Shanghai has started offering digital television programmes to the city's 3.5 million cable subscribers, becoming one of the first mainland cities to provide the service.
To receive the programming, customers must buy a digital converter for around 1,400 yuan (HK$1,300) and pay an additional 50 yuan a month, the China Daily reported yesterday.
Most of the digital programming is supplied by state-owned SVA (Group) Co Ltd, it said. Shanghai will offer digital programmes on 30 channels, including movies, sports, news and music.
The experiment in digital television is part of newly launched value-added services, such as video-on-demand, pay-per-view, games and interactive news programming, the newspaper said.
OpenTV, based in the United States, supplied the technology and applications to Shanghai Cable Network for interactive television.
The government has chosen Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen as pilot cities for digital television, and plans to make all programming digital by 2015.
