Direct-to-home digital multi-programme television by satellite

Abstract

The general concepts of the system for satellite transmission of digital television developed within the European DVB (digital video broadcasting) project are described. The system is intended to provide DTH (direct-to-home) multi-programme TV services in the BSS and FSS bands and is addressed to consumer IRDs (integrated receiver decoders), as well as collective antenna systems (SMATV) and cable television head-end stations, with a likelihood of remodulation. The exploitation of the multiplex flexibility allows the use of the transmission capacity for a variety of TV service configurations. The use of flexible and advanced error protection techniques, based on the concatenation of Reed-Solomon and convolutional codes (with Viterbi decoding), allows optimum adaptation to different satellite transponder characteristics, i.e. bandwidth and power, providing high service quality and availability with small receiving antennas. For example, in climatic zone E (e.g., Berlin) on a 36 MHz transponder a data-rate of 43.2 Mbit/s can be transmitted adequate to provide six conventional definition TV programmes (SDTV) or, alternatively, four enhanced definition programmes (EDTV), while ensuring 99.90% service availability (in the average year) with a 60-cm receiving antenna in the 51 dBW service area contour.