Why Taiwan is important for Chile?

Despite the fact that an announcement was expected last Friday on which DTT system the Chileans would choose, it seems that decision has been postponed (again) and the political maneuvering is set to continue.

Proponents of the Japanese system (as chosen by Brazil) are said to have been claiming that DVB isn't used anywhere else that uses 6MHz channel bandwidths and the NTSC system for analogue TV. This has sparked a flurry of activity amongst DVB supporters pointing to the example of Taiwan. The DVB website reports (with a Spanish translation, leaving no doubt as to who the story is aimed at) that Taiwan now has more than 2 million DVB-T receivers, the majority of which are set-top boxes.

Who's using what?

I thought it might be worth taking a quick snapshot of those countries that have actually launched DTT services and those that have adopted a DTT standard.

ISDB-T - On Air
Japan
Brazil (variant system - SBTVD)

ATSC - On Air
Canada
USA
South Korea

ATSC - Adopted
Mexico
Honduras

DVB-T - On Air
Albania
Andorra
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belgium
Croatia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Faroe Islands
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Italy
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Mauritius
Namibia
Netherlands
Norway
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
United Kingdom
Total = 31

DVB-T - Adopted
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brunei
Bulgaria
Cambodia
Cape Verde
Cyprus
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Ireland
Laos
Latvia
Macedonia
Malaysia
Montenegro
Myanmar
New Zealand
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Sri Lanka
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
Uruguay
Vietnam
Total = 31

It should also be kept in mind that all of the countries that are signatories of the Geneva '06 Agreement governing radio frequency allocations will, by definition, also use DVB-T. That's every country in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. One could place all of these countries in the DVB Adopted list, bringing the total of DVB-T countries to well over 100.

These figures are as good a reason as any for the fact that DVB-T receivers are cheaper than ATSC, ISDB-T and SBTVD receivers.

[Edited 11/12/2007 - the Brazilian system is now on air... - thanks for the comments!]

High Def kicking off on terrestrial in Singapore

MediaCorp has launched its well-flagged HD5 service on the DVB-T network in Singapore. The service, which has been in trial for about a year, is a simulcast of Channel 5, the main English language channel that carries major drama series, movies and sports events. The service uses MPEG-4 video coding. Not much word yet on STB availability. One model that's getting a lot of mention on discussion boards is the Draco HDTV 3900...seemingly it's available for about Sing$ 300 - that's just over €140.

The MediaCorp site suggests that the main retails are selling receivers, bundled with an indoor antenna for about Sing$560 - about €265. That price seems a little steep compared to prices reported previously in Estonia and Norway. Presumably prices will fall as more HD content (rather than upconverted SD stuff) is added to the service.

Brazilian STB to cost more than US$350

A report on a Brazil-based website quotes the president of the National Association of Manufacturers of Electronic Products as saying that the first set-top boxes to be used for terrestrial DTV in Brazil will be priced at around BRL 700, which equates to around US$ 380 or €UR 270 at today's rates. He attributes this high price to the fact that volumes will not be high enough to make prices fall - in fact, he doesn't expect prices to fall until five years after services launch.

Of course none of this should be surprising - the Brazilians chose to adopt the Japanese ISDB-T system and create their own local variant of it, called SBTVD. The Japanese system isn't used anywhere other than Japan, which means it doesn't benefit from the economies of scale that DVB-T (or even ATSC) does. (A basic DVB-T STB has been available recently for about €UR 15 in the UK!)

It looks like the average Brazilian person is going to have to postpone joining the DTV revolution until well into the next decade.

The Ten Pound DTT Receiver!

According to Broadband TV News, UK supermarket giant Tesco are now selling a DVB-T receiver for the retail price of £10 - at today's exchange rates that's just under EUR 15 or just over US$ 20 - surely now the cheapest DTT receiver in the world?

The receiver in question is made by Techwood.

Freeview STB Advice

I came across an interesting article on the London Times website. It's a review of six different Freeview set-top boxes that are currently on the market in the UK - three PVRs and three receiver-only boxes. Interestingly, it includes a Setanta branded box (actually made by Sagem). Freeview viewers now have the option of seeing live Premier League football at home, since the new sports channel, Setanta, managed to win part of the rights package. The service costs £10 per month, and does requrie a box with a card slot, but it does mean you can avoid signing up for the more expensive satellite or cable packages.

The full article is here:
http://tinyurl.com/yr9cjz

ATSC prices falling - but DVB-T still cheaper

If this post from dtvfacts.com is anything to go by, the newest low-end ATSC set-top boxes (or converter boxes, the term that's used in the US) will be priced at US $60-70. This is indeed quite cheap, but it's still 30% more expensive than the cheapest DVB-T boxes.

It seems the US government will try to push take-up of DTT through the use of a coupon scheme, whereby all consumers will be able to apply for a US$ 40 voucher that they can redeem against an approved list of products sold at an approved list of retailers. The same website includes a detailed explanation of how that scheme will work.

ATSC Tuners

As a result of the tuner mandate the USA, most new TVs come with a built-in ATSC tuner. This makes it hard to make like for like comparisons between the prices of DTT receivers in the US, compared to, say, Europe. There doesn't seem to be a big market for standalone ATSC receivers, so perhaps price comparisons aren't really worthwhile anyway.

Still, I did a bit of searching to find prices and it seems to me that a basic ATSC set-top box is coming in at around US$ 80 - 90. Try this box from Kworld, for example.

I'll look at this a bit more in the coming weeks and maybe try comparing the prices of TVs with integrated digital tuners.

There's no doubt, however, that the stand alone set-top box seems, currently at least, to be more popular for DVB-T than for ATSC. Of course this has an impact on the prices for such devices, pushing them down all the time.

Cheapest DVB-T STB?

I spend a lot of time searching for and reading about DVB-T receivers and one of the things that I've noticed is how the prices just keep on falling. The biggest DVB-T market at the moment in terms of receivers sold is the UK, where the latest figures show that almost 19 million Freeview receivers of various shapes and sizes have now been sold. Naturally this has had an impact on the prices of receivers there. So I've just used price comparison site Kelkoo to try to find out what the cheapest basic DVB-T receiver is. And the winner is: the Luxor CDST900.

Now I'd love to show you a photo of this box, but try as I might I can't find one. I can find photos of Luxor TVs, so I know the brand exists, but I guess this box has just come to market now. The websites list is as having the following specs:

Plug and Play
Digital Text
2 x Scart sockets
Remote contol

...which is indeed very basic. But hey, at UK£ 23.99 (or about 35 €UR) who's complaining?!!

Do you know of a cheaper DTT set-top box (retail price, anywhere in the world)? Let me know...