SINGAPORE: A competition called Hi-Def Showtime has been launched by the Media Development Authority (MDA) to promote high-definition television (HDTV).

People are encouraged to perform creative routines at road shows, which will be filmed using high-definition or HD cameras, before being voted for online.

From March 10 until April 14, anyone can go to a road show at Ngee Ann Polytechnic as well as malls such as VivoCity and Junction 8 to strut their stuff for 30 seconds.

To register as an individual or as a group, the web address is http://showtime.hdtv.org.sg

The performance will be filmed using HD cameras and posted online. The public will then get to vote for routines which will battle it out in a grand final to win prizes.

MDA is trying to encourage the local TV industry to produce more than 100 hours of high-definition content.

And the Authority realises ensuring the take-off of the industry is no easy task.

Dr Christopher Chia, CEO, MDA, says: "As with any introduction of a new wave of things, it's really a little bit of consumption habits and pattern, the availability of content and the availability of set-top boxes."

MDA believes the number of households watching HD in the Asia Pacific will rise to 32 million in three years.

And this bodes well for television producers.

Yeo Chun Cheng, Programme Director, HDTV, MDA, says: "In fact, anybody who's a content producer today is producing in HD. I don't know of anybody who is still going in the old analogue way. So this is going to happen, and it is going to happen in a more accelerated fashion."

But the cost of producing HDTV is estimated at between 10 and 20 percent more than traditional television.

Even so, that is not going to stop the drive to get the public to swap their old analogue television for the one of the future. - CNA/so