France adopts MPEG-4 for terrestrial HDTV

In a statement issued on the 24th May 2005 the Ministry of Economy announced that the MPEG-4 (H.264) compression standard must be used for HDTV services on any terrestrial channel both pay and public. MPEG-4 is already obligatory for Pay TV operators whilst public service operators can continue to use MPEG-2 for standard definition digital terrestrial services.
Source AFP
Item added: 2nd June 2005