China has decided to use the European-dominated standard for its
digital television (DTV) cable broadcasting as a transitional one
as it pushes ahead with its campaign to develop DTV in China.
"Our national standard has not been decided, so we will adopt
the digital video broadcasting-cable (DVB-C) standard temporarily,"
said Bai Weimin, chief of the broadcasting and television division
under the Ministry of Information Industry.
She said as the need to start DTV broadcasting becomes more
urgent, China will first switch to the European standard.
A home-grown DTV-C standard, which was expected to come out this
month, was delayed mainly due to the immature state of
technology.
However, Bai said China will eventually adopt its own standard,
which will be compatible with the DVB-C standard.
Wang Kuang, general manager of Hangzhou Science and Technology
Co Ltd and head of the development team for the DTV-C standard,
said the domestic standard will be ready this year and it will have
interactive functions, better support for data services and will be
easier to use than DVB-C.
Last year, China decided the standard for digital television
satellite broadcasting, but it is still working on the other two
standards: cable and terrestrial broadcasting.
The ownership of domestic standards is regarded as critical,
since the standards affect broadcasting equipment, transmission
devices and receivers.
South Korea, which adopted the US-developed ATSC (advanced
television system committee) standard, is said to pay US$30-$40 in
royalties for every TV set.
If the same fee was applied to China's 100 million cable
television users, the Chinese people could face a royalty bill of
more than 30 billion yuan (US$3.6 billion).
However, the industry cannot wait until the domestic standard is
developed because of the need to start digital broadcasting
soon.
According to the 10th Five-Year Plan for broadcasting, film and
television (2001-05), 30 million households are expected to receive
digital TV programs transmitted via satellites, with another 30
million receiving their signal via cable, by 2005.
"It is already the third year of the 10th Five-Year Plan," said
Zhang Haitao, vice-minister of the State
Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT). "Time is
pressing and the task is demanding, so we should accelerate the
pace of change."
He said the SARFT had picked 30 cities including Beijing, plus
the provinces of Fujian, Jiangxi and Shaanxi, for trial
broadcasts.
The state-level China Central Television will be responsible for
building a central program platform, including paid TV programs and
paid film TV channels, which is expected to transmit digital TV
programs this month.
The SARFT aims to introduce 1 million TV households to digital
broadcasting this year.
Digital TV broadcasting, with its high picture quality, large
transmission capacity and value-added services, is meant to cover
the whole of China by 2010, when the country will stop using the
current system of analogue TV broadcasts.
Zhang estimates up to 1 trillion yuan (US$120 billion) will be
spent on upgrading current broadcasting systems and buying digital
TV sets in the switch to digital TV broadcasting, creating 500,000
jobs in China.
(China Daily July 22, 2003)