A survey of digital television broadcast transmission techniques

This paper is a survey of the transmission techniques used in digital television (TV) standards worldwide. With the increase in the demand for High-Definition (HD) TV, video-on-demand and mobile TV services, there was a real need for more bandwidth-efficient, flawless and crisp video quality, which motivated the migration from analogue to digital broadcasting. In this paper we present a brief history of the development of TV and then we survey the transmission technology used in different digital terrestrial, satellite, cable and mobile TV standards in different parts of the world. First, we present the Digital Video Broadcasting standards developed in Europe for terrestrial (DVB-T/T2), for satellite (DVB-S/S2), for cable (DVB-C) and for hand-held transmission (DVB-H). We then describe the Advanced Television System Committee standards developed in the USA both for terrestrial (ATSC) and for hand-held transmission (ATSC-M/H). We continue by describing the Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting standards developed in Japan for Terrestrial (ISDB-T) and Satellite (ISDB-S) transmission and then present the International System for Digital Television (ISDTV), which was developed in Brazil by adopteding the ISDB-T physical layer architecture. Following the ISDTV, we describe the Digital Terrestrial television Multimedia Broadcast (DTMB) standard developed in China. Finally, as a design example, we highlight the physical layer implementation of the DVB-T2 standar

Semi-automated mobile television interactive application generation based on XHTML and Java ME

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University, 11/02/2011.Mobile Digital TV (MDTV), the hybrid of Digital Television (DTV) and mobile devices (such as mobile phones), has introduced a new way for people to watch DTV and has brought new opportunities for development in the DTV industry. Nowadays, the development of the next generation MDTV service has progressed in terms of both hardware layers and software, with interactive services/applications becoming one of the future MDTV service trends. However, current MDTV interactive services still lack in terms of attracting the consumers and the service creation and implementation process relies too much on commercial solutions, resulting in most parts of the process being proprietary. In addition, this has increased the technical demands for developers as well as has increased substantially the cost of producing and maintaining MDTV services. In light of the aforementioned situation, the Thesis has contributed to this field, by proposing an innovative MDTV service creation and consumption system based on XHTML and Java ME. On the head-end it introduces a semi-automatic creation mechanism to facilitate a less technical and more efficient interactive service creation process. This enables designers and creative individuals to be actively involved in the MDTV service creation process and to develop interactive-rich MDTV service. On the client-end it employs an open-source software environment as the interactive service MDTV consumption platform, rendering the MDTV service implementation process as less proprietary as possible. Furthermore, the Thesis offers a discussion on the different MDTV interactive application models currently used and based on the proposed software, a novel MDTV service presentation method is further introduced and adopted instead of the Rich Media and ECMAScript based methods. Finally, a series of qualitative testing procedures have been implemented with regards to conducting an essential evaluation on the operability of the proposed software system

Design and Construction of a Liquid-Cooled Solid-State Digital Television Transmitter

With the advent of terrestrial digital broadcasting, new and improved digital transmitter technologies are required since existing analog transmitter technology is, for the most part, unable to adequately transmit a decodable digital television signal. This study focuses on the design and construction of a solid-state, liquid-cooled UHF digital television transmitter. Emphasis is placed on the design of the amplifier module including the amplifier card, Wilkinson splitter and combiner, input and output matching circuits, DC bias network and the system mask filter. The results of this research are also presented for two television transmitters that are installed and continue to be in use today, including analyses of specific failures that have occurred while in the field. The overall objective of this study is not only to document the research that is behind the design of this system, but also to document the construction of the transmitter for reference in system maintenance and repair as well as a basis for future design

The Introduction of DTT in Latin America: Politics and Policies

The switch to digital terrestrial television is now a global trend. In Latin America, where the terrestrial platform has a dominant role, the introduction of DTT raises important questions for economic and industrial development, as well as pluralism. This article focuses on the earliest experiences (Brazil, México and Argentina) and those of the newcomers (Chile, Colombia and Uruguay). The aim is to outline the differences between the various political decision processes and the way with which they have been turned into communication policies, so as to draw some conclusions that contribute to visualizing the future of television in the region.Publicad

Digital Television: Has the Revolution Stalled?

