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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J Fieb who wrote (33702)	6/8/1998 6:57:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Respond to of 50808

Market demand for digital video will be there, the market just needs content. DTT a world wide event................................. news-real.com Transmitters for a digital terrestrial television pilot arrive in New Zealand in a few months. By September, TVNZ-owned broadcast transmission company BCL will run a trial of the techno logy in Waiatarua in Auckland. Rob Sweet, BCL general manager networks, says the trial will provide information to create permanent DTT services for New Zealand conditions by late next year. By then many manufacturers will have digital TVs or set-top boxes that decrypt digital signals for transmission to ordinary analogue television sets. Rollout of the DTT network will cover Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty, followed by more sparsely populated areas. "We would expect the service to cover up to 80 per cent of the country in a few years," Mr Sweet says. BCL has adopted a "simulcasting" policy to support its existing analogue transmission service for up to a decade after introducing DTT. Viewers will not have to change their televisions or invest in set-top boxes unless they want to before that time. Adoption of digital broadcasting is accelerating worldwide. France has embarked on a four-site trial in Brittany and forged alliances with TV manufacturers to support a digital service by the turn of the century. In Sweden, two DTT channels cover 50 per cent of the country and the government will begin allocating licences this month and two more DTT channels will be introduced next year. Trials of DTT are being run in the Netherlands and trials begin in Britain later this year. In Australia, a Television Broadcasting Services (Digital Conversion) Bill has been passed to support digital broadcasts by January 2001 in metropolitan areas and 2004 in regions. The Australian Bill requires broadcasters to transmit a new digital channel and analogue for at least eight years. A transmission standard decision is expected by the end of July. Mr Sweet says digital broadcasting will begin a new era in television viewing. "It is the biggest thing since colour television came to New Zealand." After the introduction of BCL's DTT service, every household will have access to picture quality that is now only available on expensive televisions. Ghosting and interference will disappear, along with TV antennas - robust digital signals overcome all of those problems, Mr Sweet says. TVs and set-top boxes will be equipped with modems so viewers can search for information, take advantage of Internet television services, filter and sort the programmes they want to watch, and request information from advertisers. The advent of digital television will also vastly extend the number of TV signals available to broadcasters to set up new channels and services. Mr Sweet says there will be no discernible difference between picture quality of digital TVs and analogue sets connected to a set top box. Research company Ovum says digital television will revolutionise the broadcasting market, removing traditional limits to growth. It says existing industry structures will be torn apart and new entrants will challenge content providers, distributors, carriers, and hardware suppliers. "In many markets, there will be no significant digital broadcasting before the year 2000 so user demand is not a strong driver for change," says Ovum principal consultant John Moroney. "The needs for increased industry efficiency and a clear regulatory framework to encourage new services are what is triggering change (to digital television)." He says the entry into the market of commercial free-to-air TV networks and the advent of multichannel and pay-TV have created competition for incumbent broadcasters worldwide, stimulating rivalry between networks for viewers and advertisers. "Until now, the broadcast industry has only been open to players with substantial resources, but in the digital era small players can challenge them by taking advantage of the extra spectrum capacity and smaller operating costs involved in production and transmission. "Digital technology and low-cost production technologies will also allow small, independent content owners to challenge the dominance of larger organisations." The media industry faces a period of rapid restructuring to prepare for digital television, Mr Moroney says.