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Doordarshan to go completely digital by 2012

Dey said that while TV organisations around the world are unanimous on the need to go for digital broadcasting they were now groping with the problem of smooth transition from analogue to digital broadcasting.

T O D A Y

• Goa's IT Habitat • Ministries' IT budgets • Pune Telecom plans • DD's digitisation

He said Doordarshan intends to go in for digital transmissions in satellite and terrestrial mode by March 2000 or a little later.

In the meantime, DD-1 National, DD-2 Metro, DD Sports programmes in satellite mode of broadcasting have already been put on simulcasting mode (both analogue and digital) to effect smooth transition from analogue to digital, he said.

Dey said the plan is to start digital terrestrial broadcasting first from Delhi and extend it later to Bombay, Calcutta and Madras.

Based on the experience gained, it would be extended to other cities.

Although digital broadcasting overcomes drawbacks of the analogue terrestrial transmissions such as deterioration of the reception quality, mobile TV reception problems and single-frequency networking arrangement to conserve the frequency spectrum, the success of digital transmission depended on availability of set-top conversion boxes at affordable prices to existing analogue TV sets under use.

Talks are underway with TV manufacturers to produce low-cost set-top boxes, he added.

He appealed to cable TV distributors to use Doordarshan digital signals in their cable network for better reception quality.

UNI

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