions, as those responsible for Cellnex promised, La1 UHD is already broadcasting regularly and for the entire Spanish territory. If you don't see the latter on your television, you may need to retune the channels, although as I said at the beginning, I personally have not had to do so. Here we leave you how to retune the channels on an LG television with webOS.
If you have a modern television, more or less from 2013 onwards according to the Ministry for Digital Transformation, this blackout of RTVE's SD channels will not have affected you too much. On the contrary, it is good news, since, in theory, the channels that remain have better quality. You will have the problem if you have a TV at home that is more than 10 years old, since it is very possible that it is not compatible with HD channels.. There are several solutions, but perhaps the simplest is to purchase an external HD DTT receiver.
As we said, in parallel with turning off SD has appeared on the La1 UHD grid. I've been checking and, to my surprise (although they had already announced it, but I was reluctant), this new channel not only broadcasts in UHD, but also in HDR. In addition, as Dolby Spain itself reported a few days ago, La1 UHD has Dolby Atmos sound 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That is, all the content will be in Dolby Atmos, perfectly mixing native and mixed productions.
And although at first it was said that the antenna would have to be adapted in many places to be able to receive the UHD channel, national television itself commented a few days ago that It is not necessary to carry out any action either on the reception antennas or on the DTT signal distribution equipment., being able to receive La1 UHD if we already receive HD channels. And, after my tests, I must agree with them.