How DVB-T2 And ATSC 3.0 Stack Up: Technical Benefits, Limitations And Real-World Deployments

[comfortably_numb]

https://www.tvtechnology.com/opinio...F32JMnEqcoZvwtQ1Z_pDGJJlllC&M_BT=553581886132

I've often wondered why the US doesn't just implement DVB-T2 instead of authoring an entirely different transmission scheme like 3.0?

 

[osu1991]

$$$$$$

 

[comfortably_numb]

The one thing the article didn't talk about (unless I missed it) was a signal penetration comparison between DVB-T2 and 3.0 (or even between ATSC 1.0 and 3.0). This is my biggest concern with the new standard. If signals carry further, I think it will be better embraced.

 

[harshness]

Further isn't better if you're trying to avoid trampling someone else's license.

Proponents claim that they can make Single Frequency Networking work but that depends on being in sole control of your frequency and that can't happen if the signals propagate beyond the coverage area.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Further isn't better if you're trying to avoid trampling someone else's license.

Proponents claim that they can make Single Frequency Networking work but that depends on being in sole control of your frequency and that can't happen if the signals propagate beyond the coverage area.

Maybe I should have said "better penetration." A 1000 kW digital signal today doesn't carry as far as a 1000 kW analog signal did, right?

 

[Radioguy41]

Further isn't better if you're trying to avoid trampling someone else's license.

Proponents claim that they can make Single Frequency Networking work but that depends on being in sole control of your frequency and that can't happen if the signals propagate beyond the coverage area.

Considering we lost range when it went digital getting back to where we were with analog would be an improvement.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Considering we lost range when it went digital getting back to where we were with analog would be an improvement.

Exactly!

 

[Jim5506]

Actually the signal at the same frequency and wattage should travel the same distance and have the same penetration.

The digital cliff cuts off the viewable digital signal at the point where data loss makes assembling a viewable picture impossible.

NTSC (analog TV) continued giving you a snowier and snowier picture down to where the picture was barely discernable with the human eye/brain combination.

The eye/brain combination is much better at building a picture you can see out of little dots on the screen than the ATSC tuner is a decrypting errors in a weak data stream.

Other methods of encryption/decryption may be better than ATSC 1.0 but will surely struggle to match what your brain could build out of a snowy NTSC signal.

 

[harshness]

Considering we lost range when it went digital getting back to where we were with analog would be an improvement.

Considering that this is typically going to happen in a post-repack TV band, things will be a lot more crowded. The amount of engineering that has to go into creating the coverage patterns must be substantial in some of the more closely-spaced markets. Some will almost certainly get shorted to protect some station using the same frequency on the other side of them (perhaps neither of which they can receive).

 

[dweber]

What did it mean when it said “the introduction of MIMO forces the end user to install a new receive antenna”?
Does that mean we will need new antennas for ATSC 3?


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[harshness]

Pay very careful attention to who wrote the article: The Head of Technology at DVB. It seems as if he may have an axe to grind.

It is awfully hard to imagine using the term "State of the Art" in reference to a ten-year-old technology but that's perhaps what you do when you've been at it for a while.

From a viewer perspective, I suspect that DVB-T2 would more than meet our needs but it doesn't support any of what the broadcasters are drooling over so that fact doesn't much matter.

 

[comfortably_numb]

What did it mean when it said “the introduction of MIMO forces the end user to install a new receive antenna”?
Does that mean we will need new antennas

I wondered that myself.

 

[N5XZS]

Don't forget that we used to run NTSC at 5 MW ERP!

But it would be interesting to see what the maximum TX ERP power in ATSC 3.0 world?

 

[harshness]

What did it mean when it said “the introduction of MIMO forces the end user to install a new receive antenna”?

MIMO requires more than one receive antenna. This probably isn't important in a stationary application but it would be very important in a mobile application.

Next Gen TV does not require MIMO. The SFN feature of ATSC 3.0 does require MIMO. Picking up a MIMO broadcast with a single omnidirectional antenna may be a nightmare as the technology is built on multipath and we know how that goes.

There's a lot of technology in the specification that may have been proven in other applications and at different frequencies but until it is deployed, how it actually works compared to what the models suggest isn't a lock.

 

[Wireless Engineer]

Regardless of what modulation you use, rf is rf.
.......
I first installed OFDM transmitters in 2003 and they were touted as being able to eliminate signal drop outs, mobile flutter, and increased range.
.....
As i found out, most of these claims were merely hype.
......
In the end it's still a rf carrier that is going to bounce, flip polarity, and be blocked by leaves and buildings and still subject to the same interference sources that affected analog tv signals 80 years ago.
.......

 

[harshness]

Things like error correction weren't contemplated 80 years ago. Being able to isolate a signal amongst the noise wasn't contemplated.

The new schemes theorectically bring some new possibilities but they have to be proven in practice and that's where the breakdown is. The dollar signs won't win out over the physics because no amount of money can make physics go away entirely.

 

[N5XZS]

And who's know what's will bring the next RF technology, maybe subspace radio pushing back 1 second delay light speed barrier beyond the moon which is 1.56 light speed delay "warp 1.0 barrier"​

 

[harshness]

I suspect that much of what is currently handled via RF will be consolidated and multiplexed for Internet transmission. The abandoned bandwidth will be turned over to short-range devices for wireless interaction.

 

[DarkStarPDX]

I've often wondered why the US doesn't just implement DVB-T2 instead of authoring an entirely different transmission scheme like 3.0?

It should be noted that the TV Technology opinion piece was written by Peter Siebert, Head of Technology at DVB. Just a little slanted...

 

[harshness]

It should be noted that the TV Technology opinion piece was written by Peter Siebert, Head of Technology at DVB. Just a little slanted...

I noted that in post #11.