At the end of March, the transition to the DVB-T2 / HEVC standard will begin in the Dolnośląskie and Lubuskie voivodships. The trial across the country will run until the end of June. Cable and satellite customers will not be affected by the change, but terrestrial customers who have old TV sets or tuners may lose access to TV. The National Media Institute estimates that it is nearly 2.3 million households. The regulations adopted by the Sejm provide not only a subsidy of PLN 100 for the purchase of a tuner. They allow the president of the Office of Electronic Communications to impose a fine for offering equipment incompatible with the new standardso working only in the DVB-T standard or without the HEVC codec.
Fraudsters can take advantage of the confusion
In popular electronics stores, it is difficult to find devices that work only in DVB-T. The problem mainly concerns online sales. One of the advertisements of dishonest broadcasters was posted on Twitter by Janusz Cieszyński, government plenipotentiary for cybersecurity.
‼ ️Pay it on – dishonest sellers are squeezing equipment that will soon be thrown away! The proposed act introduces severe penalties for such actions⬇️ pic.twitter.com/7cUmSb2lGx
– Janusz Cieszyński (@jciesz) February 8, 2022
– The problem of non-compliance with the new requirements concerns almost exclusively set-top boxes. From December 2019, each TV set introduced for sale must be able to receive the DTT signal in the new standard and already in 2020, almost every TV available on the market was compatible with it. Although it is difficult to clearly determine the current percentage of set-top boxes on sale that would not allow the reception of new digital terrestrial television, in the middle of last year, DVB-T2 / HEVC set-top boxes fully compliant with the regulation were not in circulation in Poland. Today, there are still common offers of devices that, for example, support DVB-T2, but do not have the HEVC codec, says Michał Kanownik, president of the Digital Poland Association, which associates TV producers such as Sony, Samsung and LG.
The president of the Digital Poland Association claims that some companies and dishonest sellers may take advantage of the confusion surrounding the change of digital terrestrial television standards to get rid of equipment that in a few months will only be able to serve as a stand for photos. – The upcoming change in the standard and the current proposal of a mechanism for co-financing the purchase of receivers, which only applies to set-top boxes, may result in an attempt to quickly sell out the set-top boxes in storage, which will soon become useless by dishonest sellers and the sudden entry into the market of entities trading with incompatible set-top boxes, who want to earn on the demand caused by co-financing their purchase – warns Kanownik.
See also: DVB-T2 / HEVC has raised TV prices? “The supply of products is limited”
Minimum hardware requirements
Old equipment may be tried not only by stores and manufacturers, but also by their existing users, who have replaced the TV or tuner with a newer one, and the older ones want to sell it on the Internet. – The problem mainly concerns auction portals where offers for the sale of set-top boxes inconsistent with the requirements for receiving a new DTT appear. T.having a very convenient sales channel for dishonest sellers. It is difficult to effectively eliminate their offers in it. Particular attention should also be paid to the secondary market, where customers may be attracted, for example, by the low price of a used device, but where they are particularly exposed to manipulation and are surrounded by much less protection. We should also remember that when buying a receiver on the secondary market, we cannot count on co-financing – reveals Kanownik.
According to Kanownik, in order not to fall victim to fraud, you need to check the technical parameters of the device. – The absolute minimum is the ability to receive NTC in the DVB-T2 standard, support for the HEVC video codec – otherwise H.265 / MPEG-H – and sound in the MPEG-2 and DOLBY E-AC-3 standards – lists the head of the Digital Poland Association. More demanding recipients can reach for better equipment, but it will rather exceed PLN 100, which can be obtained from co-financing.
– If we additionally expect the equipment to be able to connect to the Internet – then look in the specification for the HbbTV password, version 2.0.1. or higher – and the reception of programs in 4k resolution – then it is necessary to enable the reception of the image and the HEVC HDR standard in the HLG10 and PQ10 versions and the sound in DPLBY AC-4. These are a lot of technical components and for many people it can turn out to be very complicated. Therefore, it is worth remembering that only when buying a new TV set you can be sure that it will allow you to receive a new signal. It is also good practice to buy equipment in a place where we can talk to a specialist or ask for help from a family member or friend with more knowledge about the new technology – explains Kanownik.
See also: The government does not want to subsidize DVB-T2 / HEVC TV sets. “It’s a bug”
Who can suffer the consequences?
Any penalties for dishonest sellers will constitute the income of the Broadband Fund. – The bill, which has just been submitted to the Senate, provides for a fine of up to 3%. revenue of the punished entity, achieved in the previous calendar year. Whether the potential consequences are sufficient will become apparent when we see how tight the subsidy system is, i.e. whether dishonest entities will be able to start and sell set-top boxes that do not comply with the new standard, and whether they will actually be punished for it – says Kanownik.
“Who, being an entrepreneur selling TV set-top boxes (…) sells to the end user a TV set-top box that does not meet the requirements (…), is subject to a financial penalty” – can be read in the act adopted by the Sejm. The project therefore mentions set-top boxes, and there are no TV sets that do not meet the requirements. The adopted act shows that only entrepreneurs will be punished, and not private persons offering obsolete equipment, for example on an auction portal. Therefore, it is not known whether in the event of a complaint about such unfair practices, the penalty will not be borne by the owner of the auction platform. If that were the case, he would have to verify the devices offered for sale and their descriptions.
We asked the Office of Electronic Communications with questions related to these doubts and we are waiting for an answer.
Start of DVB-T2 / HEVC in spring 2022
The standard of digital terrestrial television broadcasting to DVB-T2 / HEVC will be changed throughout Poland in the second quarter of next year. Image encoding according to the HEVC standard (also known as H.265 or MPEG-H part 2) will be introduced.
The new standard will be introduced in stages in individual provinces:
– from March 28, 2022 – Dolnośląskie and Lubuskie voivodships.
– from April 25, 2022 – Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Pomorskie, Wielkopolskie and Zachodniopomorskie voivodships.
– from 23 May 2022 – Lubelskie, Łódzkie, Małopolskie, Opolskie, Podkarpackie, Śląskie, Świętokrzyskie voivodships.
– from June 27, 2022 – Lubelskie, Mazowieckie, Podlaskie, Warmińsko-Mazurskie voivodships.
The change affects 13 million households that use terrestrial television. Such people should check whether their TV set or tuner allows DVB-T2 / HEVC reception.
If this is not the case, they will have to replace the TV or buy a new tuner. Its cost usually does not exceed PLN 100. For a few hundred zlotys, more advanced devices are available, additionally equipped with the Android TV operating system.
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