MUMBAI: The ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium 2010 kicks off in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Tuesday, 9 March. This event is organised by the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) and will run till 11 March. This year's theme is Leveraging the Digital Advantage.

The symposium is the sixth in a series of highly successful annual events staged by the ABU to help equip radio and television broadcasters with the expertise to plan and manage their digital implementation.

The event has again received an enthusiastic response from the industry, attracting more than 350 participants, including 60 eminent speakers. It comprises a threeday conference, 10 workshops and a 40-booth exhibition in which many major industry players exhibit their products and services. In addition, 150 local industry players and university students have registered to visit the exhibition.

At the opening session on Tuesday, Mr Mock Pak Lum, Managing Director, Technologies, MediaCorp, Singapore, presents the Industry Keynote.

Media personality Veronica Pedrosa of Al Jazeera English will speak on Perspectives... and emcee the opening ceremony. The Ministerial Address will be delivered by the Hon. Minister of Information, Communications and Culture, Malaysia, in the presence of a large number of dignitaries, representing who is who of the broadcasting industry.

A special Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented on 9 March to Ms Joan Warner, Chief Executive Officer of Commercial Radio Australia, in recognition of her outstanding contribution in setting up of digital radio broadcasting in Australia.

A demonstration of 3DTV will be among the highlights of the ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium 2010. Participants of the symposium will get an opportunity to witness 3D post production demonstrations as well, the first of its kind in this region.

Delivery of surround sound by digital radio will be highlighted through presentations and demonstrations. These demonstrations are available over three days in the exhibition area.

Among other highlights is a session on content creation for HDTV where premier programmes on high definition will be played out using HD projectors. A specific workshop is devoted to content creation for digital radio.

The symposium has attracted major industry players as sponsors and supporters. These include Broadcast Australia, Sony, Harris, Ministry of Information Communications and Culture Malaysia, Radio Television Malaysia, GlobeCast, Plisch, Conax, Centre for Content Protection, Dalet, Rohde & Schwarz, Asia-Pacific Broadcasting, Ikegami, Tektronix, Media Broadcast GmbH, Net Insight, Radio Frequency Systems, LS telcom, OmniBus, Kathrein, Gencom, Benchmark, Nautel, T-VIPS, RF Mondial, Fraunhofer IIS, Measat, NHK, Solid State Logic, Broadcast Communications International, BroadcastAsia, Telairity, Stagetec, Asia Media, OASYS, EDBox, Digital Radio Mondial, Digidia and Sistem Televisyen Malaysia.

The media partners include Satellite Evolution Asia, Radio World International, Asia-Pacific Broadcasting, International Broadcasting Engineer, talk Satellite, content+technology and Broadcast Equipment Guide.

Broadcast Australia is the principal sponsor while Sony and Harris are major sponsors.The proceedings of the conference are being webcast live with a choice of video+audio stream or audio only stream.