Communications Minister Radhakrishna Padayachie.

SA is to adopt the European digital television standard of DVB-T2, while Cabinet has extended the analogue switch-off date from November 2011 to December 2013, said Communications Minister Radhakrishna Padayachie at a press conference in Midrand on Friday.

Padayachie said that the government was committed to switching off analogue broadcasts before June 2015, the international cut-off date prescribed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

It ends months of speculation about which digital model SA would adopt.

In 2008 it was decided that the country would adopt the European DVB-T standard, but in April the Department of Communications announced that it was considering the possibility of ISDB-T, a Brazilian version of a Japanese standard.

The southern Africa region - with SA as the key player - is migrating to a digital broadcasting platform from analogue in line with ITU requirements.

The minister said that, in the first quarter of 2010, a team of Southern African Development Community (SADC) officials recommended that governments in the region should review the adopted DTT standard. This period also saw the opening of discussions about considering DTT standard as an alternative to DVB-T, which has since been advanced to DVB-T2.

“This recommendation by the officials of SADC was given further impetus by the second DTT Working Session held in Lesotho in April 2010,” Padayachie said.

“The meeting of SADC ICT [information and communication technologies] ministers in Angola in May 2010 accepted the recommendation to review the standard and agreed on the establishment of a task team made up of representatives of all member countries,” he added.

He said that the task team undertook various studies that culminated in a comprehensive report detailing the advantages and disadvantages of DVB-T, DVB-T2 and ISDB-T respectively.

Padayachie said that the SADC ministers then met in Zambia and affirmed the initial decision to adopt DVB-T as a preferred standard, with DVB-T2 having since been introduced as a second-generation standard.

Of the 14 SADC countries present, 12 countries agreed to the adoption of DVB-T2 as a common standard for the region.

“DVB-T2 is about 50% more spectrum efficient than DVB-T and ISDB-T.

About eight to ten channels can be accommodated in a DVB-T multiplex. Thus 12-15 channels could be accommodated in a single DVB-T2 multiplex. DVB-T2 is capable of carrying a HDTV, SDTV and mobile television multiplex over a single transmission network,” the minister said. - I-Net Bridge