The Philippine association of broadcasters, KBP, has expressed support for Japan’s standard for digital television, ISDB, saying the cost of its set-up boxes is much cheaper than those used for the rival European standard, Malaya Business Insight reports.

Atom Henares, Chairman of the KBP Television Committee said: “ISDB is a pro-Filipino standard because it has features that can address better the needs of the Filipino viewers, not to mention that it costs less than DVB2, its European counterpart.” DVB2 is the second generation of Europe’s digital TV standard DVB.

Although ISDB carries fewer channels compared with DVB2, Mr Henares said ISDB’s capacity was enough for local broadcast networks. He said Filipinos should not be made to pay for the extra number of channels that might just end up unused. The set-top box required for analogue TV sets to receive a digital signal for DVB-T2 was 60 percent more expensive than that for ISDB, he said.

Last year, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) issued a memorandum circular adopting the Japanese standard in the migration to digital TV, but the deal was put on hold recently by the government to allow an evaluation of DVB2. A team from DVB, backed by the European Union delegation to the Philippines, visited the NTC offices last Monday to pitch for the adoption of the European standard.














July 3rd, 2011 - 12:31 UTC
by A.Sennitt
(Source: Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union)