The new EBU Tech 3334 looks to assess the potential of the GE06 Plan to accommodate HDTV services. In a recent study carried out for the EBU Technical Committee it is considered that in the future all TV programmes will be in HD quality and that a minimum of 20 to25 HDTV programs will need to be provided on the terrestrial platform in order to make it attractive for the viewers.
| The GE06 digital broadcasting plan allows for implementation of HDTV services, i.e. using DVB-T. However, not all DVB-T plan entries offer the same opportunity for HDTV, primarily because of different reference planning configurations (RPCs) or system variants used to establish the GE06 Plan.
Flexibility
The GE06 Plan permits a significant degree of flexibility in the implementation of transmission networks which may be used in favour of HDTV. A DVB-T multiplex is essentially a ‘container’ with a given bit rate capacity which in practice ranges between 8 Mbit/s (QPSK, 2/3) and 27 Mbit/s (64QAM, 3/4). In principle, this container (multiplex) can be used to deliver any picture quality, including HDTV providing that the services fit into the available channel capacity and are receivable at an adequate bit error rate. | |
Switch-off
Using advanced transmission systems such as DVB-T2 it will be possible to provide a higher transmission capacity than DVB-T without changes to the GE06 Plan. The document concludes that by combining the expected advances in the transmission systems and using statistical multiplexing it should be possible to aggregate up to 4 or 5 HDTV programmes per multiplex for fixed reception, or 2 to 3 HDTV programmes in a multiplex for portable or mobile reception. It should be noted that many European countries may not be able to launch a full HDTV offering on the terrestrial platform until they and their neighbours have completed analogue switch-off. You can download EBU Tech 3334 here.