BCA / CommunicAsia 2014 was once again the event where all broadcast industry stakeholders from the APAC region came together.  Over 55 DVB Members were presenting their products and services at the tradeshow. In addition, there was a full day session in the conference program devoted to DVB and related topics organized by DVB Fellow, John Bigeni. DVB was also present on the exhibition floor demonstrating UHD in combination with a mobile transmission. For the UHD transmission, a high data rate PLP with 256 QAM was used. The mobile data was transmitted in a robust way modulated with QPSK. Demo partners were Envivio, BBC for encoded content and Sony for the UHD display. The Samart Group provided their i-Mobile Android smartphones and tablets with integrated T2 reception. Aprotech supported the demo with a mobile handheld TV and Sony provided T2 dongles for mobile reception with Android devices. There was great interest in the demo, particularly for the mobile devices.

 

DVB-S2X, the latest addition to the DVB family of standards, made a splash at CommunicAsia. A demo utilizing the extensions to the DVB-S2 standard was highlighted by the BCA Show Daily as a "must see" at the event. The demo, organized by Measat and DVB Member Newtec, featured a satellite transmission of UHD video distributed using DVB-S2X. The new standard is seen as "instrumental for the satellite industry to keep pace with the demands for new features and increased efficiency". S2X and HEVC are seen as key enablers for the success of UHDTV.

 

The DVB conference session provided a wide range of interesting subjects. The presentations focused on a raft of current DVB activities - from CI Plus to the latest satellite specification S2X, UHDTV and HEVC. One of the highlights of the DVB session was a panel discussion with a number of regulators from the APAC region and from France discussing their experiences and the challenges concerning the introduction of DTT. The Thai Commissioner, Dr Natee, reported that very good progress has been made in his country with more than 50% of the population now covered by DTT. Receivers are now available in the market with prices starting from 36 USD. The discussions also confirmed that 'leapfrogging to T2' has been a good decision. Overall, starting directly with T2 is regarded as a positive experience in the region.

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Dubai, ITU Forum

In May, the ITU held a Regional Forum in Dubai on "Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcast Services in Arab Region".  This event was notable because it was focused on digital terrestrial TV.  Many countries in the Middle East rely heavily on satellite TV because of the need to cover large sparsely-populated areas.  Another reason for the popularity of satellite TV is that Arabic countries are united by a common language - consequently, many viewers are able to watch satellite TV programs from a wide range of countries.  Although satellite TV is undoubtedly dominant, broadcasters throughout the region acknowledge the attractions of terrestrial TV.  Many of them have successfully launched DVB-T services using MPEG-2 video compression.  Indeed, some have already switched off their analog TV services, with the remainder planning to do so before 17 June 2015 (the deadline for analog switch-off agreed as part of the ITU's 2006 Geneva Plan).  Unfortunately, the orderly transition envisaged in the 2006 Plan has been thrown into some disarray by subsequent ITU decisions to allocate parts of the UHF spectrum to mobile services.  Nevertheless, regulators and broadcasters throughout the Middle East are keen to make the transition to DVB-T2 with MPEG-4 AVC with the twin aims of achieving better spectrum efficiency and offering enhanced services to consumers.  Instead of having numerous different national specifications for TV receivers, it is encouraging to learn that good progress is being made on a regional specification.  Following this conference, the ITU held frequency coordination meetings to facilitate the implementation of digital terrestrial TV in the region.

 

Seoul, KOBA 2014

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WORK Microwave's DVB-S2 equipment supports Carrier Identification System (CID) to mitigate carrier interference 

 

• DVB-CID according to ETSI TS 103129 

• Mandatory information injected by modulator

• Optional user configurable data (e.g. GPS coordinates, contact, etc.)

• Pinpoints interference source quickly

• Firmware update available for existing equipment 

The Forum of Advanced Media In Europe (FAME), co-chaired by the EBU, has concluded that the broadcasting industry only has around 12 months left to come up with technical requirements and implementation scenarios for what is called phase 2 of UHD-1. The call for action came at the first FAME UHDTV Roadmap workshop held in Lucca (Italy) on 5 and 6 June. Over 65 attendees attended the event, representing professional and consumer industries, network operators, and private and public broadcasters. The aim of this second phase of UHDTV development is to offer a comprehensive set of advanced parameters: Higher Frame Rate (HFR), Higher Dynamic Range (HDR), higher resolution (3840x2160 pixels) and an extended color space. It is regarded as a major step beyond the HDTV services that the majority of European broadcasters are currently transitioning to; and an advance on the UHD technology that is already being sold in shops but which concentrates 'only' on an increase in resolution. The DVB has already started gathering commercial requirements for UHD-1 phase 2.

