What is MPEG4 and why is it important for Irish DTT?
MPEG4 is the encoding used for the picture transmission by RTE. It is a more advanced encoding than used previously in the UK and other countries (MPEG2) and it is more efficient with transmission bandwidth. Both Ireland the UK use DVB-T as the standard for transmission but Ireland use MPEG4 for encoding and the UK use MPEG2. To be able to receive a broadcast that is MPEG4 encoded your receiving equipment (TV tuner, combo box, terrestrial receiver) needs to be compliant with DVB-T and MPEG4. Almost all TV’s sold in Ireland before 2008 are not MPEG4 compliant as they were built to the UK DVB-T/MPEG2 freeview specification. MPEG4 is backward compatible to MPEG2 so a TV that is MPEG4 can also receive MPEG2 broadcasts. When purchasing equipment for use with Irish DTT you need to make sure it is both DVB-T and MPEG4 compliant.
