Use of standards for the transmission of television signals (repeal. Directive 92/38/EEC)

The Commission's amended proposal incorporated two amendments proposed by the European Parliament underlining the relevance of a reference to the "Television without Frontiers" directive and that it was up to the Union to prevent a detrimental dispersion of efforts in the field concerned. Moreover, the Commission accepted the content of the other four amendments through changes to Parliament's text. Thus, the Commission agreed that it was essential to establish common standards for the digital transmission of television signals whether by cable, by satellite or by terrestrial means and that this was best achieved by mandating a recognised European standardisation body, taking account of the outcome of the consensus processes under way among market parties. With regard to the problem of conditional access, the Commission considered that this issue was an important matter for the consumers and providers of pay television services and for the rights holders of programmes. As a result, it proposed that the directive should stipulate, on the basis of agreements concluded between the relevant actors, that all consumer equipment used to descramble digital television services should include the common scrambling algorithm in order to ensure that all providers of conditional access television services provided all consumers of these services in the European Union with their programmes. It also proposed that the directive should make provision for transcontrol of conditional access at cable television network head-ends and the granting of licences for techniques exclusive to conditional access. Finally, it was proposed that the development of the market for conditional access to digital television services be reviewed periodically. It was also important to note that the Commission rejected Parliament's amendments concerning the removal of the reference to the development of technology and the market as justification for the directive and the development of a system of wide-format analogical transmission services that was compatible with both PAL and SECAM. �