Digital Video Broadcasting - DVB

The digital transmission of television signals is based on MPEG and DVB standards. Whereas the MPEG standards issued by ISO/IEC focus on source coding and decoding, the DVB specifications published by ETSI standardise transmission technology.

The DVB transport stream excels due to time-division multiplexing (TDM), high reliability, and variable, configurable bandwidths. Thanks to data compression (MPEG-2 and, in the case of HDTV, H.264 in particular), more programmes can be transmitted per transmission channel than via analogue TV broadcasting. An increase in the compression of data enables more programmes to be transferred simultaneously by means of a single transponder. To do so, however, results in reduced quality or higher computing expenses.

IRT continues to play a key role in the development and implementation of the DVB standard in all its forms of transmission: satellite (DVB-S), terrestrial (DVB-T) and cable (DVB-C). Our specialists have made fundamental contributions to audio/video coding, feeding, transmitter-network design and supplementary TV services. In addition, the HbbTV Server – developed at IRT – makes it possible to create DVB transport streams for SD, HDTV, IPTV and MHP. In this manner, demonstrations can be realised more easily and set-top boxes tested universally.

Further information on MPEG-Video Encoding