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Sri Lanka to digitalise TV broadcasting

Thursday, 3 July 2014 00:00 -     - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

In the midst of the digital revolution, the digitisation of terrestrial television broadcasting has become a worldwide trend. Broadcasters are now turning to digital technologies to reduce their operating costs and offer enhanced services to the public. Television broadcasting is a universal service and is an important infrastructure, which most people rely on as a source of information. It is therefore essential to make television more accessible to people in order to allow Sri Lanka to keep pace with the rest of the world. The Government aims to take dedicated efforts to achieve the complete digitisation of terrestrial television broadcasting, by adopting Japan’s Integrated Service Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial (ISDB-T) standard, which is the best of such technology, with the aim of switching off the analogous broadcasting system by the year 2017. The Sri Lanka TV market, with an estimated 3.5-4 million TV households, is mainly a terrestrial TV free-to-air (FTA) market with a very high number of analogue terrestrial TV program services and a wide choice of TV delivery platforms; including digital TV satellite, analogue and digital cable TV, IPTV. This transition from analogous to digital transmission will offer great advantages. The viewer will have more services and better picture and sound quality and a greater choice of channels and programs. Broadcasters can offer new services and network costs can be reduced and the Government can achieve more efficient use of the frequency spectrum and allocate part of the broadcasting band to other communication services. Aside from providing better picture and sound quality, the switch to digital broadcasting offers clear advantages for both consumers and operators. Consumers benefit from digital television as they are provided with a wider choice of programs, have improved flexibility of use due to better portable and mobile reception. Also, broadcasting services will become more interactive due to the improvement in IT services. Similarly services such as subtitling, audio commentaries or signing will also become available to consumers.    

Lower transmission costs

When it comes to transmission, operators can expect lower transmission costs in addition to the availability of more frequencies. An analogous transmitter can carry only a single TV service whereas a digital transmitter can carry up to 12 SDTV (standard definition) programs or 4 HDTV (high definition) programs. Digitisation also allows for lower transmission costs per program, lower transmitter power and therefore less electricity used. The responsibility of transmission will be taken over by a separate new entity known as DBNO (digital broadcast network operators) With regards to content production, the digital system provides faster editing, improved productivity and better security, as well as liberating the networked storage of archives by giving producers easier access to entire archives. This system of ISDB-T is the only digital broadcasting standard that supports reception from mobile phones or mobile devices. Since the prevalence rate of mobile phones in Sri Lanka is high. Therefore this system allows the poor who cannot afford to purchase expensive TV sets to enjoy the benefit of digital television with the use of their mobile devices.    

Wider perspective

One of the direct benefits to the public from the switch from analogous program to digital broadcast is that it has a built-in mobile transmission facility; meaning that mobile devices like the cell phones can receive the broadcast signals. Because of this mobile transmission facility the Japanese digital system can make it more affordable to many. It also has more important implications to the public in that the Japanese ISDB-T system has a built in “early warning system” therefore all cellular devices such as smartphones; tablets can become alert devices for tsunamis or other natural disasters and would thus be an easier way to send information to the public. This would facilitate in creating an environment where the Government of Sri Lanka is capable of handling disaster emergencies effectively and carry out ways to reduce the high risk of disasters. TV broadcasting is an effective means for the Government to provide citizens with information in such emergency situations. EWBS (emergency warning broadcast systems) is used for warnings of natural disasters and is highly usable in the case of emergency situations to inform citizens of potentially lifesaving information. Such information can be provided locally via digital television broadcasts. EWBS is not only highly usable for disaster warning but can also be used from a wider perspective. The multifunctional nature of the ISDB-T system allows data broadcasting as a standard feature to enable transmission of a variety of information to all views simultaneously. This type of data broadcasting provides a general contact to e-governing, road traffic information, weather reports, educational and medical information as well as news and sports.  
 

 Figure: Block division of coverage areas in Sri Lanka

Social impacts

The Japanese ISBD-T standard is also adaptable to villages with no electricity – although the national electrification plan is in progress, the electrification does not guarantee instant stable power supply. In un-electrified areas, solar power is sufficient for the transmission power for mobile devices. Moreover, moving to digital technologies reduces greenhouse-gas emissions due to the reduction in the power consumption of broadcasting transmitters. There are also other spill-over effects of data broadcasting; as digitisation has emerged in recent years as a key economic driver, which accelerates growth and facilitates job creation. In countries where ISBD-T is used data broadcasting is steadily utilised as a means of business and public telecommunications. It not only provides latest information to viewers or citizens at low cost but also has the potential for creating new markets and workforce demand. Sri Lanka will be able to gain from digitisation’s effect on employment. For example, data broadcasting production requires programmers, designers and data administrators and likewise, leading to the activation of human resources in ICT in the country and also help improve the capacity of our skilled engineers. Digital transmissions can also be adapted to suit the educational needs in the country. Since the ISDB-T system provides for highly functional data broadcasting, which enables access to information on demand and can have various social impacts. For example, it can be used in audio-visual education approaches in using TV programs for distance learning, with audiovisual information increasing learning efficiency. This is particularly effective in a trilingual country such as Sri Lanka where seventy percent of local residents can understand only Sinhalese or Tamil and data broadcasting can be used to improve English literacy as well as improving computer literacy. The ISDB-T system can also be adapted to aid people with physical disabilities for example through subtitled programming for people with hearing difficulties and reading for people with visual impairment. The Government is optimistic about the outcome of the digitisation process. As President Mahinda Rajapaksa pledged the right to information in the Mahinda Chintanaya, this advanced and sophisticated leap in communication services is another step in the direction to afford citizens this right. The Ministry of Mass Media and Information will be responsible for the broadcasting administration in Sri Lanka as per the national media policy ensuring freedom of speech and development of knowledgeable and informed citizens.  
  (The writer graduated from the University of Peradeniya, Sichuan University in China and Ohio University in the United States. He is the current Secretary to the Ministry of Mass Media and Information. He is on twitter @charith9.)

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