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Azerbaijan to complete transition to digital transmission by 2015

12 November 2008 13:12 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Nijat Mustafayev â€“ APA-Economics. Teleradio Unit of Azerbaijanâ€™s Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies plans to achieve complete DVB-T standard digital transmission across the country by 2015.
â€œWork on the transition to digital from analog transmission has continued to progress and we are testing a package of four TV broadcasters at present. Digital transmission will first be made available in Baku and Absheron next year. Then, it will be available across the country,â€ said Teleradio.
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.
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).