Myths shroud broadcasting standards

South African broadcasters and Brazil are at loggerheads, as both parties move to dispel the myths surrounding which digital standard would be better suited for the South African broadcasting environment.

At the beginning of May, the Department of Communications (DOC) stunned broadcasters when it revealed it had decided to “review” the standard that SA had decided to adopt for the migration of TV.

SA adopted the DVB standard in 2005, when the South African Standards Bureau approved it as the local digital broadcasting option, and all digital migration trials since 2007 have been conducted on this standard.

Now the possibility exists that SA may have to adopt ISDB-T, a Brazil version of Japanese-developed ISDB standard. This is despite the looming deadline for the digital TV switchover which requires broadcasters to switch off analogue TV by November next year.

While South African broadcasters have vehemently criticised the ISDB-T standard, saying the move would undermine the eight-year process, and the considerable investment all stakeholders have made to get digital TV to South African citizens.

To this end, frustrated broadcasters MNet and etv sought to dispel some of the myths surrounding the DVB standard, but Brazil has done the same for the ISDB-T standard

Earlier this year, MNet's director of regulatory and legal affairs, Karen Willenberg, argued that the decision to review the digital standard would result in the R250 million investment in the current standard being swept aside.

“In fact, it would be directly compensated by the advantage of mobile TV without any additional investment. Converting to DVB-T2, or building an additional network for mobile TV, would definitely be more expensive,” argues the embassy.

Brazil also maintains the argument that the adoption of ISDB-T will prejudice the local manufacturing industry is myth.

Willenberg explained: “The adoption of the ISDB will prejudice the local manufacturing industry, because the market for set-top boxes produced in SA will forever be restricted to those few countries which have already adopted ISDB.”

But Brazil contends that local adoption is not related to set-up box (STB) production. Chinese STBs, for example, are sold worldwide for all the available systems (DVB, ISDB, ATSC, etc) even though China adopted a different standard.

“SA manufacturers are able to produce any kind of STB and sell them anywhere in the world. Due to chipset modularity, ISDB-T STB's time-to-market has been about three months nowadays, so SA manufacturers would definitely be able to provide products locally on time,” maintains the embassy.

From a technical viewpoint, both sides are at a standoff. Willenberg notes that while the technical differences between the two standards are minimal, the South African broadcasting environment is not conducive to ISDB-T.

Willenberg pointed out the South African broadcasting landscape is designed for 8MHz configuration, which can be delivered on the DVB standard.

However, the ISDB-T standard has not been developed, or deployed for an 8MHz configuration, therefore there are neither 8MHz transmitters nor receivers for ISDB-T available in the country. No ISDB-T skills exist in SA either, she pointed out.

But Brazil is confident ISDB is the superior standard in terms of transmission capability, interactivity, accessibility and possibilities for middleware development.

“ISDB-T allows for cellphone reception of TV with no extra cost thanks to its unique capability to broadcast free-to-air video signals to mobile terminal devices within one bandwidth,” notes the embassy.

The fact that a second version of DVB systems (DVB-T2) has been developed in such a short time attests on its own the flaws of the original system, adds Brazil.

Willenberg argued that this is not the case; DVB-T2 is not a new standard created because of problems with DVB-T1. Instead, DVB-T2 is simply an upgraded version of the DVB-T standard, which has been developed by the DVB group for better spectrum efficiency, she explained.

Tensions are high around the two standards. Speculation holds that the DOC has already made its decision to move to the essentially untried ISDB; however, communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda has vehemently denied this.

The DOC clammed up on its plans after a symposium in May, when the first industry and media backlash against its review started. During a hearing before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications in June, the minister said the DOC has not yet made a decision on the matter.

“I have received a preliminary report on that colloquium, but I am still awaiting a final report, and the final decision on what standard to adopt will be made by Cabinet. I have not yet taken any of this to Cabinet,” he said.

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Broadcasters slam DOC review