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Digital deadline delayed

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Every Australian TV set must be converted to digital by 2013.

The New Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Stephen Conroy yesterday confirmed the dates for the switch to digital television.

City-based networks would need to be broadcasting digital signals by 2009 and 2013 for the rest of the country.

The cut-off for the analogue system of free-to-air television is a year later than was proposed.

“This is clearly an impossible date for both viewers and industry. The Government has inherited a digital take up rate of approximately 30 per cent and will now work with industry to ensure that all Australians are prepared for digital television,’’ he said.

“Accordingly, I have amended the date for commencement of digital only transmission in metropolitan markets to December 2009. This will allow time for the Taskforce and industry to develop a detailed switchover timetable for all of Australia.”

The Howard government had been proposing a switch to the high-definition digital signal by next year.

Source: The Australian

5 Responses

  2. a lot of work will need to be done to improve DTV reception in metropolitan areas if they’re looking at a 2009 shutdown of analogue. There are blackspots around that analogue can sort of get around but DTV with its “cliff’s edge” tendency will not tolerate and that’s going to leave plenty of households in the dark. Also what about all those people using indoor antennas (on portable TVs etc) that can pick up analogue but haven’t got a chance of picking up digital? It’s not always practical to wire up every TV in the house to an outdoor aerial. The industry will need to invest in more infrastructure (eg. relay transmitters to cover blackspots) to guarantee a consistent signal across all parts of the city – and I can’t see that happening in 2 years.

    Plus, there is still no commitment on the transition of Channel 31 to digital. The Howard Government cared little about the community sector, what does Kevin07’s people intend to do with it?

  3. Stan, Australia *didn’t* develop its own digital broadcasting standard.

    We use DVB, the same system used across Europe. It doesn’t get much more affordable than that.

    The only significant difference is the channel spacing, which is easily handled by pretty much every DVB tuner.

    My first PVR, for example, was designed in Germany for the European market, but worked just fine here.

  4. Of course nobody is ready. This is typical of politicians being involved in setting a standard that they have absolutely no knowledge about it. We are now paying the price for expensive DTV HW, because the previous goverment allowed developemnt of Australian specific standard, instead of adopting more common either EU or US, which would make transition more affordable for everybody.
    The reason we developped our own standard is because the main commercial networks wanted to introduce the interactive content using their resources, only to relize now that using broadband is much more efficient way to provide that than using some dodgy set-up boxes. Foxtel subscribers already know that.

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