In the golden age of streaming, where Netflix and Disney+ dominate the conversation, a quieter, more technical revolution was taking place behind the scenes of British terrestrial television. For the dedicated archivist, the cord-cutter, and the expat longing for Coronation Street , three letters became a lifeline: .
: Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids and Thunderbirds are Go .
Reviewing the archives from this era reveals the specific cultural and creative hits that defined the network's output. The years 2016 through 2021 were a golden era for both high-end drama and massive reality television properties.
Why not just use Freeview Play or YouView? Those boxes often locked recordings with , making them unplayable on PCs. A true DVB-er bypassed this by recording the raw transport stream.
In 2016, a massive portion of the UK viewing audience still relied heavily on Standard Definition (SD) regional feeds via terrestrial and satellite television. Over the course of the 2016–2021 timeline, ITV aggressively overhauled its infrastructure:
By the end of 2021, ITV had achieved what seemed impossible five years earlier: in all but the most extreme fringe coverage areas. The old maxim — “lower resolution equals higher resilience” — had been broken by smarter DVB‑ER design.
The pandemic increased TV viewing, but it also accelerated ITV’s shift toward streaming. In June 2020, ITV began experimenting with dynamic ad insertion (DAI) on its broadcast streams. For DVB recorders, this was a nightmare. DAIs caused timestamp disruptions, making automatic ad detection fail.
If you have a DVB‑er recording from this window—especially a (e.g., 2019 World Cup final, 2020 lockdown address, 2021 Euros)—keep the full transport stream untouched. The metadata (PMT, PCR, subtitles, audio tracks) is often lost in re‑encoding.
: You can find "dvber" posts covering significant televised events on ITV from this window, such as: 2016 and 2020 UEFA European Championships 2018 FIFA World Cup The evolution of long-running hits like Love Island I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! Diversity & Social Purpose
For example, a DVB capture of Good Morning Britain from 2019 includes the local news split at 6:55 AM—a feature no streaming service preserves.