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New Delhi: The set-top box interoperability impasse in the DTH industry has now afflicted the policy-making in personal video recorders. The information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry wants the personal video recorders of DTH service providers based on the two prevailing compression technologies (MPEG 2 and MPEG 4) to be interoperable, a proposal not feasible to apply at the current level of technology.
In a letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), I&B has said, “Broadly, the ministry is of the view that the specification of the STBs should be so designed as to ensure effective interoperability both ‘intra’ and ‘inter’ between DTH operators using both MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 technologies”. This implies the ministry wants subscribers to migrate between technologies and across service providers without hindrance, if they so desire.
While shifting across DTH operators within the same technology is possible, and moving from MPEG 4 to MPEG 2 is also possible for a subscriber while retaining his set-top box, migration from MPEG 2 to MPEG 4 is not technologically possible to attain today. Trai has conveyed the same to I&B. As per Trai’s understanding of the subject, interoperability within MPEG 2 or within MPEG 4 is technically feasible as far as basic functions of set top box are concerned. The same is also the case for interoperability from MPEG 4 to MPEG 2 migration from a DTH operator using MPEG 4 to another operator using MPEG 2. However, the reverse, migration from MPEG 2 to MPEG 4 is not technically feasible even in respect of basic functions of set top box.
MPEG 2 and MPEG 4 are compression technologies that essentially determine the number of channels a DTH operator can carry on its platform. The advanced technology MPEG 4 enhances the capacity of an operator to carry more channels while the industry is divided on whether the advanced compression technology also enhances the quality of picture.
The interoperability crisis between MPEG technologies also riddles the regular set-top-boxes. The I&B ministry has referred the ongoing MPEG imbroglio in the DTH industry to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). While the law at present mandates interoperability between DTH operators, the same is not practically possible in today’s DTH marketplace. Currently, the two oldest DTH operators, Tata Sky and Dish TV are using the MPEG 2 technology for their regular set top boxes while the recently launched ADAG’s Big TV DTH, Bharti...
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