After nearly two years of technical tests, the Chilean government announced that this country will adopt the digital terrestrial television standard developed by Japan and Brazil that offers – according to the president of Chile, Michell Bachelet – a better quality of reception and allows the emergence of more programming alternatives for Viewers.
In the speech announcing this decision, Bachelet stressed that to reach this result, field tests of digital television were carried out in Santiago during the second half of 2007, in charge of DICTUC, an organization belonging to the Catholic University. In addition, since that date and during 2008, a series of theoretical and practical studies were carried out regarding the quality of the reception of digital television standards, with the participation of important universities.
Listing the reasons that led to the adoption of this standard, the Chair noted that the ISDB-T standard allows for a better quality of digital television reception, given the characteristics of the country; makes it possible to capture the television of free reception on the cell phone; and creates more programming alternatives for viewers.
"Once this norm is adopted, it is also necessary to approve, by Congress, the necessary regulation. That is why a few months ago we sent a bill that makes it possible to achieve this objective, favoring the development of local, community, regional, cultural and children's television, and that encourages the development of new content. And we hope to reach a broad consensus on these matters," Bachelet added.
For his part, the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, René Cortázar, said that the government's decision to choose the ISDB-T standard with MPEG 4 for digital television is "very good news for 15 million Chileans, and will be an important step in the full installation of digital television in Chile, with all the opportunities that are offered for people."
In this way, Chile, Peru, Brazil and Argentina unify their digital television model to be adopted and it is expected that, in the coming months, Ecuador and Venezuela will support the same decision.
