MIIT, SARFT Team Up on AVS Test
Cnstock, 12/18/09
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has reached a preliminary cooperation agreement with the major branches of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) that are involved in applications for China's self-developed Audio Video Coding Standard (AVS). Before the end of the year, the two parties will conduct joint tests on applying the standard at a number of the major sites under SARFT's domain.
According to an industry source, the tests will be applied mainly in the areas of terrestrial digital broadcasting and in cable HDTV. If the tests go well, the source said that SARFT and MIIT may conduct a full rollout of AVS technology in the terrestrial digital broadcast systems of 300 cities next year.
AVS Workgroup general secretary Huang Tiejun noted that if the H.264 codec were to begin charging for its use on a full scale throughout China, the country's audiovisual industry would be burdened with up to RMB 50 bln in yearly patent fees. In contrast, royalties on China's AVS standard are less than 1% of those for MPEG-4, and would save China over RMB 40 bln in costs.
Keywords: cable TV Huang Tiejun digital broadcasting patent standard television terrestrial AVS Workgroup MIIT HDTV SARFT AVS H.264 MPEG royalty
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