Digital TV looks to Greater China

Digital television industry representatives yesterday expressed their intention to collaborate to tap the massive Greater China market, saying this would create a win-win situation both for the sector and the Chinese audience.

"Taiwan can serve as a digital content provider, as programs produced in the nation are popular among many Chinese-language speaking countries," said Nelson Chang (張安平), chief executive officer of China Network Systems Co (中嘉網路), a local multiple system operator that also runs digital TV, at a forum yesterday.

To stay in step with global trends, the Taiwan government pledges to bring digital TV service to 50 percent of the nation's households by 2006. Currently, there are three major digital TV operators including China Network Systems, Taiwan Broadband Corp (台灣寬頻) and Eastern Multimedia Co (東森媒體科技).

Currently, digital TV providers here are merely interested in shifting most of their cable TV programs to the digital platform. This is not nearly enough, Chang said, to fulfill consumers' expectations of digital service. Therefore, Taiwanese content providers need to target China instead of the local market to develop a variety of programs, Chang said.

"I think both the infrastructure and market for digital TV are mature, the next step will be providing what the audience really wants," Chang said.

Chang said China's huge market scale will no doubt drive the industry across the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese government has vowed to promote its digital TV service, aiming to end traditional analog broadcasts in 33 major cities by the end of 2005, the <

Gao Yue (高悅), vice president of Shanghai Interactive Television Co (上海文廣互動電視) agreed that Taiwan's content and experience in operating the service will help to grow the business in China.

Gao, who joined the forum yesterday via video conferencing, said Shanghai Interactive TV launched its first digital TV channel in China in June. So far they have garnered about 20,000 subscribers, he said.

Fundamental to any chance of getting cross-strait cooperation, however, is a unified digital TV system, said Felix Chen (陳盛沺), chairman of Sampo Corp (聲寶), the nation's largest consumer electronics maker.

Taiwan's digital TV service providers have decided to adopt Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB) system. But their Chinese counterparts have not yet decided on a broadcasting format. Operators are using a number of different formats there including DVB, Conditional Access (CA) and Advanced Digital Television Broadcast-Terrestrial (ADTB-T) a format developed in China itself.

"We're also aware of this problem? I think it will take some time for us to resolve the system differences," Zheng Shibao (鄭世寶), an IC professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Another issue that was discussed yesterday is the price of set-top box, which is considered too high, and may thereby impeded digital adoption on both sides of the Strait. Descramblers are priced at about 950 yuan in China, and a minimum of NT$3,500 in Taiwan.

Liao Ching-chung (廖欽崇), project manager of Cirmaker Technology Corp (得益電訊精密科技), a set-top box maker, admitted that these high prices were an obstacle, estimating that it would take 10 to 15 years for the price to slide in view of the the slow market demand.

"Most Chinese households cannot afford the device, nor does the price seem acceptable among Taiwanese consumers," Liao told the Taipei Times. "The industrialists should hold back their optimism before solving this issue."