The seminar titled "The China’s DTTB Standard – A progress Report" was organized by SMPTE Hong Kong Section, and co-organized by Technology Exchange Ltd. The event held in Cyberport’s Digital Cinema was attended by over 300 audience.
 
The event featured speakers from mainland China and covered various aspect of Digital Terrestrial TV transmission: from key technologies involved to the issues relating to intellectual property rights(IPR) and the obstacles encountered during the application of this newly developed DTTV system in China.
 
The event was kicked off by an opening remark from Mr. Danny Lau, Assistant Director, Office of the Telecommunications Authority of the HKSAR Government. Mr. Lau is anxious to see the technical standard being finalized in China as well as the compatibility with the system that HK may adopt.
 
The first speaker Mr. Song Jian from Beijing is the Director of DTV Technical R&D Centre in Tsinghua University. He provided an overview on the key technologies on DTV standard adopted by China and the IPR right issues related to releasing the new standard to broadcasters and manufacturers of set-top boxes & TV sets.
 
Follow on the IPR right issue, Mr. He Dazhi, of Shanghai Chinips Electronics Ltd raised the concerns from the manufacturer’s point of view during the implementation phase of the new standard. The possible applications of the encryption technologies and the business opportunities and commercial strategies were discussed. It seems to be of prime importance of China to have full control over the IPR right of the standard to enable the mass production of its peripherals. The number of hardware being produced, such as TV set with built-in DTV tuner, set-top boxes, modulation hardware, would be massive and licensing of the technologies has to be a sound commercial decision.
 
Mr. Guo Ke, Chairman of Digital TV Industrial Alliance pointed out the difficulties faced by the manufacturers of set-top boxes. The limited information available on the China’s DTV standard and its patent process were both the causes of uncertainty . Mr. Ke was able to express his serious concerns in a humorous way.
 
Last speaker Mr. Niu Zhaohui, the deputy secretary-General of the AVS Industrial Alliance provided an update on AVS technology and its application on digital terrestrial TV broadcasting and China’s mobile multi-media broadcasting.
 
Their insights on the technology prompted many questions from enthusiastic audiences from both the academic and the implementation sides.
 
The Afternoon’s event was welcomed by engineers of the local TV industry as the speakers were able to provide an in-depth analysis on the technology, the commercial viability and to share their concerns about the obstacles that engineers have to overcome.
 
Following the seminar, a delightful gathering of 60 people were entertained by the sponsored of the event – Ideal Systems Asia Pacific Ltd. The Dinner gathering was a great opportunity to recap and share opinions with the speakers and other participants. With Hong Kong soon to announce its DTTV standard, the seminar was considered as timely organized as well as very helpful to the practitioners in the industry.