The Reception of DTT

The DTT signal from an aerial must be passed through an appropriate electronic receiver device which converts the digital signal into the video, audio and text content for display on the TV. There are essentially two types of DTT receiver that are used in typical households in existing DTT markets. The simplest of these is a set top box which is relatively cheap and can be used in conjunction with most existing TV sets. In established DTT markets, TV sets containing integrated receivers are available.


The search for suitable receiver equipment for the DTT Trial focussed on set top boxes and identified a number of issues which are described in a report issued by the Department in May 2007 – Report on Set Top Boxes in the context of The Digital Terrestrial Television Trial in Ireland. In particular, it became apparent that most set top boxes and other receiver equipment on the market at the time the trial was launched did not work properly in Ireland.


Click here to download the Set Top Box report. 

The DTT Trial Receiver

The set top box used for the trial (pictured below) is a prototype developed by Humax initially for the BBC High Definition trial in the UK. This box is not commercially available. It has been specially adapted for use on the Irish DTT trial network. The box is extremely versatile, in terms of the services it offers and at the time the trial was launched was one of very few boxes in the world capable of providing these facilities. This box is specified to decode both *MPEG 2 and *MPEG 4 (video data compression softwares) signals, is capable of receiving and decoding High Definition signals and has a conditional access slot which can be used with a variety of encryption methods.

A picture of the trial set top box is below:

Future Irish Reception of DTT 

An information note is available here.