Digital Thailand and the future..

[Satcommlee]

Spent all day today at the Thaibex exhibition at Queen Sirikit Center in Bangkok, to see all the latest developments in Television broadcasting and wow! was I impressed..

Great line-up from MCOT, TRUE, CTH.. I've never seen dolphins and whales in 4K Ultra HD before!

True/MCOT were demoing 3D HD television and interactive set-top boxes and even remote controlled helicopters with camera's on them.. and all this by 2014 apparently!!

Anyway I am back home watching Local cable TV and it is snowy as usual and almost unwatchable...

2014!!! They must be having a laugh!

[jbrain]

2014!!! They must be having a laugh!

I make a wild guess that they are even serious about it.

[IMHO]

Digital free to air is in the final stages of going ahead in Thailand - 2014 sounds pretty realistic - if they can all agree on licensing (big players are complaining the barrier to entry for new players is too low), and just how long analog broadcasts will continue (big players want this to be short so they are not paying double-licenses for so long).

Note that digital FTA is not going to mean 4K broadcasts though - IIRC it'll max out at 1080i, same as digital satellite.

[drdoom6996]

Digital free to air is in the final stages of going ahead in Thailand - 2014 sounds pretty realistic - if they can all agree on licensing (big players are complaining the barrier to entry for new players is too low), and just how long analog broadcasts will continue (big players want this to be short so they are not paying double-licenses for so long).

Note that digital FTA is not going to mean 4K broadcasts though - IIRC it'll max out at 1080i, same as digital satellite.

Yep, sounds pretty neat. What programs will they offer? Currently no ESPN, EPL, extra charge for any HD, Movies 2 years old when they are new to TRUE, service stinks. Even if it is not a lie, the cost will be outrageous. I believe what I can see. And what I see is they can offer anything and provide what they want to provide. 2014, laughable.

[LivinLOS]

IMO the next few years will see a transition to IP TV..

Already with netflix, hulu, amazon, and various legal streaming services... The broadcast landscape is changing.

Its just a case of packaging these up into neater more user accessible interfaces and apps. Android media boxes now are cheap (sky sells one for 10 GBP that works with iPlayer, chromecast is 35 USD, the hardware is no longer any kind of limit) with enough processing for media playback. Net speeds are already good enough and accelerating all the time.

Currently it all works, but its still a bit geeky to roll all these into an xbmc or openelec front end, to tie your live streams, downloaded content, home music collection, etc etc all into one cohesive system with a clean remote control and wife friendly interface. As this becomes more mainstream, this will become easier until the TV will simply boot into the app.

[IMHO]

Digital free to air is in the final stages of going ahead in Thailand - 2014 sounds pretty realistic - if they can all agree on licensing (big players are complaining the barrier to entry for new players is too low), and just how long analog broadcasts will continue (big players want this to be short so they are not paying double-licenses for so long).

Note that digital FTA is not going to mean 4K broadcasts though - IIRC it'll max out at 1080i, same as digital satellite.

Yep, sounds pretty neat. What programs will they offer? Currently no ESPN, EPL, extra charge for any HD, Movies 2 years old when they are new to TRUE, service stinks. Even if it is not a lie, the cost will be outrageous. I believe what I can see. And what I see is they can offer anything and provide what they want to provide. 2014, laughable.

You're never going to get premium channels on free-to-air.

[BudRight]

Broadcast and cable is already obsolete. No-one wants to pay to watch commercials anymore.

[IMHO]

It appears some posters think this is something it's not.. to be clear, all this thread is talking about is the transition of the low quality, 4:3 aspect free to air content already available through analog and satellite transmissions being transmitted in digital with up to 1080i resolution and 16:9 aspect.

i.e. same content, different delivery mechanism.

IMO the next few years will see a transition to IP TV..

Already with netflix, hulu, amazon, and various legal streaming services... The broadcast landscape is changing.

Its just a case of packaging these up into neater more user accessible interfaces and apps. Android media boxes now are cheap (sky sells one for 10 GBP that works with iPlayer, chromecast is 35 USD, the hardware is no longer any kind of limit) with enough processing for media playback. Net speeds are already good enough and accelerating all the time.

Currently it all works, but its still a bit geeky to roll all these into an xbmc or openelec front end, to tie your live streams, downloaded content, home music collection, etc etc all into one cohesive system with a clean remote control and wife friendly interface. As this becomes more mainstream, this will become easier until the TV will simply boot into the app.

For IPTV to go mainstream in TH, it would require MCOT fully controlling all content (that's law), and widespread availability of high bandwidth, cheap, uncapped data plans to the masses (not just BKK and tourist areas which are only around 25% of the population).

Unlikely to happen here anytime soon I'm afraid.

[HerbalEd]

2014!!! They must be having a laugh!

I make a wild guess that they are even serious about it.

Yeah ... lots of people on TV had similar pessimistic attitude about earlier announcements about HD TV ... and I just got thru watching a stunningly beautiful HD movie on HBO.