When digital television technology first hit the scene it garnered great excitement, with its promise of movie theater picture and sound on a fraction of the bandwidth of analog. A plan was implemented to transition from the current analog broadcasting system to a digital system effective December 23, 2006. As we reach the half point of this plan, the furor begins to die as the realities of the difficult change sink in

Design and Construction of a Liquid-Cooled Solid-State Digital Television Transmitter

With the advent of terrestrial digital broadcasting, new and improved digital transmitter technologies are required since existing analog transmitter technology is, for the most part, unable to adequately transmit a decodable digital television signal. This study focuses on the design and construction of a solid-state, liquid-cooled UHF digital television transmitter. Emphasis is placed on the design of the amplifier module including the amplifier card, Wilkinson splitter and combiner, input and output matching circuits, DC bias network and the system mask filter. The results of this research are also presented for two television transmitters that are installed and continue to be in use today, including analyses of specific failures that have occurred while in the field. The overall objective of this study is not only to document the research that is behind the design of this system, but also to document the construction of the transmitter for reference in system maintenance and repair as well as a basis for future design

The Broadcasters’ Transition Date Roulette: Strategic Aspects of the DTV Transition

The analog to digital DTV transition completed in June 2009 was a technological event unprecedented in scale in the broadcast television industry. The final analog cutoff for TV stations culminated more than ten years of complex regulatory decisions. Facing concerns that costs and revenue could change dramatically, stations chose when to transition in response to both market and regulatory forces. The history of broadcasting reveals a continual interplay between consumer demand, technological change, and regulation. This article describes the various forces that influenced the DTV transition, and empirically examines the stations’ decisions regarding when to switch. The economic and strategic aspects of the stations’ business decisions are modeled with tools from decision theory and game theory that reveal the costs and benefits of switching to DTV. In the decision theoretic model we develop, a station’s management considers only its own power costs and the effect of its own decision on its viewership when deciding to switch early. The game theoretic model incorporates strategic thinking, where a station manager considers the impact of other stations’ decisions on its profit when making its choice. The stations’ decisions are in line with the predictions of the models. The results indicate that station managers considered their cost savings and the potential to lose viewers, but also that they were thinking strategically when they made their transition decisions. The results thus provide insight into the stations’ decision-making process, which can help market observers and regulators better understand the calculus of the industry

Physical Layer Time Interleaving for the ATSC 3.0 System

"(c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.")This paper presents optimized time interleaving which has been adopted for the Advanced Television System Committee 3.0 system as a physical layer tool to mitigate the effects of burst errors. The adopted time interleaver (TI) is very flexible and can have different configurations according to the number of physical layer pipes (PLPs) and service type, i.e., fixed, portable, and mobile. Notably, for single-PLP mode a sheer convolutional TI (CTI) is used, whereas for the multiple-PLP mode a hybrid TI (HTI) composed of cell interleaver, twisted block interleaver, and a convolutional delay-line is used. Optionally, the CTI and the HTI can be used in conjunction with extended time interleaving and a cell interleaver (only for HTI) to further improve robustness over long burst error lengths at the expense of latency.Klenner, P.; Baek, J.; Loghin, NS.; Gómez Barquero, D.; Ko, W. (2016). Physical Layer Time Interleaving for the ATSC 3.0 System. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. 62(1):253-262. doi:10.1109/TBC.2015.2505410S25326262

A Study on Design and Implementation of Wideband High Power Amplifier for Digital TV Repeater

