A Sneak Peek at the New DVB-T Website

As mentioned earlier, I’m working on an update of my DVB-T site. Among other things, I plan to introduce a more sophisticated coverage checker that uses official transmitter statistics to calculate which DVB-T broadcasts are available in your area.

I took this as an opportunity to increase my knowledge of MVC-based PHP frameworks and CSS3. Imagine creating a gradient background with a line of CSS code… no more wasting development time in the GIMP or Photoshop! I also played with custom fonts, which is something I haven’t done before.

The bad thing is, as usual, that Internet Explorer doesn’t play well with the other browsers. I’ve had to add some fallback CSS code for IE8/IE9 users to ensure that they can still enjoy a slightly simpler site look. It looks like the upcoming Internet Explorer 10 will have better support for things like text shadow and CSS gradients, though.

Explaining DVB-T to the average Joe

My original DVB-T website only covers the more technical aspects of DVB-T, so John Doe probably won’t find the site useful. That’s why I decided to add sections that explain the advantages of the platform, the variety of ways one can watch DVB-T television and which equipment is needed to receive broadcasts.

I also decided to eliminate the term DVB-T altogether in favor of ‘over-the-air television’ and ‘terrestrial television’ because most people don’t have a clue what it means. Neither Norkring nor Telenet has tried to push an alternate consumer-friendly term for the platform so far. In the United Kingdom and Australia the Freeview brand is used, which stresses that it’s free rather than putting the emphasis on being a television platform. All major British broadcasters have been using the term for quite a while to advertise their digital-only channels, so British people have grown accustomed to this name.

The French went with the term TNT. This acronym stands for Télévision Numérique Terrestre (Digital Terresterial Television), which is only a slight improvement on the jargonesque Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial. I’m guessing that Flanders will eventually adopt the term Digitenne that is already in use in The Netherlands — if DVB-T distributor KPN is willing to share the trademark.

Whatever Norkring and Telenet choose to do, any of these terms will stick better with consumers than DVB-T. So until a marketable name is adopted, I’ll keep using ‘over-the-air television’.

Below are two screenshots of site features that explain the requirements of DVB-T to newcomers.