Lithuanian television faces a new era in its history – on 31 December 2011 the first high definition (HD) Lithuanian TV program was countrywide broadcasted to the public.

On the last evening of 2011 LNK television used advanced technologies and offered live broadcast of the final show of the dance project Kvieciu sokti and AB Lithuanian Radio and Television Centre (the Telecentras) made sure that the program was transmitted in HD over DVB-T network. The first Lithuanian HD TV program was not scrambled and it was possible to watch it transmitted throughout the entire country free of charge.

"It was a New Year’s gift to our loyal television audience. While enjoying the broadcasted view, which was superior to the old one, they had a chance to assess future digital terrestrial television. And we tested and assessed our possibilities. This experience is important because we are considering when we will be able to broadcast the entire LNK program in HD" said LNK Technical Director Ricardas Kazlauskas.

It is not a novelty to Telecentras to transmit TV programs in HD, however, Lithuanian broadcasters have never created such programs until to now and this is why only the foreign TV programs were transmitted in HD. The company’s experts quickly came to a technical decision of how to transmit the first Lithuanian HD TV program together with standard definition (SD) TV programs on the digital terrestrial television’s first network.

"We are happy to have contributed to the broadcasting of the first Lithuanian HD TV program. We congratulate LNK team which took a historical step forward and we hope that after this event Lithuanian people will have more and more opportunities to enjoy HD technologies" said the Maintenance Director of the Telecentras Vilius Zlotkus.

The digital terrestrial television transmitter in Vilnius Television Tower was setup in 2003. In 2006 Telecentras became the world’s first company, which started commercial use of the standard MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 for encoding TV programs on terrestrial TV networks to transmit.

Now the transmitter of Telecentras constantly transmits only scrambled foreign HD TV programs. Several years ago Telecentras transmitted several experimental not scrambled foreign HD TV programs which were broadcasted by Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT). These HD programs were transmitted only in Vilnius and its surroundings.

About AB Lithuanian Radio and Television Centre:

Telecentras has the most extensive experience in the field of terrestrial program broadcasting among Lithuanian companies. The government controls 100% of the Telecentras‘s stock however the company receives no funding from the budget and therefore operates as a commercial unit. Apart from broadcasting radio and TV programs, Telecentras provides other services such as telephony, data transmission, network connection, leased lines, wireless internet Erdves, mobile 4G internet MEZON, etc. More information is available at www.telecentras.lt.

About LNK:

LNK TV is the largest Lithuanian capital television channel with current market share of 17.7%. Its prime time broadcasts rise up to 22.2% of the whole day audience. LNK TV is a mainstream channel which broadcasts local as well as acquired TV shows, series and films. LNK channel was launched in 1995 and its local production makes up to 46% of the total broadcast, whereas, the rest is filled with foreign acquisition items. LNK TV is broadcasted to 97% of Lithuania’s territory. This channel belongs to the LNK Group along with three other television channels, i.e. TV1 channel which targets mainly female audience, Info TV which targets mainly information oriented audience and a music channel LIUKS! More information is available at www.lnk.lt .

Gintare Rimkuviene
Head of Communications
of Lithuanian Radio and Television Centre
Sausio 13-osios str. 10, 04347 Vilnius, LITHUANIA
Phone: +370 5 2525383, +370 640 20688
E-mail: g.rimkuviene@lrtc.lt