The Southern African broadcasting industry will have to wait another month to hear which standard will be used in the planned migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television.
A task team, which had been expected to report back to the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) in September, will only reveal which standard it feels is best for the region at a meeting in November.
Acting communications department director-general Harold Wesso says he can shed no more light on selection of a standard because Sadc has agreed to come out with a consensus decision.
During a presentation to the parliamentary portfolio committee on communications on Wednesday, representatives from the department said communications minister Siphiwe Nyanda had written to Sadc to complain about the delay in the task team’s report.
Ironically, Nyanda complained that the delay was holding back SA’s digital migration. It’s ironic as it was his own department that brought digital migration in Sadc to a virtual halt earlier this year when it decided to review whether SA should maintain its commitment to the European standard for digital broadcasts, called DVB-T, or instead stump for a different standard.
Brazilian lobbyists want the country to adopt ISDB-Tb, a variation of a Japanese standard used in the South American country.
It’s important for the Sadc region to adopt the same standard to avoid interference in radio frequency spectrum. — Candice Jones, TechCentral
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