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Japan's TV Broadcasts To Be All-Digital By 2011

Posted by timothy on from the thou-shalt dept.

Azuma writes "Officially, Japan will end Analog broadcasting by year 2011. Terrestrial digital television broadcasting services started on Monday, December 1st in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, with Japan Broadcasting Corp (NHK) and private TV stations broadcasting special commemorative programs. The services will initially be available to around 12 million households. Here is an article from Chinaview. The Daily Yomiuri reports that small local TV stations are at a disadvantage due to high costs of the new technology."

6 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. Of course! by Kris_J · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Since migration to digital TV is going so well in the rest of the world...

    I'll get a digital TV tuner when one is bundled in a video game console that I want. That's why I have a DVD player.

  2. A little quick? by Trbmxfz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Viewers will replace about 100 million old TV sets

    Hmm... Just 8 years for the population to replace all of their TVs sounds a little quick. Or does absolutely everyone in Japan replace their equipment way often?

    Wouldn't lots of people be pissed off if such a change was announced in the USA? Your opinions are welcome.

  3. I doubt the US will ever see conversion by 0x0d0a · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm starting to suspect that the United States will never see conversion.

    We have fast enough and cheap enough hardware now that it's feasible (nicer) home connections to stream down much-better-than-TV video over an Internet connection. There are a number of improvements to make in upstream distribution structure, but ultimately, despite the fact that IP currently provides essentially nothing by way of real-time guarantees, my guess is that we'll slowly start seeing more and more Internet-based systems. It just doesn't make sense to have a single purpose dedicated system just for TV.

    I suspect that those cheap consumer broadband routers will start having a "smart bandwidth allocation" feature that the ISP will also grok which guarantees real-time delivery (well, over the last and slowest leg of the trip). It wouldn't be a very difficult system to devise -- system on local network allocates bandwidth from router, router talks to upstream system.

    A healthy amount of precaching would be important -- this could be an issue in sports, where having a sub-one-minute precache is essential to many hardcore fans. It'd work wonderfully for almost anything else, though.

    --
    May we never see th
  4. Re:digital Soupy Sales by macshit · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I agree that J TV often sucks, but hey, so does U.S. TV (UK TV, OTOH, is far better than both).

    But still there's a fair amount that's entertaining, if not very highbrow, e.g.:
    • Wacky public service shows, like a half-hour long celebrity extragavanza on how to properly freeze food or put your recycyling out on the curb (really).
    • Anything involving that comedy duo of the tall blonde cheerful looking guy with a mohawk, and the short stubby bitter looking guy with the really thick glasses (what the hell are their names?). They seem to have hosted a million wacky shows, and all of those I've seen have been very funny (like the one where they [and their cohorts] had 1 minute 30 seconds to perform these bizarre skits involving Complicated and Very Strenuous Actions, with no prior rehearsals)
    • Spooky Mysterious `This Really Happened' [Could it be ... Satan?!?] shows. I think these are really well-done, much spookier than the equivalent shows I've seen in the U.S.
    • Cross-dressing comedy
    • Shows involving pain
    --
    We live, as we dream -- alone....
  5. Meanwhile, in Osaka... by windside · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As far as English news sources in Japan go, I've always found the Daily Yoimuri highly dubious and I really don't see how a Chinese newspaper is relevant. Here's the story from the Japan Times, which I read this morning over my granola, thinking "Jeez, I should send this to Slashdot."

    This story is pretty close to my heart since I'm working on a project in Japan right now that aspires to distribute digital TV content via the internet instead of conventional channels. My understanding is that every major electronics manufacturer in Japan is working on the same sort of thing, so reading that the Japanese government "has vowed to phase out analog broadcasting by 2011" doesn't necessarily mean that this country is headed the same way as the US. As usual, Japan will most likely do its own thing.

    --
    ...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
    Churchill
  6. HDTV broadcasts, not HDTV cable by stiller · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is in fact silly to think that in 8 years, every television will have to be replaced by a HDTV because of a sudden revolution.
    Why, already a large number of people have broadband internet connections in their home. (At least here in Europe you can easily get 8Mbit for a very reasonable price)
    So chances are, in 1 or 2 years, some bright mind will start providing for all early adopting tech geeks by streaming HDTV standard compliant video from his website. This would only require an upgrade of whatever media player they'll be using.
    Soon after people will develop cheap (linux based, ofcourse!) standalone players that only require a monitor and an xDSL connection. A surge in HDTV set sales will be the result.
    Why should HDTV emerge from the same, centrally directed, mass-oriented cable companies? When did they develop something new? It will happen, but not in the form you're thinking of.