As a former Head of Engineering at Sri Lanka’s national broadcaster TV Rupavahini, Amal Punchihewa has experience in challenging environments...

Brief intro

My name is Amal Punchihewa (pronounced 'poonch-i-have'), and I'm currently an advisor and consultant to the Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development. It is an intergovernmental organisation formed in 1977 for the Asia Pacific region by the United Nations.

Between 1997 and 2001, I was the Head of Engineering at Sri Lanka’s national broadcaster, TV Rupavahini.

Ambition

I decided I wanted to work at national TV when I graduated from my degree. Unfortunately, when I completed my bachelor's and graduated in 1985, was no vacancy, I had to wait three years. But I patiently waited and began working for an IT company. As IT was emerging, I thought I had the opportunity to gain skills and experience. I managed to join the National TV, SLRC Rupuvahini, in 1989.

My role meant working in computer engineering, research, and planning. We had a very sophisticated system developed at that time. After completing an MEEng in the Netherlands, I became part of the university faculty. In 1997, I was recalled back to the national TV as the Head of Engineering, on secondment, and returned to the university in 2001.

That was the dream which came true for me, leading the national broadcaster. We have a population of twenty-two million people, close to twenty million at that time. Our terrain is particularly challenging to cover, and we are also a developing country. It was a very demanding thing to run and operate that station.

Challenges…

As Head of Engineering between 1997 and 2001, I headed a large team of very capable engineers. We carried out the usual broadcast operations, such as day-to-day news bulletins, entertainment, live OB (outside broadcast) coverage like cricket and Independence Day celebrations.

We had a very great challenge in front of us, which was to implement what we called the Rehabilitation Program. Our infrastructure was quite old, and we were planning to replace it. So, the national TV Rupavahini – already established with a gift from Japan - received another outright gift from the Japanese.

…and Terrors

That time was tough because we faced a lot of uncertainty, as the separatist Tamil Tiger terrorists were using suicide bombers. And one of their prime targets was the national TV station.

We barricaded our location; nobody could come close to the building. And even then, one day, my family was very worried when I had an unexpected meeting and was late. On the same day, there was a suicide bomber blasted on the road I usually took from the office to my home. It killed many people.

We were moving equipment from the harbour to the station and numerous other sites. Because we were living in fear, transportation was very difficult - especially using a large container - because we did not know what the terrorists could plant in those vehicles. It was an incredibly challenging time from that point of view.

The station did not have much in the way of human resources. With the limited number of people we had, we got on with the job, on our own, without any direct help or support from any overseas experts or engineers.

We overcame those challenges. So, I am humbly proud I managed to lead and spearhead such a group of engineers and technical staff to make those changes at a very difficult time.

Funding from friends

When I was Head of Engineering, we received an outright grant from the Government of Japan to deploy multilingual sound (NICAM) transmission in our television network, which also covered the set-up and successful launch of a second programme channel. We became a role model for the Asia Pacific region.

We drove that with our passion, know-how, capability, and the quality of our work - which we shared with others. That recognition was evident when Sri Lanka's National Television Training Institute (which I also headed for six years as a CEO/Director) became a centre for training broadcasters in the Asia Pacific region. People trained in three five-year phases over 15 years. Although we were a developing country, we became notable, and it was recognised.

Japan provided grants to get people to our country to attend the Institute for six weeks of in-house training. Even today, when I go to other conferences, such as the recent Broadcast Asia (like IBC in Amsterdam) conference, people come and say, 'Oh, I was a trainee at your institution in those days.'

Changing times bring changing technology

From the moment we had the colour transformation, we constantly looked at how to adopt other appropriate technologies. I emphasise in my opinion articles and the talks I give that even today, media operators cannot embrace just any technology.

They need to look at whether it's appropriate. We have been constantly evaluating technologies to enhance the user experience. We looked, at that time, into stereo sound transmission, we looked at teletext capabilities.

With stereo, the UK used a digital carrier as a second carrier for stereo sound. We adopted the same. I did a thorough study and presented it to the National Conference of the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka. Between 1997 and 2001, I spearheaded not just one project, the Rehabilitation, but the introduction of NICAM stereo sound transmission, similar to the system developed by the BBC, and the second programme channel.

We also studied Teletext, but there was no business case for that. We talked to a number of investors, but they were not really keen on it. So, we parked the idea. After I carried out another study, we decided to adopt the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) standard. We are constantly looking at the essential technologies we can introduce.

Another was commercial playback, which my predecessor introduced. We automated this because people would spend considerable time lining up commercials. We bought a cassette library that has a number of players with a robo-arm. You simply need to prepare the playlist, which then does the job. We also explored the introduction of a method for vertical blanking interval measurements.

