Digital terrestrial standard to be published this month

Sources close to the development of China's digital terrestrial standards have revealed that the long-awaited standard will be published later this month. The standard is already three years overdue and there has much industry criticism of the State Administration for Radio Film and Television (SARFT) for their prevarication on the issue. Professor Dong Hong of Beijing's Tsinghua University, which is developing one of the rival indigenous platforms, DMB-TH (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting for Terrestrial/Handheld), told Chinese press sources that the announcement of the standard is imminent and this has been confirmed by Liu Piguo, Director of the Science and Technology Department of the Shanghai branch of SARFT.

Once the standard is announced DMB-T/H will become the obligatory standard for all digital terrestrial television services in the country, including cellphone television which will operate with the same standard (see Analysis in this issue). DMB-T/H has been in competition for SARFT recognition with at least two other main contending domestic platforms. Shanghai's Jiaotong University has developed the ADTB standard based on the North American ATSC standard, while SARFT's own Academy of Broadcasting Science has developed its own standard known as TiMi (Terrestrial Interactive Multiservice Infrastructure). Meanwhile other lesser known standards have also been developed.

The Chinese authorities have been keen to adopt a homegrown standard rather than one of the international alternatives, such as ATSC, Qualcomm's Mediaflo or the European DVB standards, in order to save Chinese manufacturers billions of dollars in intellectual property rights fees to foreign technology companies.

CMI - 22/8/06