Technical Difficulties Delay China's TV Plan
Chinese engineers have had to delay their schedule for releasing a homegrown technology for digital television, a setback for a program that is a key part of China's drive for independence in major high-tech sectors.
A researcher involved in the process said last year's field tests were deemed "not sufficient" to make a final decision on the standard. The researcher said authorities also needed more time to assess the intellectual property-rights situation, as many new patent applications involving digital television have been filed.
"The Chinese government has insisted that the deadline is the end of this year. We are working hard to work out a unified proposal by the middle of this year, to allow the authorities to do official tests in the second half of the year," this person said.
China has the largest number of television viewers world-wide, with TV sets in more than 300 million households, and the government wants to ensure that domestically owned technologies play a role in the coming switch to digital and high-definition television, or HDTV. It had planned to release the standard at the end of 2003, but that deadline passed without an announcement.
A standard is an agreement, or requirement, to use a set of patented processes to accomplish a particular task -- in this case, sending and receiving digital television signals over the airwaves. China also is developing its own domestic standards for wireless computer networks, called WiFi; third-generation, or 3G, mobile phones; and the audio and video compression technologies used in digital-video-disc players.
The impulse behind this surge of research efforts is simple: While China makes a huge amount of electronic products, foreign companies capture much of the value of those goods because they own many of the patents involved. But as the delay in the TV standard shows, it isn't necessarily easy for China independently to develop, by government decree, complex technologies that have taken years to evolve elsewhere.
"Standards are things that are always very tricky," said Marcus Sigurdsson, an analyst with market researcher Gartner Inc., adding that China was trying to include some ambitious capabilities in its TV standard. "The industry will be cautious of what standard to choose for the equipment, and rollout will naturally be delayed," he said.
Other digital-TV standards have been put forth in Europe, Japan and the U.S. In Hong Kong, which has a separate regulatory regime from mainland China, the government says it won't impose a standard, but is recommending the use of the European DVB, or digital video broadcasting, standard when digital broadcasts start in 2006. And while China is holding out for a domestic technology to use for over-the-air broadcasts, it has decided to use DVB for digital TV carried by cable and satellite.
That use of an existing technology has helped rapidly increase the number of digital cable subscribers, as operators can easily use off-the-shelf products to upgrade from the old analog systems. Though proper statistics on this new area aren't yet available, the government is targeting 10 million digital cable users nationwide by the end of this year, and 30 million by 2005 -- out of a total cable subscriber base of nearly 100 million.
Indeed, some analysts are skeptical that there will be much of a market in China for devices to receive digital terrestrial broadcasts. Early commercial trials are scheduled for 2005 -- assuming the standard is finalized in time -- and broadcasts won't be widely available until 2008, in time for the Summer Olympics in Beijing. By that time, many well-off urban households will have upgraded to digital cable, giving them little incentive to switch again.
But the government seems firmly set on using the leverage from its technical standards to boost the domestic electronics industry. Its efforts to use another standard, for WiFi networks, to aid local companies at the expense of foreign rivals have drawn protests from some affected companies.
"Having a domestic standard makes sure that domestic firms are able to position themselves without having to compete with companies that already have the product available," said Gartner's Mr. Sigurdsson.
中国数字电视计划遭遇技术难关
因技术原因，中国不得不延迟推出自己的数字电视技术。中国一直希望摆脱主要高科技领域中对外国技术的依赖，而推出自主研发的数字电视计划正是这一努力的关键部分。
中国的电视观众总数为全球之最，有超过3亿家庭拥有电视机。中国政府希望，在电视机行业向数字电视和高清晰度电视(HDTV)更新换代的过程中，确保中国自主研发的技术发挥作用。政府原计划2003年底公布新的标准，虽然在最后期限结束前未能推出标准的消息并未宣布过。
一名研究员表示，去年进行的现场测试被认为还不足以使政府作出推出新标准的最终决定。他表示，由于有许多有关数字电视的新专利申请被提交，政府也需要更多时间来评估知识产权状况。 上述人士表示，政府坚持今年年底是最后期限，因此他们需要努力在年中前提交一个统一的建议，以保证政府能在下半年进行正式测试。
在电视领域，上述所谓标准即使用一套专利程序收发数字电视信号的协议或要求。中国同时还在开发一系列自主研发的标准：如用于无线电脑网络的标准，又称WiFi；用于第三代(3G)手机的标准；用于DVD播放器的音频和视频压缩技术标准。
进行上述一系列研究的目的很简单，那就是，尽管中国制造了大量电子产品，但这些产品的利润大多为外国公司所攫取，原因是他们拥有其中许多专利。推迟公布数字电视标准表明，中国政府靠指令来独立开发上述复杂技术并非易事，在世界其它地方，开发这些技术通常要许多年。
Gartner的分析师Marcus Sigurdsson表示，标准通常是很难界定的东西，整个行业在选择标准时都会很谨慎，因此标准的推出自然会被推迟。
欧洲、日本和美国均已颁布了各自的数字电视标准。香港特区政府表示不会强制规定一种标准，但他们推荐在数字广播于2006年在香港推出时采用欧洲的DVB标准。虽然中国大陆政府仍支持使用自己的技术进行无线广播，但已决定通过有线电视和卫星传播的节目采用DVB数字电视标准。
使用现有技术有助于数字有线电视的用户人数快速增加，因为运营商可以很容易地使用现成产品升级旧的模拟信号系统，虽然还没有相关的统计数字，但政府的目标是：到2004年底，在全国现有1亿使用有线电视服务的用户中，实现数字有线电视用户1,000万，到2005年底达到3,000万。
的确，一些分析师对数位地面广播接收设备是否有足够市场持怀疑态度。在假设标准如期推出的前提下，数位地面广播的早期商业尝试将于2005年开始进行，2008年北京夏季奥运会前才会进行广泛推广。在此之前，一些较富裕的城市居民应该已经升级到数字有线电视，他们可能不会愿意再进行设备变更。 但中国政府似乎坚持通过推出自主研发的技术标准来推动国内电子行业发展。政府通过要求使用另一种用于WiFi网络的标准帮助本国企业，这已经招来了一些外国公司的抗议。
Sigurdsson表示，拥有自主研发的标准可以确保国内企业避开与那些已拥有现成产品的公司展开竞争。
