DD moving to digitisation through Freedish and DTT: Rathore

DD moving to digitisation through Freedish and DTT: Rathore

NEW DELHI: The percentage of rural viewers who are accessing Doordarshan through its terrestrial network is 7-8 per cent of 170 million TV households, Parliament was told today.

 

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore addressing the Parliament said that 28.73 per cent of the total expenditure of Doordarshan was spent on terrestrial distribution in the year 2013-14.

 
Prasar Bharati has informed that it has decided upon progressive digitisation of Doordarshan’s transmission network by way of expansion of DD Freedish and setting up of a commercially viable Digital Terrestrial Transmitter (DTT) platform in harmony with the recommendations of the Expert Committee.

In order to gain experience in digital transmission technology, Doordarshan had set up four digital transmitters, one each at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai in January 2003 on an experimental basis using DVB-T system. 

Four digital HPTs (HDTV) have been installed at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai which are ready for commissioning. Prasar Bharati has informed the Ministry that 40 digital HPTs (DVB-T2) under 11th Plan and 23 digital HPTs (DVB-T2) under 12th Plan have been approved as part of digitisation schemes. Out of 40 digital HPTs, 19 are presently under implementation. 

 

The 19 digital transmitters include two each in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The other states apart from Delhi are Assam, Bihar, Chhatisgarh, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha, Punjab, Tanil Nadu, Telengana, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.