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Azerbaijan to launch DVB-T standard digital transmission next year

09 September 2008 14:10 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ilhama Isabalayeva â€“ APA-Economics. Teleradio Unit of Azerbaijanâ€™s Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies plans to switch to DVB-T standard digital transmission from next year.
Teleradioâ€™s Director Aflatun Sharifov told APA-Economics that a more powerful transmitter will be installed in Baku in late this year and new transmitting equipment will be purchased.
According to him, digital transmission will first be made available in Baku, Gandja and later in Shirvan and Mingechevir. Then, it will be available across the country.
Set-top boxes (STB) should be imported to the country, the broadcasters should be specified and population should be prepared for digital transmission.
DTV has several advantages over traditional, analog TV, the most significant being that digital channels take up less bandwidth (and the bandwidth needs are continuously variable, at a corresponding cost in image quality depending on the level of compression). This means that digital broadcasters can provide more digital channels in the same space, provide High-definition television service, or provide other non-television services such as multimedia or interactivity. DTV also permits special services such as multiplexing (more than one program on the same channel), electronic program guides and additional languages, spoken or subtitled. In many cases, viewers perceive DTV to have superior picture quality, improved audio quality, and easier reception than analog.
If everything goes right, it is scheduled to complete transition from analog transmission to digital transmission in 2015 as planned before.
Azerbaijan has started to test DVB-T standard digital transmission in Baku since 2004.
The transition process will have three overlapping phases (2007-10, 2011-13, 2014-15).