Ghana adopts DVB-T2 transmission standard for television

Government has accepted the recommendations of the Digital Broadcasting Migration Committee (DBMC) to adopt the second generation Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) standard, ETSIEN 302 755, popularly called, DVB-T2 for digital terrestrial television in Ghana.

It offers the flexibility of transmitting high definition (HD), standard definition (SD) and mobile television channels on the same transmission network. This was contained in a statement issued by the Ministry of Communications in Accra on Tuesday.

The terrestrial television stations: GTV, TV3, TV Africa, Crystal TV, Metro TV, Viasat1, Net-2 TV, e-TV Ghana, Coastal TV, GhOne, Top TV and all other stations with similar licenses will therefore migrate their transmissions from analogue to a digital platform in accordance with the Geneva 2006 (GE06) Agreement of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Digital broadcasting uses frequency more efficiently and produces better quality video and audio than analogue broadcasting. Several television stations can be carried on the same frequency bandwidth that carries only one analogue TV station. The result is a brighter, sharper picture image with much better sound quality and a lot more choice of programmes.

The Ministry said the standards accepted for digital television in Ghana were, Transmission standard – DVB-T2, Compression technology – Advanced Video Coding (AVC)/MPEG-4 (part 10) and High Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding (HE-AAC) and Application Programming Interface (API) for additional and interactive services – MHEG-5.

“Viewers with existing analogue TV sets can receive digital signals by attaching a set-top box (STB) to their TV sets. It is expected that the roll-out of a nationwide DTT network on the DVB-T2 standard shall commence in 2012,” it added. The statement said all vendors and equipment suppliers were directed to immediately cease the importation of DTT set-top boxes (STBs) and/or decoders until further notice.

The Ministry of Communications is collaborating with other relevant government agencies to ensure that only DTT receivers that conform to the national standard are sold in Ghana.