Sun TV offers Prasar Bharati DTT platform

This may well be the answer to shrinking bandwidth. With a channel being launched a week, finding a place to launch them is turning out to be difficult. But is Kalanidhi Maran’s Sun Television has made an offer to the Prasar Bharati Corporation to join its Digital Terrestrial Transmission platform. While sources said, Sun is interested in tapping DTT on its own, the current policy does not allow private players. So, TRAI is looking into the matter and has even floated a paper on private participation.

Unlike DTH transmission, DTT requires transmitters to be set up, but like DTH requires set-top boxes for receiving the channels. An antenna completes the DTT circle. But DTT is flawed in the number of channels that it can support. Engineers in Doordarshan reckon not more than five channels on a DTT platform. ‘‘If a place is rigged with transmitters, the number of channels will accordingly multiply,’’ say officials.

The quality is on par with DTH. But DTT scores over DTH in its mobile reception, where one can continue watching television in a moving car. DTT is currently operational in the four metros. With 1,400-odd transmitters of DD, officers reckon these have to be either upgraded or new transmitters set up for DTT reception. Setting up a transmitter will incur an expense of nearly Rs 4 crore.