Prague TV centre on the way from PAL/SECAM to digital broadcasting

The Kavci Hory Television Complex in Prague is the largest television centre in the territory of the former Czechoslovakia. Following a short historical overview aimed at the building process and at important milestones connected with the year 1968, the move to colour television and the disintegration of Czechoslovakia, this paper deals with the digital present as well as the digital future for the whole Czech Republic. Since the start of “colourification”, the Kavci Hory Centre had been equipped with studio plant in the PAL system, in line with the contemporary views of Czechoslovak experts. This decision was shown to be prudent after the “velvet revolution”, when it was possible to switch to transmission in the PAL system without major problems. At the present time, Czech Television is finalizing the digitization of the individual television studios according to Rec. 601 ITU-R, with SDI 270 Mbit/s signal distribution, and is preparing the digital distribution of signals to the terrestrial transmitters via satellite. In the next phase it would also like to start terrestrial digital television broadcasting with the implementation of an SFN (single frequency network)