The transition to digital television broadcasting was completed yesterday with the transmission of analog signals for terrestrial TV being officially phased out nationwide.
“We are witnessing a historic moment,” Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) said at a changeover ceremony hosted by the National Communications Commission (NCC) in Taipei.
In a four-phase process that started on May 7, northern Taiwan was the last area to finally make the transition from analog to fully digital wireless high-tech TV broadcasting.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Turning off the analog terrestrial TV transmission meant that “a digitalized era of high-definition TV has come,” Chen said, adding that challenges of digitalizing cable TV and improving the quality of featured content still lie ahead.
The representative of the Association of Terrestrial Television Networks, Li Tai-lin (李泰臨), who is chief executive of China Television Co, said that while digitalization is certainly an improvement to the quality and diversification of terrestrial TV broadcasting, there is still pressure for the terrestrial TV companies to provide high quality content for the increased bandwidths.
According to commission Chairperson Su Herng (蘇蘅), the digitalization of TV broadcasts is a ongoing trend unfolding rapidly around the world.
Germany and Switzerland have already made the switch, the US did so in 2009, the UK began in 2007 and is scheduled complete the process this year, while Asian countries such as Japan completed the move last year and South Korea is scheduled to be finished by the end of the year, Su said.
Although improving the quality of domestic TV programs may be a tough challenge, the commission has requested that the companies provide at least one to three hours of high definition content per day in the initial stage, Su said.
TV companies will also have to consider how best to improve their content to meet the interactive features of digital TV, Su added.
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’: A man watching Taiwanese military drills said that there would be nothing anyone could do if the situation escalates in the Taiwan Strait Many people in Taiwan look upon China’s military exercises over the past week with calm resignation, doubting that war is imminent and if anything, feeling pride in their nation’s determination to defend itself. After a visit to Taiwan last week by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China has sent ships and aircraft across an unofficial buffer between Taiwan and China’s coast and missiles over Taipei and into waters surrounding the nation since Thursday last week. However, Rosa Chang, proudly watching her son take part in Taiwanese military exercises that included dozens of howitzers firing shells into the Taiwan Strait off
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical