Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Le Nam Thang has informed that the ministry has instructed relevant departments to draw up the common standards for digital TV transmitters and receivers. The work needs to be wrapped up within the third quarter of the year.

He also said that the government would support the TV digitalization process via the Telecom Fund for Public Interests. For example, the government would give support to the poor, so that they can buy set top boxes in case the television digitalization is implemented in a large scale. Meanwhile, enterprises would be able to enjoy tax incentives when joining the television digitalization program.
Television stations want common standards for set top box

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) had a meeting with big television stations in mid June 2012 to discuss about which technologies to be chosen for the TV digitalization.

According to Le Kinh Loc, Deputy General Director of VTC, 10 years ago, VTC brought DVB – T (Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial), the then most modern digital television technology.

At that time, set top boxes were very expensive, with a box priced at 400 dollars in Europe. However, later, with the cooperation with Chinese partners, the price of the equipment has decreased by 10 times. With the government initiated program on television digitalization, analysts believe that the prices of set top boxes would fall significantly.

Loc believes that it would be better for other television stations to use the current most advanced technology – DVB – T2, instead of gradually upgrading from DVB – T. The biggest advantage of DVB – T2 is the capability of transmitting data at higher speed than DVB – T.

Also according to Loc, VTC is preparing to run DVB – T2 in a trial period in the central province of Ha Tinh, where the transmitter would be put on the top of Hong Linh Mountain.

However, VTC has anticipated a problem when shifting to use the new technology: the terminal equipments of clients may not be compatible to the new standards.

“VTC would have to exchange new set top boxes with clients for old set top boxes, even though the old set top boxes would be used as the scrap iron only,” Loc said.

VTV has agreed with VTC that it would be better to go straight to the most advanced technology now – DVB – T2. In 2009, VTV spent money on two transmitters meeting DVB – T standards, but they have been later upgraded to DVB – T2. The upgrading would take about 10 percent of total investment costs more.

The representative of the national television channel believes that the biggest difficulty in the implementation of the government’s program to digitalize television would not be the technical issues for television stations, but the terminal equipments for users.

“The government needs to encourage people to shift to use set top boxes designed for digital television. Besides, television stations also need to provide attractive programs to persuade people to use digital technology instead of analog one,” he said.

Meanwhile, the representative from HTV has emphasized that the most important thing that needs to be done to digitalize television is to set up common standards for terminal equipments. If so, users just have to buy one set top boxes and use the services of any service providers they want just by changing the decoding cards.

As such, the top box market would be enlarged, which means the prices would go down, thus benefiting consumers and encouraging the development of digital television.

Source: Buu Dien