2024-09-07 05:24:34
Vodafone will soon stop broadcasting public broadcasting programs in SD quality. ARD is also planning a major change at that time.
The cable network operator Vodafone plans to stop broadcasting public broadcasters in the poor SD image quality next year. The company announced this at the Berlin radio exhibition (Ifa). Instead, the channels Das Erste and the Third Programmes will switch to the better HD resolution on January 7, 2025.
The change will take place on the same day that the ARD stops broadcasting SD channels via satellite. The ARD will then also only broadcast its programs in high-resolution HD signals (1,280 x 720 pixels), as the broadcaster announced on its website.
Vodafone says that cable customers who already have HD-capable receivers don’t need to do anything else. That’s the majority of customers, it says. In the operator’s network, significantly less than two percent of cable customers recently used a TV receiver that only supported SD quality.
Households without an HD-capable television, however, could connect an HD receiver with a Scart connection to the television. These HD-capable devices can be purchased from specialist retailers.
Cheap HD receivers cost around 30 euros. Vodafone said it also wanted to help affected customers with replacement devices. When asked whether these receivers would be charged extra or provided free of charge, a company spokesperson said that details had not yet been finalized.
You can easily tell whether you can receive the channels in high-resolution HD by the addition of “HD” to the program name in the channel list on your television. In addition, “HD” will appear in the channel logo on the television screen.
You can also use the Info button on your remote control to open a window that provides information about your reception quality. The currently selected channel should be listed here with the additional HD symbol.
If you cannot see the programs in HD, you should start an automatic channel search. This can be started on all TV sets in the TV menu or on your receiving device such as the receiver.
The tariffs at which cable customers watch TV will not become more expensive due to the public broadcasters’ discontinuation of SD. Nothing will change for private channels; they will continue to be available in SD. In addition to SD and HD, there is now the even better “Ultra HD” resolution, which is currently only offered by a few channels on cable TV.
ZDF plans to follow suit a little later: From November 18, 2025, the programs ZDF, ZDFinfo, ZDFneo, 3sat and Kika will be broadcast exclusively in HD quality and SD broadcasting will be discontinued, as the public broadcaster in Mainz announced. The whole thing is intended to reduce costs.
Vodafone said that by switching off SD by the public broadcasters, it would free up capacity in the cable network and give them more scope for future network design. “Internet customers will, for example, be able to benefit from more performance and higher data rates in the future.”