[opendtv] Re: Mobile TV: $2 Billion in Ad Buys

Craig Birkmaier wrote:

> Can you provide any links to information about receiver
> mandates in Europe?

I did post this info to the list in the past, when the decisions were first 
announced. And here they are as I found them now.

This first document is a comprehensive study of European DTV in France, Italy, 
Germany, Spain, and the UK, provided by the DGTVi.

http://www.dgtvi.it/stat/Allegati/Secondo%20Rapporto%20sulla%20Televisione%20Digitale%20Terrestre%20%20in%20Europa%20%20.pdf

says in page 11:

"La diffusione della Tdt nelle famiglie è caratterizzata nell'ultimo anno dal 
ruolo crescente dei televisori integrati di tuner digitale terrestre (Idtv). 
Francia e Italia hanno previsto obblighi normativi per la vendita di televisori 
integrati a partire dal 2008 (nel caso francese l'obbligo prevede anche che il 
televisore integrato debba ricevere l'Alta Definizione). La Francia si 
distingue anche per la presenza di altri device integrati con tuner Tdt, primi 
fra tutti i decoder ibridi per la ricezione dell'Iptv e della Tdt."

So, it says that the takeup of DTT in this past year has been characterized by 
the increasing role of the integrated rceeiver, what they call idtv. And that 
France and Italy have planned for an integrated receiver mandate by 2008. The 
French integrated receiver mandate includes HDTV reception. And that the French 
mandate will include other receivers along with the DTT receiver in its 
mandate, first among these being IPTV.

In p.40, it says that by 2009, all TV sets have the digital receiver mandated, 
in France and Italy.

The French CSA document that describes the whole transition strategy is

http://www.csa.fr/upload/decision/consultation_CSA_SNAA_071311.pdf

It also mentions transition strategies of numerous other countries, in Europe 
and elsewhere.

In p.11, it says:

"C'est ainsi qu'à partir du 6 mars 2008, «les téléviseurs vendus aux 
consommateurs sur le territoire national intègrent un adaptateur permettant la 
réception des services de la télévision numérique terrestre». De plus, «les 
industriels et les distributeurs d'équipement électronique grand public sont 
tenus d'informer de façon détaillée et visible les consommateurs des capacités 
de chaque téléviseur, adaptateur, enregistreur ou tout autre équipement 
récepteur de télévision à recevoir des signaux numériques»."

So, starting 6 March 2008, all TVs sold in France have to incorporate the DTT 
receiver. Furthermore, all other TV reception equipment, including recorders 
etc., must come with detailed information describing their capabilities in DTV 
reception. So this is very similar wording as used by the FCC, to describe our 
1 March 2007 mandate.

> My educated guess is that the ATSC would not seek FCC approval
> for any changes, nor would they try to get the FCC to mandate that
> any enhancements be required in new receivers. The FCC mandate was
> designed to facilitate the DTV transition. As this would be a
> post-transition change, I suspect that it would be up to the CE
> vendors to implement any enhancements.

Agreed. And also, there should be no need to seek FCC approval of the new 
operational modes, as long as the new modes exhibit the same RF characteristics 
as 8-VSB, such as channel bandwidth, ERP levels, and peak to average ratio.

> The DVB-T2 draft standard
>
> From documents published on the Internet by RAI and others,
> the following characteristics are expected for the T2 standard:[5]
>
> - Modulation will be standard COFDM in one of the modes QPSK,
> 16-QAM, 64-QAM, or 256-QAM (but not 128-QAM).
>
> - OFDM modes will be 1k, 2k, 4k, 8k, 16k and 32k. The symbol
> length for 32k mode will be about 4 ms.
>
> - Guard intervals will be 1/128, 1/32, 1/16, 19/256, 1/8, 19/128,
> and 1/4. (For 32k mode, the maximum is 1/8.)
>
> - FEC will be LDPC and BCH (as in DVB-S2), with rates 1/2, 3/5,
> 2/3, 3/4, 4/5, and 5/6.
>
> - There will be fewer pilots, in 8 different pilot-patterns, and
> equalization will be based also on the RAI CD3 system.
>
> - In the 32k mode, a larger part of the standard 8 Mhz channel
> can be used, adding about 2% extra capacity.
>
> - DVB-T2 will be specified for 1.7, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 MHz
> channel bandwidth.
>
> - MISO (Multiple-Inputs Single-Output) may be used (Alamouti
> scheme), but MIMO will not be used. Diversity receivers can be
> used (as they are with DVB-T).
>
> - Bundling of more channels into a SuperMUX (called TFS) is not
> in the standard, but may be added later.

So, I see an increased reliance on equalization, and less on active pilots, to 
decrease C/N margins, although not to the extent the Chinese went to (and not 
to the extent of 8T-VSB either). I see improved FEC techniques, going to LDPC 
rather than turbo coding, like the Chinese system. Also designed to reduce the 
C/N margin. The 32K mode is obviously designed for more realistic SFN 
deployment, but it will be interesting to see how these super slow symbols do 
with equalization.

And I see options for a denser constellation, where again the C/N margins will 
be affected.

Now let's put this all in context with what we have here.

There is no reason why 16T-VSB couldn't also be considered, e.g. using turbo 
coding or LDPC instead of Viterbi convolutional coding. That would be exactly 
equivalent to the 256-QAM option of DVB-T2, but would not otherwise change any 
of the channel characteristics that the FCC would worry about.

As Al Limberg has mentioned on many occasions, just doing a more clever 
combinatiuon of the existing trellis and RS coding should double the number of 
correctable bytes in each MPEG-2 TS frame (20 vs 10), and this improvement 
would require no change whatever to the transmission standard.

> An example for a UK MFN DVB-T profile (QAM64, 2k, CR2/3, GI1/32)
> and a DVB-T2 equivalent (QAM256, 32k, CR3/5, GI1/128) shows an
> increase in bit rate from 24.13 Mbit/s to 35.4 Mbit/s (+46.5%).

The GI you show is essentially like saying no GI at all. So what you are 
describing here is something that could just as easily be done with a new 
16T-VSB.

This is all very good stuff. The ATSC could just as well be doing this sort of 
thing, although again, tweaking what you already have will always be the 
easiest course of action. And there is plenty of tweaking still possible.

Bert
 
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:

- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at 
FreeLists.org 

- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word 
unsubscribe in the subject line.

Other related posts: