MUNICH, Germany—Rohde & Schwarz is touting early ATSC 3.0 transmitter deployment market share numbers it says reveal the company accounts for nearly 90% of NextGen TV transmitters installed around the world.
More than 60 ATSC 3.0 transmitters from Rohde & Schwarz are in commercial operation in South Korea, and during the U.S. TV spectrum repack the company has provided hundreds of transmitters that are NextGen TV-ready.
In South Korea, ATSC 3.0 has been the centerpiece of its drive to broadcast 4K UltraHD to viewers. The nation’s broadcasters transmitted 2018 Olympic Winter Games from Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea, in 4K UHD using 3.0, and the country is targeting 2027 to have all of its programming offered in UHD. In the United States, ATSC 3.0 deployment is voluntary.
”KBS [Korea Broadcasting System] and Rohde & Schwarz have worked together developing our new terrestrial UHD service based around R&S THU9 TV transmitters since 2014,” says Sungho Jeon Ph.D., manager, Department of Media Distribution Management at KBS. “Today most of South Korea’s ATSC 3.0 TV transmitter sites operate R&S THU9 transmitters—not only KBS, but also other broadcasters in Korea. For three years, the system has been operating, and KBS is very happy.”
Rohde & Schwarz transmitters support core ATSC 3.0 features, including multiple physical layer pipes (PLP), multiple subframes and single frequency networks (SFN) capabilities, the company said. They also support ATSC 3.0 layered division multiplexing (LDM).
For 3.0 single frequency network (SFN) deployments, Rohde & Schwarz offers the R&S RelayCaster that enables public internet connections to feed stream inputs to transmitters at individual SFN sites, the company says.
Rohde & Schwarz also provides a translator solution to simplify extending ATSC coverage and eliminate the expense of the transport stream feeding infrastructure to LPTV transmitters.
“Next Gen TV is bringing wide-scale terrestrial broadcasting into the IP age,” says Manfred Reitmeier, vice president, Transmitter and Amplifier Systems at Rohde & Schwarz.
More information is available on the Rohde & Schwarz website.
