Trends in television in Olympic year - Anga 2008

The next Anga Cable in Cologne is taking place from May 27 to 29, 2008. This exhibition and conference is dedicated to cable television, broadband networks, and satellite broadcasting. There will be 369 exhibitors from 28 countries. The organizers are expecting about 10 000 visitors.

ANGA Cable has become the most important trade exhibition of TV technology and related areas in Europe.

Great sporting events are very important for television market - they generate demand for new services, can be a breakthrough in introducing new technologies to the public.

This year the technology that has a chance for popularization due to sports transmissions is HDTV.
The first step was free HDTV transmissions on the British Freesat platform, which began in May. It has created demand for suitable receivers, adaptation of existing antenna systems to new requirements, multiswitch installations.

On the one hand it seems that there is a market opportunity for DVB-T receivers with MPEG-4 decoders. Practically all European countries plan to introduce the system enabling terrestrial HD transmissions. On the other hand, only several countries have adopted this standard, so the manufacturers cannot take advantage of mass production.

China managed to implement terrestrial HDTV

In January 2008 there was started terrestrial HDTV transmission in the Beijing area. Until the Olympics open in Beijing in August, the transmissions will have been available in the rest of the host cities: Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenyang, Qingdao, Qinhuangdao, as well as in Guangzhou and Shenzhen industrial zones. China plans to deploy the infrastructure in the whole country by 2010.

HDTV broadcasts will be available also via mobile devices. Intel, in cooperation with Silicon Legend, has prepared Intel Centrino processor dedicated for reception of the Chinese television. In June there are expected laptops from leading manufacturers, which will enable the users on the go to watch transmissions of the Olympic Games in HDTV standard. These will be products of Lenovo, HP, Asus, Sony, Samsung, and Toshiba for Chinese market.

CeBIT 2008 - photo report

HD DVD - the end of competition

On February 19, 2008, Toshiba officially announced the discontinuation of HD DVD format. It means end of the "second technological war" for video recording standard. Before the latest campaign for blue-laser format - HD DVD vis a vis Blu-ray, there was the clash between videotape formats - VHS vis a vis Betamax.

Probably the final blow was dealt by Warner Bros - it was the information about decision of releasing its high-definition DVD titles exclusively in Blu-ray disc format - beginning since June this year. After that Wal-Mart Stores decided to withdraw HD DVD players. It did not help at all that Xbox 360 consoles equipped with HD DVD players sold well in the end of last year (ca 100,000 pieces). Toshiba informed about a million HD DVD players sold by January of 2008. There were released 386 HD DVD films in the U.S., and 214 in Japan.