In this dissertation, a high power amplifier has been implemented and performed evaluation, which is operating at UHF band (470 ~ 806 MHz) for Digital TV repeater. The theoretical consideration of 100 Watt power amplifier at UHF band used in Digital TV repeater is studied. After extracting target specification of each part, amplifier is designed and fabricated. When the driving amplifier stage is flown by bias voltage of 28 V DC and current of 900 mA, it has the gain of more than 53.5 dB, the gain flatness of ±0.5 dB and return loss of less than -12 dB in 470 ~ 806 MHz. Also, when two signals at 2 MHz frequency interval are input port into the driving amplifier stage with 1 Watt output, it resulted in excellent characteristics to design specification with showing intermodulation distortion characteristics of more than 48 dBc. The middle amplifier stage using 85 Watt device is fabricated by RO-4003 electric substrate which is 3.38 in dielectric constant and 32 mil-thickness. When the driving amplifier stage and the middle amplifier stage were flown by bias voltage of 28 V DC and current of 4 A, they revealed the gain of more than 66 dB, the gain flatness of ±0.2 dB and return loss of less than -16 dB. Also, when two signals at 2 MHz frequency interval in using frequency band is input port into the driving amplifier stage with 40 dBm of output power, it showed intermodulation distortion characteristics of more than 38.50 dBc. The 100 Watt unit power amplifier using temperature independent biasing for Digital TV repeater application is designed and fabricated. The DC operation point of this unit power amplifier at temperature variation from 20 ℃ to 100 ℃ is fixed by active bias circuit. The variation of current consumption in the 100 Watt unit power amplifier has an excellent characteristics of less than 0.6 A. The implemented unit power amplifier has the gain over 12 dB, the gain flatness of less than ±0.5 dB and return loss of less than 15 dB over the DTV repeater frequency range. This unit power amplifier yields intermodulation distortion of more than 32 dBc at 2 MHz offset, which satisfies the IMD at output power of 100 Watt (50 dBm). The broadband high power 3-way combiner was designed and fabricated for the digital TV repeater. To achieve increase of bandwidth and high power capability, Wilkinson type power divider was adopted in our research. First of all, Wilkinson type power divider of equal-split and unequal-split were combined, the characteristics variation of the same phase four port power combiner was simulated according to the various thicknesses of dielectric substrates. As the results of simulation, the power combiner fabricated by using dielectric substrate of 120 mil-thickness has the characteristics as follows: insertion loss of less than -6 dB, return loss of less than -13 dB, isolation among the output ports of less than -15 dB, and phase difference among the output ports of smaller than 13°. Therefore, this power combiner was possible to improve the limit of microstrip line width due to high impedance, the problems of power loss due to interaction between strip lines in high power combiner and narrow bandwidth simultaneously. Furthermore, since the fabricated 3-way combiner has good characteristics of insertion loss, the return loss, separation between ports and phase difference, making broadband and high power could be achieved. By using 3-way power divider and power combiner, 100 Watt unit power amplifier stage was designed and fabricated as a type of 3-stage balanced amplifier and to detect the final signal output power with using of 40 dB parallel coupled-line directional coupler. The fabricated 40 dB parallel couled-line directional coupler detects the signal power emitting to the antenna, and then supplies its voltage to the attenuator. In addition, this sets to be changed with a basic attenuation 8 dB, according to the changing of the power amplifier's temperature and 8-VSB modulator's input signal. Besides, in order to measure the fabricated 100 Watt power amplifier, the estimation technique function which makes equivalent mask by Tektronix RFA-300A was used. As a result of the measurement, the existence of pilot signal is confirmed and the signal transmitted at the rated output power 100 Watt is brought out the flat feature through 6 MHz bandwidth. And it resulted that its value was less than -47 dB at the edge of radiation channel and less than -110 dB at more than 6 MHz position from channel edge. Finally a positive results on the equivalent mask has been complied with related regulations.목차 Abbreviations Abstract 제1장 서론 = 12 1.1 연구 배경 = 12 1.2 연구 목적 = 14 제2장 디지털 TV 방송 시스템 = 16 2.1 통신 시스템의 형태 = 16 2.2 DTV 시스템 설계 파라미터 = 17 2.3 지상파 DTV 중계기 시스템 = 25 2.4 지상파 DTV HPA 서브 시스템 = 27 제3장 전력증폭기의 설계 및 구현 = 31 3.1 구동증폭단의 설계 및 구현 = 31 3.2 중간증폭단의 설계 및 구현 = 50 3.3 100 Watt 단위 전력증폭기의 설계 및 구현 = 62 3.4 결과 분석 = 75 제4장 100 Watt 전력증폭기의 구성 및 평가 = 77 4.1 3-Way 동위상 고출력 전력결합기 = 77 4.2 전력검출기 및 감쇠기 = 97 4.3 100 Watt 전력증폭기의 구성 및 특성 평가 = 103 4.4 결과 분석 = 115 제5장 결론 = 116 참고문헌 = 11