It was looking like Central American countries were going to ATSC, but maybe not all. Bert ---------------------------------------- http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?class=countries&subclass=0&id=3378 Panama adopts DVB-T The President of the Republic of Panama, Martin Torrijos Espino, has signed a national executive decree adopting DVB-T as Panama´s digital terrestrial television standard. The decree states that this decision brings added flexibility and opportunities to radio and television broadcasters, and to consumers, by exploiting the socio-economic, technical and regulatory advantages. This announcement joins previous decisions made by Uruguay (2007) and Colombia (2008). According to a statement from DVB, the decision to adopt DVB-T in Panama was taken after in-depth analysis and rigorous testing of all the world's digital television standards. A National Technical Committee created in 2007, consisting of 25 national experts from diverse sectors, conducted studies, analyses and tests related to the technical, social, economic and regulatory aspects of existing standards. Its aim was to promote and protect the investments made in the sector, fair competition and improvement of the quality of each service. Manuel Troitiño, President of the Technical Committee, said "This decision demonstrates that Panama wants to join the wider broadcast community in the world, whilst maintaining flexibility and the ability to optimise broadcasting options for Panama. DVB is rather superior to other standards in this respect. Panama´s National Public Services Authority has been mandated to make the necessary arrangements to migrate to digital terrestrial television in less than 18 months". Peter Siebert, Executive Director of the DVB Project, commented: "DVB welcomes this momentous decision by Panama and is looking forward to working with the country's stakeholders and industry as they make the move to digital TV. By choosing DVB-T, Panama joins a growing worldwide DVB community that includes fellow Latin American countries Uruguay and Colombia, benefiting from economies of scale and bringing the advantages of digital television to all. DVB offers the widest portfolio of standards to suit each country´s needs." DTG Staff 20.05.2009 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.