London's iconic 219 meter tall Crystal Palace broadcast transmitter was lit up with more than 200,000 watts - 7.5 billion candlepower - of energy-efficient lighting on the nights of the 18 and 19 April to mark the end of 75 years of analog television broadcasting in the London region. Erected in 1956 to provide a single analog VHF service, the tower now transmits six UHF channels. The six multiplexes carry four HD channels utilizing DVB-T2 and over 50 SD DVB-T channels as well as 25 digital radio stations. The transmitter is owned by UK TV broadcast network operator and DVB Member, Arqiva.

 

With 10 times the power of the old digital TV service, more than 400,000 viewers in coverage blackspots across the London region are able to watch the UK's digital TV service, named Freeview TV, for the first time. Millions more now benefit from an improved digital TV signal and better reception across the 50 plus channels on Freeview, including HD.

 

The five-year, £630 million ($1,017 billion) project is the biggest in UK broadcasting history, covering 98.5% of the UK population. Region by region the old analog TV service (up to five channels) is being switched off and replaced with a new high-power digital TV service (Freeview with up to 50 channels). To deliver the new service, Arqiva is removing more than 5,000 analogue transmitters from 1,154 sites across the UK, replacing them with 3,700 digital terrestrial TV transmitters. Many existing masts have been strengthened to support the new antenna systems and five masts have been replaced completely.

 

Arqiva will complete implementation of the digital switchover project in October in Northern Ireland.

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Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS™)

Part of the VCAS 3 multi-network platform, VCAS for DVB is a full featured CA solution for one-way and hybrid networks. Featuring both smart card and cardless security, it can be combined with VCAS protected multi-screen services to PC/Macs, tablets and smart phones, enabled by the unified VCAS 3 security authority.

 

 www.verimatrix.com

NAB is not only a big event for the broadcast industry of North America; it is also relevant for other parts of the world including Latin America, Asia and Europe. It is therefore not a surprise that about 60 DVB Members presented their products and services at this year's tradeshow. In addition, DVB experts also participated in the conferences and panel discussions. The chairman of the Commercial Module for 3DTV (DVB-CM-3DTV), David Wood, provided an update on the current status for resolutions beyond HD, such as 4K. He also participated in a meeting with the US standardization organization ATSC, the Society of Cable and Telecommunication Engineers (SCTE) and the Korean Broadcast Research Institute (ETRI), where the possibility of worldwide harmonization of 3DTV specifications was discussed. DVB's Executive Director, Peter Siebert participated in two sessions on Mobile TV where he informed the audience about the progress of T2-Lite and the interesting options this specification provides for broadcasters for the delivery of mobile services. He also pointed out that a successful mobile TV solution needs to include mobile broadband as well as WiFi for indoor delivery.  

 

From a broadcast perspective, the main subjects at NAB were Mobile TV, Hybrid TV, Connected TV, OTT and 4K resolution. One very important highlight for the future of broadcasting was the demonstration of the new upcoming next-generation video coding standard HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding). NTT and Fujitsu showed some of the first video sequences encoded to the current HEVC draft specification. The demonstrations confirmed that this successor to H.264 will provide the same quality but at half the data rate, which means that HD quality could be delivered at 4 Mbit/s! NAB 2012 provided an opportunity to see what the industry has to offer for both now and the future.

DVB-T2 has been very successfully deployed in a number of early adopter countries including the United Kingdom, Sweden and Finland. The DigiTAG Workshop will concentrate on how the lessons learned by these countries may now be used by countries that are planning to introduce DVB-T2 alongside their existing DVB-T broadcasts, or who will move to adopt DVB-T2 as the technology of choice as they roll out their digital terrestrial television.

 

As well as focusing on the implementation and expansion of DVB-T2 in Europe and the CIS countries, other important topics will be addressed during the workshop including aspects of Frequency Planning and the Digital Dividend, Portable and Mobile reception of TV, Connected TV and the options for Interactivity with Hybrid Broadcast/Broadband technologies.

