Public broadcaster RTVE will take advantage of Spain’s planned switch-off from standard definition broadcast transmission by launching a national ultra-high definition (UHD/4K) feed in February.
The national 4K feed will be offered free of charge and available to anyone with a conventional TV antenna, though it can also be received from some cable and satellite providers without charge, RTVE officials said this week.
“UHD is not only for the IP world and pay-TV,” RTVE executives Ángel García Castillejo and Javier Sánchez Pérez said in a news interview.
RTVE partnered with broadcaster Cellnex on test transmissions of its 4K feed, which included a feed of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar that was receivable by some Spanish TV viewers.
While the feed will be offered in 4K, not all television content will be readily available in native 4K at launch, but the broadcaster intends to upscale any existing standard definition and high definition TV shows and movies that are delivered over the feed.
The broadcaster plans to introduce High Dynamic Range, or HDR, content into its 4K video feed of RTVE shortly after launch.
