아시아 10/03/22 KOREA - First Religious IPTV service opened

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KOREA - First Religious IPTV service opened

Published Date: March 22, 2010

The start-up screen of Woori Parish TV

SEOUL (UCAN) — A Seoul parish has launched an Internet Protocol TV or IPTV service for its parishioners, becoming the first independent religious IPTV service in South Korea.

Yeokchon-dong parish in Seoul archdiocese began Woori Parish TV yesterday.

“The digital culture is part of daily life and the Church needs to accept and make use of it for the Church’s pastoral activities,” said parish priest Father Ignatius Kim Min-soo.

“Our TV service will offer information on the liturgy of the parish, faith group activities and local news,” said the secretary of the Korean bishops’ Committee for Social Communications.

“Also, the TV service can offer content provided by parishioners, so it enables two-way communication through participation and sharing,” Father Kim said.

To encourage the faithful to provide user created contents (UCCs), the parish is conducting a video production class.

Woori Parish TV has six channels covering archdiocesan news, parish news, faith lectures including Sunday Mass homilies, culture and movies.

IPTV is basically the transmission of TV over high-speed Internet connections. To watch it a person at home needs a computer, or set-top box, plugged into the TV.

The parish has handed out 300 free set-top boxes to its parishioners and set up a server on which all TV program data is stored.

A set-top box for television viewing costs 140,000 won (US$120), but as subscribers increase, the cost will decrease.

Unlike cable TV which broadcasts signals, and where viewers watch TV programs at specific times, IPTV viewers can select the stored programs they like and watch them when they want by using a remote control.

The set-top box can also be used as a receiver of digital TV signals. South Korea will digitalize all terrestrial TV signals from 2012.

Father Kim acknowledged the Church’s digital development is making rapid progress, and those not familiar with digital technology may not benefit.

“Lots of Catholic UCCs are on the Internet but many older people who are unfamiliar with it may miss out. The TV service will help them access Woori Parish TV through the simple operation of their remote control,” he added.

According to the Korea National Statistical Office, South Korea has 15.5 million broadband Internet subscribers with three major broadband Internet providers. Korea Telecom, SK Telecom and LG Telecom all have an IPTV service with 2,228,334 subscribers as of November 2009.

A Protestant IPTV channel is running on one of the major IPTV networks but Woori Parish TV is the first independent religious IPTV service.