 

The agenda features a number of presentations, including a keynote from Prof. Ulrich Reimers, Chairman of the DVB Technical Module, on DVB-T2 solutions for portable and mobile reception. The event is designed to provide a true workshop environment for interactive discussion between speakers and the representatives of over twenty countries.

 

The full program, which has been prepared by the DigiTAG Task Force on New Market Development, and registration details are available on the DigiTAG Website, www.digitag.org, and on the website of the co-hosts ORS, the Austrian Broadcast Network Operator, at www.ors.at/workshop.

Any company that wishes to use a DVB logo on a product that complies with DVB standards must register as a DVB Trademark Authorised User through the DVB Services website. In September 2010 all the DVB sub-brand logos were re-designed to have a uniform look and feel.

 

For the increasing number of multi-tuner devices and TV's in the market, DVB has now also designed combined multi-tuner DVB logos such as DVB-T2/C2/S2, DVB-T/C, etc. This will allow a clearer marketing of DVB products and a more compact logo on products or packaging.

Finally, all the sub-brand logos are now also available in negative format for use on black, grey or other dark backgrounds.

 

If your company is not already registered for the correct DVB logos, please do so today!  

 

For further information on registering to use the DVB logos please visit www.dvbservices.com.

At this year's BroadcastAsia, DVB will be demonstrating on Stand 4S4-06 the second generation cable standard, DVB-C2 and DVB-T2-Lite. DVB-T2-Lite is a new feature of DVB-T2, the world's most advanced DTT system. The new profile pares down DVB-T2 parameter settings to what is required for mobile and portable reception. The result is a very efficient mode that enables the complexity of the receiver chips to be reduced by 50 percent, which in turn reduces receiver costs. It is easy and cost-effective to implement T2-Lite into an existing DVB-T2 infrastructure. The DVB-C2 demo will feature a Sony IDTV as well as a Humax set-top box.

 

DVB experts will also be participating in the official conference program in the conference session 'DVB - T2 Technologies - The Road Ahead'. Topics will include a DVB development update; DVB-T2 in Myanmar, Singapore and South Africa; DVB-T2 transmitter and receiver technologies; experience on T2 implementation; and DVB-T2-Lite for mobile applications.

 

The full conference program is availabe on the BroadcastAsia website. 

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Following the formation of the Future of Broadcast Television (FoBTV) Initiative at last week's NAB convention in Las Vegas when technical executives from 13 television broadcast organizations from around the world signed a landmark memorandum of understanding to officially form the global FoBTV Initiative, the Management Committee has announced its leadership team.

 

The Management Committee will have 25 seats, 13 of which are reserved for the founding members with a further 6 reserved for manufacturers. The Chairman is Mark Richer, President of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), with DVB Chairman, Phil Laven, as Vice Chairman.  

 

The Technical Committee will be Chaired by Wenjun Zhang, Chief Scientist, NERC-DTV. Vice Chairs will be Yiyan Wu, CRC's Principal Research Scientist, Toru Kuroda, Director of NHK's Planning and Coordination Division, and Namho Hur, General Director, Department of Broadcasting System Research, ETRI.   

 

The initial FoBTV activity will include analyzing different user-scenarios for proposed technologies for the future development of terrestrial broadcasting. These will be provided by IBC 2012 and based on these user cases, standardization will be carried out by standardization bodies such as ATSC, ARIB or DVB.

 

Founding FoBTV members that comprise the Management Committee are: Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC); Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC); Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC); Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB); European Broadcasting Union (EBU); Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI); Globo TV-Brazil; IEEE Broadcast Technology Society (IEEE-BTS); National Association of Broadcasters (NAB); National Engineering Research Center of Digital TV of China (NERC-DTV); NHK Science and Technology Research Laboratories (NHK); Public Broadcasting Service (PBS); Brazilian Society of Television Engineers (SET).