Covering the ground

Sri Lanka is a country with a lot of difficult terrain. So, they see a lot of ghosting. We have looked into a possibility of introducing a Ghost Cancellation Reference, so a receiver equipped with GCR processing can remove it. In fact, we can introduce that into the system, if anyone wants to. At least, this can be used for what's called a contribution, so you can do a retransmission and use the good signal from that.

The rule of thumb in the network planning for the transmission has been to use what we call the high power-high tower and to go for a higher elevation, which allows you to reach a greater distance. It's not just the line of sight; as they travel through the district, radio waves bend, so they can reach further. It’s what we call the radio horizon. The problem is, if the station is quite far from the population, the signal strength is very good closer to the station, but as it travels further, it diminishes and so the viewers’ signal quality drops.

This was a very challenging thing because when the initial planning was done, we did not have a tower in a populated area. Colombo, the capital, and the western province being the most populated region, we did not have a tall tower there. Instead, we went to the highest mountain which was ideal from a radio horizon point of view, because it can basically reach about 80% of the country. We used to use about 20 kilowatts to transmit to that. The problem is, as it reaches the outskirt of Colombo the signal fades because it is close to the coastal region on the west side. We need to have another station.

Over time, a lot of other buildings have popped up and there was this clutter. So, there has been a challenging evolution process. But at the beginning that was the model we used.

Recently, there has been a tall tower (the Lotus Tower) built in Colombo that can be used to do this transmission. Unfortunately, while the restaurant is operational, there is no transmission from there yet. That should give a very good coverage. Hopefully, as they are going for Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT), they should be able to deliver a very good signal to the largest population there, and then the rest of the network.

Good signals

I lived in Kuala Lumpur (KL) for five years, between 2013 to 2018, when I was the Director of Technology and  Innovation at the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union. I watch television quite a lot, it's a part of my life. Unfortunately, I suffered very much while I was in KL, because, that connection was through a satellite. And also, satellites tend to transmit either in Ku or K bands (12–18 GHz) where they are vulnerable to the rain. There can be a lot of rain in tropical countries, but in Sri Lanka, our network was mainly terrestrial, there was no problem at all with the network. One of the key responsibilities as the Head Of Engineering and running this service as a public service broadcast, is not to have any downtime in the whole network or even the part of the network.

We did this quite well. So the downtimes are extremely low in Sri Lanka. To compare it with New Zealand where my family and I live, we have a rooftop antenna, and it never failed at any time. The wind can be gusting at 140km, there might be a storm with rainy weather, but  we still field a good signal.

If it is a satellite, it would become vulnerable. That's the value of a terrestrial network. In the broadcast area and also in the distribution area, you must have a portfolio of distribution methods, terrestrial, satellite and online and you cannot just rely on just one. But terrestrial is the most robust network.

Future viewing

In the UK, you have been discussing whether or not you will switch off DTT, how and when it will be achieved.

Are we in Sri Lanka going to switch off DTT? I was watching a discussion yesterday. This question has been asked many times before.  But you have to ask, how many are not yet accessing the internet? Perhaps it is 20%. So how do we deliver those people? Because they don't want the internet, but they I'm sure they would still listen to radio and TV.

In the future, broadcasting will remain as it is. At least with core channels, it will be terrestrial. While fewer people may be watching, it has scalability, while some channels can be online. Some say we should be able to scale with the current technology to watch any number of channels, even a very demanding sporting event.

Technology will continue evolving, as will how we produce, distribute, and consume content. Covid has accelerated the way we produce content. Today, we talk a lot about what we call remote production. We will not be sending a lot of large outside broadcast vans to a location. The bulk of production will happen back in the office, keeping studio use high and reducing costs. This is good for the climate and for sustainability. Also, it becomes more affordable. In New Zealand, as in the UK, we have channels available online. We have all the public services and commercial operators with exactly the same content streamed online.

In Sri Lanka, we have a content stream so people can go there. On the consumption end, for the viewer, people tend to watch a lot of TV in the lounge. I personally think this will still be the case for the foreseeable future. There is a little increase in the consumption of content on smaller devices, such as mobile devices. This has happened in countries like India, but in a state like New Zealand, people cannot touch a mobile while in a vehicle, so it will not work. And we are not going to watch rugby on this small device. We always like that in the lounge with a big screen, so it is also a bit dependent on culture and dependent on regulation.

Share your thoughts… 

Have you any experience of broadcasting in countries like Sri Lanka? What were the challenges you faced? Were they overcome? And how was it done?