 

Presentations from NHK from Japan (who are focused on the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo) and Kobeta from South Korea highlighted the possibility that Europe could lag behind in introducing UHD TV if significant progress is not made soon. Hans Hoffmann from EBU Technology and Innovation, who co-chaired the FAME workshop, said: "We need a closer collaboration with, and support from, the European Commission, to prevent European industries becoming disadvantaged compared to their Asian counterparts." Hoffmann added, "we also need to get creative producers involved quickly too, to avoid a content gap, and must work together with the industry on a strategy to clearly inform European consumers about UHDTV." In-depth discussion sessions focusing on the three main parts of the content chain (production, distribution and consumer technology) resulted in the creation of a detailed set of actions for the organizations working on the technical development of UHDTV. FAME also emphasized that a strong push be made for the creation of a UHDTV framework in Europe even if many broadcasters will only be deploying it in the longer term.

Last month, around 80 delegates attended a DVB-EBU workshop on 'High Dynamic Range' (HDR) at IRT in Munich Germany. This much anticipated workshop was intended to prepare DVB Members for the decision making process for the requirements for UHDTV 'Phase 2' - UHDTV, with a number of extra features apart from higher  static resolution, - in the coming months. Specialists in psycho-physics, program making, and coding were invited to explain how they saw the impact of UHDTV Phase 2, and particularly the feature of High Dynamic Range. By extending the contrast range and the peak brightness of the images, the images should look more 'real'. Delegates heard that four organizations - Philips, Dolby, BBC, and Technicolor - have proposals on the table, and the workshop gave us a rare opportunity to hear and understand them in the same session. A UHDTV Phase 2 system with HDR as a feature appeared from the demonstrations to certainly provide beautiful 'wow factor' images - though the make-up artists might have to work extra  hard to deal with the stars' wrinkles.  

The Chair of DVB's Commercial Module on UHDTV has been busy with the latest edition of his eponymous video series "David Wood on..." available on YouTube. In this episode he looks at how UHDTV promises better picture quality, not just because the images will be built with more pixels, but also because we will get more of them per second (High Frame Rate). Additionally, they will feature more light levels (High Dynamic Range) and cover a larger range of colors.

 

So how does color television actually work? And how can the amount of colors be changed? David paints a clear picture of how TV color will become more natural. Check out "David Wood on...How UHDTV will show more colors" on YouTube. Click here. 

The German broadcast network operator and DVB Member, Media Broadcast has announced plans to develop a digital terrestrial TV platform using DVB-T2 for its client Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland. DVB-T2 allows broadcasters to distribute more channels in high definition. RTL is seeking to distribute its HD programmes via this platform using the DVB-T2 standard. RTL will continue un-encrypted DVB-T broadcasting of its programmes during the transition period until the new platform goes live, thereby ensuring the attractiveness of digital terrestrial TV reception for its viewers.

 

This agreement is a key milestone for the conversion to the more efficient DVB-T2 standard, which will enable wireless digital television in the future. Public broadcasters already expressed their support for a switch to DVB-T2 in the fall of 2013. "We are very happy that Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland has decided to continue DVB-T broadcasting over the transition period and has thereby opened the doors to conversion of their stations to DVB-T2", says Wolfgang Breuer, CEO at Media Broadcast. "This secures the breadth of the DVB-T offering with content from the large private and public broadcasting groups for the viewer, and digital terrestrial television with an even greater diversity of programs while improved picture quality via DVB-T2 gains momentum. We are working with all TV broadcasters to promote the implementation of DVB-T2 and would like to be offering viewers an even broader range of programmes in HD quality as early as 2016."

 

Andre Prahl, Head of Programme Distribution at Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland commented, "The planned introduction of DVB-T2 creates real prospects for digital terrestrial television. From a cost perspective for us as a commercial broadcaster, continued distribution via digital terrestrial systems is only possible if it can be implemented in an economically profitable manner in the medium term. This option is now tangibly within reach with the planned distribution of our HD programmes via a DVB-T2 platform."

 

Occasioned by the agreement, Media Broadcast is appealing to politicians and regulators to quickly create reliable framework conditions for a switch to DVB-T2. Wolfgang Breuer: "We have done our homework and laid the cornerstone for appealing digital terrestrial television of the future. DVB-T2 is ready for the market, and Media Broadcast is ready for the transition to the new standard. Now it is up to the federal, state and regulatory authorities to enable the transition. Specifically, this means: securing the 700 MHz frequency band at least until the transition to DVB-T2 is complete; long-term reliability planning for the remaining broadcasting spectrum and implementation of the legal media and telecommunications processes. We trust that the federal government will stand by its political promises with regard to frequency matters as outlined in the coalition agreement, and look forward to a speedy and continued constructive dialog with the states and regulatory authorities."

In its move to digital TV, Papua New Guinea has granted Digicel, a digital TV broadcast license to provide TV services to the country's population of over seven million. Digicel already provides mobile services in Papua New Guinea. While the introduction of TV services will be a new undertaking, there will be synergies with the existing mobile infrastructure. Digicel will deploy TV transmitters, which will operate in the VHF band, to provide a DVB-T2 based digital TV service to cover the country.

Alan Constant, CTO of Digicel's Media division has been working closely with the regulatory authorities to establish the first DVB digital TV service in the country. The Digicel service is expected to launch within the next 12 months. 

 

Source: Digicel

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