Digital Signal Processing Reference
In-Depth Information
32 Digital Television throughout the World an
Overview
The numerous technical details of the various digital television standards
have now been discussed. The only thing that is still missing is a report
about the current development and spread of theses technologies, and a
look at the future. Digital satellite television (DVB-S) is available in
Europe over numerous transponders of the ASTRA and Eutelsat satellites.
Many streams can be received unencrypted. Complete receiving systems
for DVB-S are available in many department stores for around 100 - 200
Euros. In Germany, about 15 data streams can be received as DVB-C
channels in the broadband cable network. Since most of these are only oc-
cupied by pay TV channels, however, acceptance and familiarity is corre-
spondingly low.
In the meantime, digital terrestrial television has also become well es-
tablished in many countries and above all in Great Britain, where DVB-T
started in 1998. DVB-T first spread in Scandinavia where Sweden is cov-
ered completely by DVB-T. Australia, too, was one of the first countries to
have introduced DVB-T. In Australia, DVB-T is available mainly in the
population centers along the Eastern and Southern coast. DVB-T is also
being built up in South Africa and India. In Europe, the current status is as
follows: Autumn 2002 saw the start of DVB-T in Berlin and in August
2003, 7 data streams with more than 20 programs were on the air and ana-
log television was being operated in parallel for only a brief period in si-
mulcast mode and then switched off completely in August 2003, which
certainly represented a minor revolution! DVBV-T was designed to im-
plement portable indoor reception. Reception is possible using simple in-
door antennas from the heart of Berlin out to the outer suburbs in some
cases. Naturally, there are restrictions in indoor reception due to the at-
tenuation of buildings and other shadowing. In the years of 2003, 2004 and
2005, this type of reception known as "AnywhereTelevision" then also
spread to the North-Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover and
Frankfurt regions and since May 30th 2005 also to the Munich and Nur-
emberg conurbation areas in Germany. The data rates per DVB-T channel
are about 13 - 15 Mbit/s, providing space for about 4 programs per chan-
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