04 | Keysight | N6153A & W6153A DVB-T/H with T2 X-Series Measurement Application - Technical Overview

Digital video broadcasting-terres-

trial/handheld (DVB-T/H) is the Eu-

ropean-based consortium standard

for broadcast transmission of digital

terrestrial/handheld television.

DVB-T

DVB-T is a flexible system that al-

lows networks to be designed for

the delivery of compressed digital

audio, video, and other data in an

MPEG transport stream using OFDM

modulation with concatenated chan-

nel coding (i.e. COFDM). It is the most

widely adopted digital terrestrial

television broadcasting standard in

the world and is deployed in more

than 30 countries.

In DVB-T, the use of OFDM modula-

tion with appropriate guard interval

allows optimal tradeoff between

network topology and frequency

efficiency. The capacity for hierar-

chical modulation can enable two

completely separate data streams to

transmit in a single signal which can

be used to trade off bit rate versus

ruggedness. DVB-T has the following

technical characteristics that make it

a very flexible system.

DVB-H

DVB-H is an extension of the DVB-T

standard, which takes into account

the handheld receiver’s specific

properties such as the small size,

light weight, portability, and battery

operation.

DVB-H uses a time slicing technique

which results in a large battery power

saving effect, and introduces a multi-

protocol encapsulation forward error

correction (MPE-FEC) scheme for

reliable transmission in poor signal

reception conditions. A transmission

mode of 4k is defined in DVB-H to

offer a tradeoff between the trans-

mission cell size and mobile reception

capabilities.

The complexity of the DVB-T/H stan-

dards demands flexibility and excel-

lent modulation analysis for system

development and evaluation.

DVB-T2

The DVB-T2 standard, defined in

ETSI EN 302 755, is an extension of

the existing DVB-T standard, aim-

ing to provide a minimum of 30%

capacity increase over the DVB-T,

improving single-frequency-network

(SFN) performance, service specific

robustness, better error correction

ability, and bandwidth and frequency

flexibility.

A new technology, called Rotated

Constellation, is used and provides

significant additional robustness in

difficult channels. DVB-T2 defines

two modes: Mode A (single PLP) and

Mode B (multi-PLPs). A multi-PLPs

mechanism is provided to separately

adjust the robustness of each deliv-

ery service within a channel to meet

the required reception conditions.

Furthermore, a receiver can save

power by decoding only a single ser-

vice rather than the entire multiplex

of service.

Table 1. Key parameters in DVB-T, DVB-H, and DVB-T2 standards

DVB-T

DVB-H

DVB-T2

Frequency

VHF-III (170 to 230 MHz)

UHF-IV/V (470 to 862 MHz)

VHF-III (170 to 230 MHz)

UHF-IV/V (470 to 862 MHz)

L (1.452 to 1.492 GHz)

VHF-III (170 to 230 MHz)

UHF-IV/V (470 to 862 MHz)

Bandwidth

5, 6, 7, 8 MHz

5, 6, 7, 8 MHz

1.7, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 MHz

Modulation

OFDM

OFDM

OFDM

FFT size

2K, 8K

2K, 4K, 8K

1K, 2K, 4K, 8K, 16K, 32K

Modulation format

QPSK/16QAM/64QAM

QPSK/16QAM/64QAM

QPSK,16/64/256QAM

Guard interval

1 /4, 1 /8, 1/16, 1/32

1 /4, 1 /8, 1/16, 1/32

1 /4, 19/256, 1 /8, 19/128, 1/16,

1/32, 1/128

FEC

Convolution + Reed Solomon

1 /2, 2/3, 3 /4, 5/6, 7 /8

Convolution + Reed Solomon

1 /2, 2/3, 3 /4, 5/6, 7 /8,

and MPE-FEC

LDPC+BCH

1 /2, 3/5/, 2/3, 3 /4, 4/5, 5/6

Constellation rotation

No

No

Yes

MIMO Support

SISO

SISO

SISO, MISO

Stream

MPEG-2 TS

DVB-IPDC and MPEG-2 TS

TS, GSE, GCS, or GFPS

Bit rate

4.976 ~ 31.668 Mb/s

4.976 ~ 31.668 Mb/s

Up to 50.34 Mb/s

Other

Time slicing

DVB-T/H Standards Overview