The Audio Visual Standard (AVS) is being touted as the chance for China's media content creators and providers to throw off the shackles of foreign-developed standards. However, an ambiguous attitude from the government is holding up its full-scale deployment, Liang Chunlin, chief executive officer and president of Penstar Technology told Interfax in a recent interview.

As the number of Chinese companies getting behind China's homegrown compression codec for audio and video, AVS (Audio Video Standard), hopes are high that the standard will take off as a serious challenger to its international rival, MPEG-2, in 2009.

However, Liang Chunlin, chief executive officer and president of Penstar Technology, a chip producer actively participating in the AVS industry, told Interfax that AVS is still on its way toward commercialization, and the likelihood of the AVS industry taking off in 2009 remains slim.

"SARFT (State Administration of Radio, Film and Television) is testing AVS, which has led many to believe that commercialization of the standard is near," Liang said. "However, as SARFT wants to maintain its control of China's broadcasting industry, and AVS was not developed by SARFT, it will not easily lend its support to the standard."

According to Liang, SARFT began its first round of AVS testing in June this year, which mainly targeted encoder and decoder manufacturers.

"SARFT made some unexpected requirements that participating manufacturers weren't prepared for," Liang said. "In consequence, they failed."

Penstar Technology is a fabless IC design company that produces AVS chips for set-top boxes. Although it did not participate in SARFT's AVS testing directly, it provided technical support to its partners that were involved in the tests.

AVS commercialization in digital terrestrial TV  

This July, Penstar Technology's AVS chips were used in set-top boxes for standard-definition digital terrestrial TV broadcasting in Shanghai.

"The largest advantage of the AVS standard is that it can integrate more TV channels than MPEG-2, while guaranteeing good picture quality," Liang said.

The MPEG-2 standard is the most popularly used audio video standard among Chinese broadcasters at present. The national state-run broadcaster, China Central Television (CCTV), uses MPEG-2 to broadcast its high-definition TV (HDTV) channels.

Liang said Penstar Technology also produces AVS chips for HDTV. However, there is little demand for the chips. "Local broadcasters lack their own HDTV channels, and can only rebroadcast HDTV supplied by CCTV, which uses MPEG-2," he said.

The same is true for standard definition CCTV channels rebroadcast by local broadcasters. "Fortunately, local broadcasters can decide on the standard to use for their own channels," Liang said.

According to Chinese media, an increasing number of domestic broadcasters are showing interest in AVS, which some are considering using for local TV broadcasting. "We have talked to some TV broadcasters and they all recognized AVS as a good standard, but most of them are hesitating to adopt it," Liang said.

SARFT's ambiguous attitude toward AVS lies behind this hesitation. "Most broadcasters follow the lead of CCTV in using MPEG-2 as CCTV represents SARFT," Liang said. "Privately, SARFT officials have hinted that they feel MPEG-2 is more technically mature than other standards."

Liang said that among all the application fields, he feels digital terrestrial TV is the most promising one for AVS commercialization, although risks still exist.

"A number of local broadcasters expressed their interest in AVS and some of them said they plan to roll out AVS-based digital terrestrial TV broadcasting," Liang said. According to him, those broadcasters are scattered across China's Shanxi, Sichuan, Shaanxi and Hunan provinces and the cities of Wuhan, Xi'an, Qingdao and Ningbo.

He further explained that AVS will have more opportunities in economically-developed regions that have higher demand for TV services. "Broadcasters in developed regions such as Shanghai prefer to use AVS, as their viewers demand abundant content. If broadcasters choose MPEG-2, they can only integrate a limited number of channels."

"Risks still exist in this field mainly due to SARFT's ambiguous attitude," Liang said. "Take Sichuan Province as an example. Local broadcasters initially planned to launch a massive digital terrestrial TV broadcasting operation using AVS. However, due to the lack of results from SARFT's testing, and its unclear attitude, broadcasters limited themselves to small-scale AVS trials to reduce risks," he said.

"AVS chip producers must be cautious about making any decision or investment at the moment," Liang continued. "I think low-end chips are currently the safest to invest in, as these are what broadcasters will be using in their small-scale trials."

Liang is not alone in his view that low-end chips are the safest bet. In June, Penstar Technology's largest competitor, Spreadtrum Communications Inc., announced that it will launch low-cost chips for standard-definition digital TV broadcasting in the second half of 2008, due to market demands.

"We will also launch low-cost chips for standard-definition digital TV broadcasting soon, probably around the end of this August," Liang said.

AVS commercialization in IPTV  

"The progress of AVS commercialization in IPTV is at a standstill," Liang said.

Among telecom operators in China, China Netcom is the first and at the moment, the only supporter of AVS. The standard will be adopted by all China Netcom branches for IPTV transmission.

In March this year, AVS-IPTV was launched for commercial operation by China Netcom in Dalian City in northern China's Liaoning Province. China Netcom has also finished deployment of an AVS-IPTV network in northern China that is capable of transmitting 100 IPTV channels and 10,000 hours of video-on-demand (VOD) programs.

"But now, all trials have paused due to the telecom industry restructure," Liang said. "It is uncertain when the IPTV progress will restart because China Netcom will be merged into China Unicom," Liang said.

"China Netcom's IPTV operation was previously led by the company's president, Zhang Chunjiang. However, after the telecom restructure plan was announced, Zhang left China Netcom to take a new position at China Mobile. It is not clear who will take over Zhang's custodianship of the IPTV business," Liang added.

"China Telecom has tested the AVS standard, but it seems the operator will not use the standard for its IPTV service," Liang said. China Telecom currently uses H.264, a foreign standard for IPTV.

Source:interfax