Analogue and digital signals will run side by side for the next year, when analogue will be taken offline. By then households watching television using regular aerial antennas will need to purchase digital tuners.
Officials said that the switch will not affect viewers who receive their signal by cable satellite or IP connections. Slovenian cable and IP TV providers have been providing digital services for some time together with the required equipment.
However, up to a third of households in Slovenia still watch television using aerial antennas. These households will have to get the required tuners by 1 December 2010 or switch to either cable or IP TV.
In order to help consumers buy the appropriate gear, the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology will carry out a series of public awareness campaigns and prepare a price comparison of gear to avoid price fixing.
The ministry is also preparing measures to subsidise the equipment for households with below average income.
During the transitional period, digital broadcasts will be available on the first digital multiplex in Slovenia managed by public broadcaster RTV Slovenija, the head of the Directorate for Information Society Nikolaj Simic told the press in Ljubljana on Tuesday.
Apart from the public broadcaster's channels, the multiplex will also carry the most popular commercial stations, POP TV, Kanal A and TV 3, as well as several smaller Slovenian stations.
The Slovenian telco regulator selected the mpeg-4 standard for digital terrestrial TV broadcasts. This allows the broadcasting of several TV programmes in a single channel.
In announcing its decision at the beginning of 2007, the Agency for Post and Electronic Communications (APEK) said that mpeg-4 is a more efficient way of using the available radio frequency spectrum than the older mpeg-2 standard that has been adopted in many European countries.