It seems that the NTC still favored the Japanese standard for the nth time, even there's intervening the release of the IRR this coming June. In fact, ISDB-T's decoder boxes are much cheaper that the European DVB-T2, but still, the acquisition of every material for the T2 standard is still costly in the market, which turns out to be much delaying the digital television roll-out when implemented here.
Read the post after the break.
THE National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said the cost of European set top boxes is more than half that of the Japanese standard.
In a presentation, the regulator’s technical working group (TWG) said Europe’s Digital Video Broadcasting-Second Generation Terrestrial (DVB-T2) is “technically better, [but] commercially it’s a different story.”
The NTC said the current price of DVB-T2 set top boxes is 58 percent higher than the $45 price tag on the unit required by Japan’s Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial (ISDB-T).
The regulator said the adoption of the European standard would mean another long delay.
“Waiting for the price to fall to an affordable level will mean another long wait that would be dependent on many uncertainties,” it said.
The NTC said any price drop will depend on actual implementation of the Philippines’ shift to digital TV.
The regulator said ISDB-T was the best standard available when a decision had to be made in June last year.
It has since begun a review amid the lobby by some broadcasting companies for another look at Europe’s DVB-T2.
Immediate roll out capability and affordability of the [set top boxes] at present time confirms that it was and continues to be the right choice,” the NTC said, adding that the ISDB-T was decided upon as the standard by the whole industry even with DVB-T2 already on the horizon.
The government expects to issue the implementing rules and regulations for digital TV next month.
The country had planned to migrate from analog to digital TV in 2015.
Free-TV or non-cable households comprise 90 percent of the total 17 million TV households in the country. - Darwin G. Amolejar, dated 01 June 2011.
Source: Manila Times
No comments:
Post a Comment