SINGAPORE—This week at the Broadcast Asia Show, the DVB stand hosted a live demonstration of the DVB-T2 transmission scheme delivering a wide range of resolutions from UHD down to the smaller screen resolutions for mobile devices. Using the DVB's second-generation terrestrial transmission standard, an HEVC encoded UHD channel and a mobile service are being delivered in a single 8 MHz channel.
Combining multiple DVB-T2 services in one multiplex is enabled through the use of Multiple PLPs (Physical Layer Pipes). DVB-T2 is currently on-air in 24 countries and has been adopted in an additional 35, according to the Digital Video Broadcasting group, an industry-led consortium of over 200 broadcasters, manufacturers, network operators, and software developers.
The UHD service, with content encoded by Envivio, is being transmitted using a portable Dektec modulator and received and displayed on a 55-inch UHDTV set from Sony with a built-in HEVC decoder. The mobile service is being received on an Aprotech Walka handheld TV with 7-inch viewing screen as well as on Samart i-Mobile smartphones and tablet, which are some of the first commercially available mobile devices with embedded DVB-T2 receivers.
The DVB said combining multiple DVB-T2 services in one multiplex is enabled through the use of Multiple PLPs (Physical Layer Pipes), a feature of DVB-T2 that allows for the separate adjustment of the robustness of each delivered service within a channel to meet the required reception conditions.
The DVB stand also spotlighted other DVB standards, including DVB-S2X, the latest edition to the DVB family of standards, that offers spectral efficiency gains for professional applications by up to 20 -30 percent and for some scenarios, gains of up to 50 percent can be achieved. In addition, new operational modes such as channel bonding increase flexibility.
DVB standards cover all aspects of digital television from transmission through interfacing, conditional access and interactivity for digital video, audio and data.
