Now, is HDTV “the next best thing to being there,” or does it really stand for “Hyped-Up Digital Television”?
Satellite service providers in Asia and around the world are turning to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing in August for the answer to this $1080 question. The betting is that the Beijing Olympics, which China is marketing as the “HDTV Olympics,” will indeed accelerate the adoption of HDTV worldwide and will more than make up for HDTV’s underwhelming Olympic sports debut at Athens in 2004.
Media coverage of the Beijing Olympics should have a huge impact on consumer awareness of HDTV worldwide, and thus on the commercial success of satellite HDTV. With satellite HDTV, consumers have access to digital programming with
resolution as high as 1920 pixels x 1080 lines for some sets. In contrast, analog standard definition TV has a resolution of 704 x 480 pixels.
At the HD World conference in New York last year, NBC Sports executive producer David Neal described the Beijing Olympics as “a signature moment for the adoption of high-definition as a mainstream delivery medium for consumers”.
Beijing will be the first Olympics to be produced completely in high definition (HD). U.S. media giant NBC has exclusive rights to broadcast the Beijing Olympics in the USA, and paid $5.7 billion for exclusive U.S. broadcasting rights to the Olympic Summer and Winter Games from 2000 to 2012.
Neal said NBC would deliver about 756 hours of HD coverage from Beijing beginning Aug. 8. This is a huge increase from the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece where NBC produced just 399 hours in HD. He predicted that over 50% of U.S. households will have HDTV sets in 2008, a huge increase in HDTV audience for the Olympics.
During the Athens Olympics, NBC said its meager HD programming was curtailed by the HD technology made available by Olympic organizers. As a result, just two million U.S. homes received the Olympic HD feed. Some estimates placed this total at only 100,000 homes.
In contrast, China expects its Olympics to draw four billion viewers worldwide, one billion more than Athens did.
The Beijing Games will be covered by some 1,000 HD cameras and 65 HD mobile units. Olympic venues will also have fiber-optic cable systems for distributing HD signals, which will be used for TV relays for all 28 Olympics events.
All video content of the Beijing Olympics will be broadcast in high-definition (720p at 50 Hz or 1080i at 25 Hz) using China’s proprietary Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcast (DTMB) TV standard. DTMB is a fusion of three standards: DVB-T, ADTB-T and TiMi 3.
According to China’s Tenth Five Year Plan and 2010 long-range plan for radio, film and television, digital broadcasting is to be implemented throughout the country 2010. Analog TV will be completely phased out by 2015.
China was estimated to have 27 million digital TV users in 2007. Subscriber revenues are estimated to hit $358 million by 2011.
Kiyoshi Isozaki, President and CEO, JSAT Corporation, certainly seems to think HDTV is a winner. He said the company, Japan’s leading satellite services provider, expects to see demand growth for HDTV by taking opportunities presented by the Beijing Olympics.
He noted that Japanese terrestrial TV stations already broadcast some 80-90% of their programming in HDTV, which makes it comparatively easy to offer HDTV programming and value added services to subscribers.
Isozaki also expects JSAT to expand its business by unifying broadcasting and communications services such as IPTV, satellite, video on demand and WiMAX.
“We are developing a multiplatform strategy with satellite, (fiber to the home), IP and mobile,” he was quoted as saying.
Sky PerfecTV, Japan’s leading DTH provider, said HDTV will dominate its programming in 2008. In 2007, broadcaster NHK reported growth in HD receivers, displays and production facilities. Japanese HD programming has increased to more than 90% and to about 50% for educational TV.
Only five Asian countries (Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore) currently transmit in HD. New Zealand will join this group in July 2008, just in time for the Beijing Olympics.
In India, interest in HDTV is being stoked by the Commonwealth Games to be held in New Delhi in 2010 rather than the Beijing Olympics. Public broadcaster Doordarshan expects to have two HDTV channels operational in time for the Commonwealth Games, which will be broadcast entirely in HDTV. India is to begin its first test HDTV broadcasts this year courtesy of public broadcaster, Prasar Bharati.
In 2006, the number of households with HDTV set was estimated at 20 million worldwide with Japan and the USA accounting for most of this total.
