Indonesia’s broadcasting goes digital

Indonesia’s analog broadcasting, on both radio and television, will migrate to digital technology soon.

By enacting Law No. 32/2002, the country’s broadcasting will become digital. According to State Minister of Communications and Information Sofyan Djalil, trials for radio and television digital broadcasting as well as digital TV in mobile phones are in progress.
Speaking at the International Broadcast & Multimedia Expo (IBEX) 2006 recently at The Westin Resort, Nusa Dua, Bali, Djalil stated that reforming both the broadcast and frequency spectrum into digital form will achieve quality broadcasting as well as boost the country’s broadcasting market.

Secretary-general of the Asia Pacific Broadcast Union David Astley, who also spoke at the three-day-conference, said that Indonesia is an important broadcast market in the region. “The migration process to digital broadcasting that Indonesia has tried to implement now is urgently needed since analog technology is dying,” he added.

Indonesia has the second-greatest number of radio and television stations in the world after China. The country has one public TV station, 10 national private stations, 70 local private stations, two cable, one satellite, and more than 1,800 radio stations.

Most are currently still using analog broadcast technology.

Lily Rustandi, a digital expert at the Office of the State Minister of Communications and Information, who spoke on the second day of the conference, revealed that the launch schedule will be at the “right” time — not too late, so local industries and broadcasters will maximize the benefit; but not too early, to ensure the “readiness” of the industries.

However, digital technology is not alien to broadcast stations in Indonesia. For instance, several broadcasting studios, both public and private, have currently processed their video-audio signal in digital form.

“All TV broadcasting stations send their signal to respective relay stations in the regional area via satellite using the DVB-S (digital) system,” said Lily. Some subscriber broadcasting stations, cable and satellite, have also adopted digital systems (DVB-C and DVB-S).

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Why should Indonesia adopt digital broadcasting technology? Digital offers transmitting power efficiency, value-added service, better video-audio quality, good-quality reception for mobility and convergence with other applications such as mobile phones and PC. In addition, many other countries have already migrate to digital technology.

The national team from the Office of the State Minister of Communications and Information is conducting a digital standard trial test for radio by implementing the U.S. IBOC system (In Band On Channel) and Europe’s DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) in Jakarta and Surabaya.

“The IBOC trial had better audio quality — there is no interference between frequency and the frequency channel on its side,” Lily explained. For the DAB trial, equipment and transmitter devices for DAB are expected to arrive in Jakarta in the middle of December 2006.

The team is also conducting trials for digital TV by using China’s DMB-T, Europe’s DVB-T and DVB-based IP (Internet protocol) in Jakarta. The DMB-T trial test was temporarily halted because frequency 27 was being used by Spacetoon TV station.

The DVB-T trial has been in progress since July to December 2006. It is being conducted in turns by TVRI and RCTI. A DVB-based IP trial will be held at TVRI from December 2006 to April 2007, using the same channel as channel 34.

The trial of digital standard for mobile TV is also in progress. By using DVB-H, which adapts the successful DVB-T system for digital terrestrial television to the specific requirements of handheld, battery-powered receivers, it is possible to watch SCTV, Metro TV and TVRI programs on a handset such as the Nokia N92.

A combination of conventional digital video and IP, DVB-H scales for smaller devices a technology that is already in place in millions of TV sets worldwide.

DVB-H will be accessible by an audience of approximately 300 million mobile users by 2006.

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Even though it has not been officially disclosed yet, from the trials, Indonesia will likely implement Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) technology for its digital broadcast solution. Moreover, a trusted source close to the national team confirmed this.

DVB-T is the youngest of the three core DVB systems — DVB-C for cable and DVB-S for satellite being the other two — and the most sophisticated.

Based on COFDM (Coded Orthogonal Frequency Divisional Multiplexing) and QPSK, 16 QAM and 64 QAM modulation, it is the most sophisticated and flexible digital terrestrial transmission system available today.

DVB-T allows service providers to match, and even improve on, analog coverage — at a fraction of the power. It extends the scope of digital terrestrial television into the mobile field, which was simply not possible before, or with other digital systems. As such, it is future-proof.

DVB is a suite of internationally accepted, open standards for digital television maintained by the DVB Project, an industry consortium with more than 270 members.

This standard has been established by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

DVB technology has become an integral part of global broadcasting, setting the global standard for satellite, cable and terrestrial transmissions and equipment.

Since its conception in 1993, the DVB Project has proven the value and viability of pre-competitive cooperation in the development of open digital television standards.

According to DVD’s website (www.dvb.org), DVB’s open standards guarantee fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms and conditions with regard to Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), allowing them to be freely adopted and utilized worldwide.

Truly market-led, the DVB Project works to strict commercial requirements established by organizations that work every day to meet its needs. This allows for considerable economies of scale and ensures that its members and finally the viewing public will benefit in the transformation to digital television.

Open standards guarantee that compliant systems will be able to work together, independent of which manufacturer provided the equipment. Designed with a maximum amount of commonality and based on the MPEG-2 coding system, DVB signals may be effortlessly carried from one medium to another, a frequent need in today’s complex signal distribution environment.

DVB delivers virtually any digital to the home. Whether it is High-Definition TV, multiple channel Standard definition TV (PAL, NTSC or SECAM) or new broadband multimedia content and interactive services, DVB delivers as it uses MPEG-2 packets as “data containers”, and the critical DVB Service Information surrounding and identifying those packets.

DVB’s main transmission standards, DVB-S for Satellite, DVB-C for Cable, DVB-T for terrestrial and DVB-H for mobile phone, dominate the world and are the basis for most of the alternative standards.

So, Indonesia’s choice on this technology is already on the right track.

Welcome to the digital world!

Budi Putra (The Jakarta Post)

Related story:

• Indonesian TV goes mobile

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