GMA Network, Inc. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)GMA Network Inc. (GMA-7) is strongly opposing the plan of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to shift to Japanese standard for the country’s migration to digital terrestrial TV.In an interview with reporters, GMA-7 chairman Felipe Gozon said the broadcasting firm was more inclined to adopt the European standard as about 90 percent of its equipment is already digital.
“Since we are going to invest our money, it is our study that will control our decisions. It’s as simple as that, but we already told the NTC we are studying the European standard,” Gozon explained.
According to him, the government should allow broadcasting companies to decide on their own which technology to adopt due to the capital intensive nature of the industry.
“I don’t know how the government can force us to use the Japanese standard because we are going to use our money to buy the equipment. We are not going to borrow from them. Does the government dictate on Philippine Airlines what aircraft it will buy?” he asked.
The NTC and the Department of Science and Technology (DOTC) are set to recommend to Malacañang the use of Japan’s Integrated Service Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial or ISDB-T standard.
The agencies picked the Japanese standard because it is cheaper than Europe’s Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial 2 or DVB-T2.
Malacañang has commissioned Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO) last year to draft the migration plan to aid the government in deciding which standard to use in the country’s shift to digital TV
ICTO said the Japanese is a more appropriate model as the European model has higher modulation and has more complicated modulation techniques.
The ICTO endorsement backs the Kapisanan ng mga Brokaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) and an NTC technical working group’s recommendation last year to adopt the Japanese model.
The Philippines had planned to migrate from analog to digital TV come 2015. Free-TV or non-cable households comprise 90 percent of the country’s 17 million TV viewers.
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=835029&publicationSubCategoryId=66
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