DD makes HD debut in concert with Zubin Mehta

When conductor Zubin Mehta will take the stage on Saturday on the banks of the picturesque Dal Lake in Srinagar, India will make its world high-definition broadcast debut.

Updated on: Sep 6, 2013, 24:26:40 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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When conductor Zubin Mehta will take the stage on Saturday on the banks of the picturesque Dal Lake in Srinagar, India will make its world high-definition broadcast debut.

The country's public broadcaster -- Doordarshan (DD) -- will telecast the concert live on high definition (HD) to 40 nations and without any foreign help.

An HD signal has a visual clarity six times that of a normal standard definition signal (used by DD and other private broadcasters).

The Bavarian State Orchestra's concert, a first for Kashmir that has sharply divided opinion, is being organised by the German embassy. Ehsaas-e-Kashmir was an effort to "reach the hearts of the Kashmiris with a message of hope and encouragement", German ambassador to India Michael Steiner has said.

"Everybody associated with the telecast is a Doordarshan person," Prasar Bharati chief executive officer Jawahar Sircar told HT on Thursday, before leaving for Srinagar to oversee the preparations for the 90 minute mega-show.

India's world HD debut was to be in 2010, but as was with many things associated with the Commonwealth Games, the equipment came too late.

But, now equipped with high-definition cameras and HD compliant studios, DD is ready to match the best in the world. Its first test will be Mehta's concert. The signal will be shared with Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation for telecast in Germany and Euro-Vision for various European countries.

It will be a "well-covered event" - 14 HD cameras will be at work to capture every bit of action. Two OB vans are already in Srinagar to ensure an uninterrupted coverage. Keep a watch.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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