BOTSWANA Television (Btv) looks set to adopt the latest broadcast digital technology, known as the ISDB, popularised by Japan and Brazil, writes Monkagedi Gaotlhobogw in Mmegi.
The technology will be unveiled in Gaborone during a one-day seminar scheduled for the Btv auditorium next Monday. The Department of Broadcasting Services (DBS) will host the seminar.
DBS director Mogomotsi Kaboeamodimo says in a release that they hope Japan and Brazil would share their experiences with Botswana and other African countries on the introduction of the broadcast technology. Kaboeamodimo says he hopes that in future the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region will also adopt the system to meet the demands of the technology he describes as a revolution. Both Brazil and Japan ISDB delegations are scheduled to make a combined presentation at Btv about the benefits of the technology. According to the Wipikedia encyclopedia, the ISDB is a Japanese standard for digital television (DTV) and digital radio used by the country's radio and television stations.
The encyclopedia explains that the concept was named for its similarity to ISDN, because both allow multiple channels of data to be transmitted together (a process called multiplexing). The ISDB-T technology was adopted for commercial transmissions in Japan in December 2003 and currently comprises a market of about 100 million television sets and had 10 million subscribers by the end of April 2005.
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