Following the recommendation by the South African Development Community (SADC) for the region to adopt DVB-T2, South Africa has confirmed its intention to implement the standard. The decision has been applauded by the industry-led consortium, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB). The DBB has 250 plus members consisting of broadcasters, manufacturers, network operators, software developers, regulatory bodies and others.
The number of countries that have now adopted DVB-T2 are 21, with numerous other countries undergoing trials.
Phil Laven, DVB’s Chairman, who was closely involved in the campaign to promote DVB over the competing Brazilian version of the Japanese ISDB-T standard commented: “The announcement of the decision by South Africa ends the uncertainty over which digital standard the country would implement. The move will allow the country to progress without delay with its migration to digital which will benefit the people of South Africa. I firmly believe they have made the right choice which is also evidenced by the rapid take-up of DVB-T2 by other nations and which far exceeds anything achieved by competing standards over many years of effort’.
Peter Siebert, Executive Director, DVB said, “I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank all the DVB community that has worked tirelessly to bring about this positive announcement by South Africa. It is another great endorsement of this new second generation standard that is without doubt proving to be as successful as its predecessor’.
DVB-T2 is the world’s most advanced digital terrestrial transmission system offering higher efficiency, robustness and flexibility. It introduces the latest modulation and coding techniques to enable the highly efficient use of valuable terrestrial spectrum for the delivery of audio, video and data services to fixed, portable and mobile devices. These new techniques give DVB-T2 a 50% increase in efficiency over any other DTT system in the world.
