Advanced Television

Philippines urged to adopt DVB-T2

June 29, 2011

By Colin Mann

A joint delegation of digital TV standards consortium DVB and European Union representatives has met with The Philippines’ National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to present the technical superiority of DVB-T2 over what it describes as the ‘dated’ Japanese ISDB-T system. The economic advantages and the benefits of the economies of scale were also set out.

The DVB hopes that the NTC will reconsider its deadline of 30 June for its final decision on the adoption of a digital standard. The delegation called for a proper DVB-T2 field trial to be held so that a full comparison can be made of the competing standards.

“It has been proven that under similar conditions, DVB-T2 either provides nearly 100 per cent more payload or the transmitter power can be reduced by 8-10 dB, which results in a drastic decrease of capital investment and operational costs for the transmitter network. Owing to the significant success of DVB-T2, low cost STBs are already available for as little as 45 US dollars in UK retail stores. In addition, there are commercially available low-cost DVB-T2 HD set-top boxes operating in six MHz channels, as required in the Philippines,” commented Peter Siebert, Executive Director, DVB.

“The growing interest in DVB-T2 around the world seems to be a symptom of mature thinking. Countries are now looking for the best long-term solution, rather than a quick-fix using inferior technologies. This trend definitely favours DVB-T2,” said Phil Laven, Chairman, DVB.

Since the first DVB-T2 services were launched in December 2009 in the UK, 2010 and early 2011 have seen services launched in Italy, Sweden and Finland. The total number of countries that have declared their intention to deploy the state-of-the-art second-generation digital terrestrial television (DTT) transmission system now stands at 28. In the Asian region, India, Singapore and Sri Lanka have chosen DVB-T2 and tests have been carried out in Malaysia and Thailand.

 

 

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