Legacy is a millstone that will hold you back a good long time. If you pick the wrong fork in the road look what can happen:
Analog or digital -- that's the question for BS-4
Source: Kyodo
Kyodo via Individual Inc. : TOKYO, Feb. 11 (Kyodo) _ The telecom ministry
and a group of supporters of the analog-based high-definition TV (HDTV)
system, led by the publicly funded Japan Broadcasting Corp., better known as
NHK, are entering the homestretch in their talks on whether the
next-generation BS-4 satellite should be of analog or digital type.
The satellite is to be launched around 2000.
The Posts and Telecommunications Ministry is set to seek recommendations
late next month from the Radio Regulatory Council, an advisory panel to the
telecom minister, concerning the matter.
The ministry originally planned to use the BS-4 for analog-based satellite
broadcasting on four channels just like its forerunner which is to be
launched this spring.
The rapid spread of digital technologies, coupled with the advent of the era
of multichannel digital satellite broadcasting services, prompted the
ministry last April to put on hold for about a year its decision on whether
to adopt an analog or digital format.
The ministry's move was widely viewed as a strong indication that the
digital format would be adopted.
Attention now focuses on how to handle the MUSE decoders that are used to
receive analog-based satellite broadcasts of Hi-Vision, the Japanese HDTV
format.
The first-generation BS-4 satellite will take over channels of the BS-3
satellite now in operation for NHK and Japan Satellite Broadcasting Inc.,
which operates the WOWOW movie channel.
It will also be used for the full-scale Hi-Vision broadcasting NHK plans to
launch in October.
The adoption of the digital format for the next-generation BS-4 satellite
would deal a serious blow to NHK, which has some 10 million household
subscribers nationwide for its analog satellite broadcasting service,
industry analysts said.
NHK Chairman Mikio Kawaguchi maintains that it is ''natural'' for the
next-generation BS-4 to inherit the analog format for the benefit of the
current satellite broadcast viewers.
There are currently about 550,000 Hi-Vision TV sets nationwide.
A senior official of the telecom ministry said, however, ''Digitalization is
the current of the times. And the ball is now in our court.''
A study panel of the telecom ministry has recently worked out a technical
report which says the existing Hi-Vision TVs would be able to receive
digital broadcasts if they are equipped with adapters.
The panel for the ministry's director general of the broadcasting bureau is
expected to come up with a final report as early as Feb. 28, a move that is
widely seen as preparatory to the ministry's eleventh-hour switch to the
digital format.
Major commercial TV stations, meanwhile, are now waiting to see if the
report will be sufficiently technologically convincing for NHK.
Under international arrangements, Japan is allowed eight transponders for
digital satellite broadcasting, with four of them to be allotted to the
next-generation BS-4.
Each transponder can handle only one channel of analog-based high-definition
TV. The number increases to four to six channels with digital broadcasting.
Communication satellite-based multichannel digital broadcasting services
have already started in Japan, with PerfecTV Corp. offering pay broadcasts
on 70 channels from Jan. 1.
As for BS-based broadcasts, Japan is in effect the world's only country that
is still considering whether to stick with analog services, industry
analysts said. [02-11-97 at 13:28 EST, 1997, Kyodo News International]
Japan is thinking of launching an analog satellite in the year 2000!!HAHAHAHAHA. I found it very humerous that one of the most technologically advanced nations on the globe would be the last analog holdouts. I hope CUBE makes the most of this window of
opportunity; Send those Divicom folks over and talk them into digital.
10,000,000 NHK households will need set-top boxes one day. |
