Over the past 50 years of Television broadcasting, the TV picture quality has improved substantially. From a hazy Black & White picture, current day TV offers a satisfying colour picture for home entertainment.

However, technology marches on, and the falling prices of large screen LCD and Plasma TVs has brought these 40inch and larger TV screens into Indian homes. To obtain good picture quality on these large TV screens, the TV technology itself needs to take a quantum leap.

THE FILM BENCHMARK

The cinema film still remains the resolution standard that television aspires to. To meet this challenge, High Definition TV (HDTV) has been launched. "True HDTV" requires a resolution of 1920 x 1080. This standard is not easily achieved by most of today's large screen TVs and DVD players. A step lower - "HDTV Ready" refers to resolution of 1280 x 720. Both the resolution figures are applicable for the widescreen - 16:9 aspect ratio, and not the 4x3 aspect ratio that is common for conventional CRT based TV sets. 'HD Ready' rather than 'True HD TV' is currently the popular HDTV standard in Europe.

OLYMPIC QUALITY LEAP

The Beijing Olympics, to be broadcast in August 2008 are anticipated to provide a true thrust for HDTV content and reception. Manufacturers of HDTV equipment including TV sets, cameras as well as Studio broadcast systems are rapidly converting to HDTV in time for the Beijing Olympics.

Unfortunately, India has not joined the "Olympics In HDTV" race.

As a slow starter, India plans to roll out commercial HDTV transmission only in time for the Commonwealth games to be held in Delhi in 2010 .

DOORDARSHAN'S ANNOUNCEMENT

Taking its first step towards bringing HDTV to India, public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has declared last month that it will soon commence HDTV transmissions on an experimental basis. Doordarshan plans to formally introduce HDTV in the country by 2010 so that Indian TV viewers can receive the Commonwealth Games in HDTV.

GOVT'S ANNOUNCEMENT

The Planning Commission's Working Group on Information and Broadcasting report for the 11th Five Year Plan has stressed on the importance of and the need to establish HDTV which enables delivery of better quality pictures to viewers' homes and is considered as an important area in upcoming technologies.

The Central government believes that HDTV format is fast catching up globally and needs to be established for the telecast of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi before 2010 and later across the country.

The Central government is looking at formulating a policy framework to introduce and promote HDTV in India. This will dove-tail with the government's plan to switch off analog CATV before the Commonwealth Games in the Capital and across the country by 2015.

"Telecom regulator TRAI has submitted its recommendations to the I&B ministry, under which the regulator has suggested that in the first phase, cities which have over one million population be digitised," said a TRAI official.

As far as the digitisation plans are concerned, the I&B ministry is running behind schedule for the roll out of CAS.

FALLING COSTS

The government's late start in adopting HDTV has been attributed to the high cost of the cameras and studio equipment. However, the cost of HDTV Ready cameras has fallen dramatically in the past 2 years.
Infact at the CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2007 in January this year, figures revealed that pornography saw a huge boom in revenues due to it adopting HDTV cameras. Pornographic movies are typically produced by individuals or small start up companies. The price of HDTV cameras had fallen to a level which even they could afford !

SPECIAL HARDWARE

However, HDTV reception requires the use of special HDTV ready satellite receivers for DTH or STBs for CATV. Even the R.F. tuners built into TV sets for terrestrial reception will have to be different for HDTV reception. Ofcourse SD (Standard Definition) TV sets based on existing CRT displays will also not be capable of HDTV reception.

While there is still time for widespread HDTV adoption in India, Doordarshan's test transmissions could provide the much needed 'Kick- Star' for increased awareness and subsequent rapid adoption of HDTV in India.

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