North Korea’s Mansudae TV (만수대텔레비죤), a weekend-only channel that broadcasts cultural programming, switched to high-definition earlier this year, according to monitoring. It was the last of the country’s four over-the-air channels to adopt HD.
Mansudae TV is the second oldest of the country’s currently broadcasting channels, having signed on in Pyongyang on December 4, 1983. When it started it was only available on Sunday but now broadcasts from Friday to Sunday.
It currently signs on Friday and Saturday at 19:00 and broadcasts until around 22:00. On Sundays it begins broadcasting at 10:00 and at around 13:00 goes off air until 16:00 when it broadcasts until around 22:00.
When I cataloged North Korean digital TV broadcasts last year, Mansudae TV was still broadcasting in standard definition, but signals received in August this year and recently reviewed show it now broadcasting in high definition.
Mansudae is notable for the high proportion of foreign content in its output. On the weekend I watched, that included a European Champions League football match, Russian and Indian movies, and the Disney/Pixar movie “Ratatouille.”
Here’s a still from Sunday afternoon, August 16, when it played the movie “Buzz Lightyear” (바즈 라이트이어).
