MUNICH, GERMANY — South Korean broadcaster SBS will be building out its ATSCo 3.0 network on Rohde & Schwarz transmitters, the vendor said today. The countrywide network will be expanded by adding stations on Namsan, Yongmoon and Gwanggyo Mountains. Rohde & Schwarz said SBS would be using the German manufacturer’s technology to set up a terrestrial TV network and broadcast the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in UHD.
SBS decided to go with R&S after doing its first 3.0 broadcast last month. The broadcast, which featured world-cup, short-track speed skating,was terrestrially broadcast from the transmitter station on Kwanak Mountain where Rohde & Schwarz installed a liquid-cooled R&S THU9 transmitter system.
In August 2016, SBS decided on an SFN-based transmitter network from Rohde & Schwarz featuring a 1+1 passive standby configuration with ATSC 3.0. During the evaluation phase, SBS also used Rohde & Schwarz transmitters to conduct SFN trials with the new ATSC 3.0 standard.
South Korean broadcasters and consumer electronics providers LG and Samsung have been instrumental in developing ATSC 3.0. South Korean broadcasters announced last February that they would start ATSC 3.0 broadcasts as of this February. SBS and KBS did live transmissions of the emerging standard at NAB 2016 in April. In July, The Korea Herald reported that South Korea would officially adopt the standard, and at the Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas earlier this month, LG rolled out its first TV sets equipped with ATSC 3.0 tuners.
For more TV Technology coverage, see our ATSC 3.0 silo.
