From analog to Digital Television — the common way how to digitize European broadcasting

This paper deals with the origin, history, present and future of the DTV (Digital Television) in the Europe. It introduces DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) Project that creates global standards for digital television since 1991. Fundamental European standards for DVB provides transmission of DTV (digital television) via three transmission media - DVB-S (Satellite), DVB-C (Cable) and DVB-T (Terrestrial) channels. These standards are in the paper described with the according depth. With the development of HDTV (High Definition TV), IPTV (Internet Protocol TV), Mobile TV using DVB-H (Handheld) and interactive data broadcasting using DVB-MHP (Multimedia Home Platform) the new approaches to DTV broadcasting are outlined. This paper contains compiled information from the DVB Project webpage, DVB fact sheets, standards ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and EBU (European Broadcasting Union) and internet resources to present the DVB as a real “Milestone in Digital Communications”. All used resources are properly quoted in references list.