All households in Vietnam will have access to digital television by 2020 under a programme recently approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

Under the digital-television transition project, all households will have access to digital TV under different forms by 2020. Terrestrial digital television will account for 45 percent.

Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of audio and video by digitally processed multiplex signals, in contrast to the analogue channels and separate signals used by analogue TV.

The transition involves content providers like TV networks, as well as cable television conversion to digital cable.

The project will also aim at setting up and developing a digital terrestrial television market in an aim to attract society's sources, and create opportunities for the rearrangement of a nationwide system of radios and televisions.

By 2015, about 80 percent of households with television sets will be able to watch digital television, with 55 percent using digital terrestrial television.

Also by 2015, transmission activities will use MPEG-2, a standard for the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information, and the MPEG – 4 standard, which involves a method of compression of audio and visual digital data.

The project also includes principles that ensure digital television channels are not interrupted.

Between 2012 and 2015, companies involved in the provision of terrestrial digital television services nationwide and in some localities will be required to carry out and finish the creating of terrestrial digital-television transition infrastructure in major cities classified in Group 1.

They will be responsible for building technical infrastructure and then providing terrestrial digital-television services for cities in Group 2 between 2013 and 2016.

Remaining localities will have access to digital television services at different times during the 2015-20 period-VNA