Friday, July 1, 2011

Terrestrial Digital Broadcasting in Japan

Welcome back to JJNN.

Today's article is from asahi.com

How many of you guys enjoy a good sit down to watch TV every now and again. I know I have a lot of shows that I like to watch on a regular basis and I get a little grumpy if I can't watch them. Unfortunately, starting next month there might be a lot of people that might not be able to watch TV any more.

Here in Japan the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) have decided that they don't want to have any more analog broadcasts any more starting on the 24th of next month. From that day on they will switch to Terrestrial Digital Broadcasting (TDB). In other words, it is a digital signal that is not transmitted by a satellite but from a transmission tower on the Earth.

That’s fine because it will give everyone a new, higher quality version, of all their favorite TV shows. But, as with most things, there is a drawback. There are a lot of people that have yet to upgrade their TVs or get a digital tuner box for their home. Which, of course, means that from the 24th of next month they will not be able to watch TV any more.

At the end of May, 510 thousand homes without the ability to watch TDB. The bright side is that now there are only 335 thousand homes unable to get TBD. Within the number is also the number of houses unable to get the signal because they live in the shadow of a tall building or in the mountains.

Personally I wonder about those people that just haven’t gotten the tuner. It was given out freely by the government for over a year. The MIC has been running commercials constantly, peen pushing their mascot on people during sporting events and even taking out ads in newspapers amongst other things.

It is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 地デジ(地デジ). It is pronounced chi-deji and it means Terrestrial Digital Broadcasting.

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