Eutelsat intends to maintain development of digital terrestrial television (DTT) in France. The operator has announced that, following the first series of tests of reception of HDTV through France’s DTT network, it is renewing its support for the second phase, begun this week and running to January 2007.

Eutelsat is partnering with TDF to transmit HDTV content encoded in MPEG4 in two carriers to DTT transmitters in the three largest French cities. The objective of the tests, as coordinated by the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA), France’s broadcasting authority, is to validate the full HD broadcasting chain from encoding, transport and broadcasting through to reception in DTT homes.