Bitrate Analysis of Satellite Television Transponders for Europe and Western Balkans

Abstract

This paper analyzes the bitrate of transponders for satellite television. The analysis was performed for the Eutelsat 16A satellite located at 16°E (east) using the DiviCatch device and the DiviSuite software package. This satellite broadcasts more than 80% of TV channels for the Western Balkans. The overview of transponders, technical parameters, and the number of SDTV and HDTV channels is shown in the tables. The results obtained are graphically presented for the average bitrate and individual bitrate of each TV channel. The results show that the largest number of SDTV and HDTV channels are broadcasted in the DVB-S2 standard using MPEG-4 compression and 8PSK modulation technique. The analysis shows that providers use 28% less bitrate than the suggested minimum when broadcasting HDTV channels, while for SDTV channels bitrate is 2% lower then suggested. In order to compare the parameters and the bitrate usage, the paper analyzes four more satellites as follows: BulgariaSat at 1.9°E, Hot Bird at 13°E, Astra at 19.2°E and Astra at 23.5°E. The results show the current bitrate usage of active transponders on these satellites as well as the applied parameters for their broadcasting (broadcasting standard, transponder bandwidth, channel resolutions, compression techniques and modulation schemes).