ITU hails new TV standards

Hamadoun Touré

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has said that it is working on a set of new standards to improve TV viewing, including standards underpinning ultra-HD, building on the adoption of the HEVC compression format as Recommendation ITU-T H.265-ISO/IEC International Standard 23008-2 in October.

“ITU is currently working on developing new standards that will dramatically enhance the television viewer’s experience, in terms of both visual and audio quality,” said ITU secretary-general Hamadoun Touré, marking UN World Television Today. “ITU is developing industry-leading standards for the next generation of television that will be available in very high definition as well as high performance dynamic video streaming.”

“ITU is striving for good and efficient future use of the radio-frequency spectrum to carry television broadcasting,” said Christoph Dosch, Chairman of ITU-R Study Group 6, which deals with broadcasting issues. “In order to continue to develop new and high-performance television standards, it is critical that we retain the currently used television spectrum which provides great value to the information society.”

The ITU is due to consider the future of the 700MHz spectrum range, currently the basis for digital-terrestrial TV transmission in Europe, at the forthcoming World Radiocommunication Conference next year, where it is widely expected that a roadmap will be established for re-allocation of this spectrum for mobile broadband applications.