The European system for digital multi-programme television by satellite

The general concepts of the system for digital television transmission by satellite developed within the European DVB (digital video broadcasting) project and standardised by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) are described. The system, named DVB-S, is intended to provide DTH (direct-to-home) multi-programme TV services in the BSS (broadcasting satellite service) and FSS (fixed satellite service) bands and is addressed to consumer IRDs (integrated receiver decoders), as well as collective antenna systems (SMATV, satellite master antenna TV) and cable television head-end stations, with a likelihood of remodulation. The exploitation of the multiplex flexibility allows the use of the transmission capacity for a variety of TV service configurations. The use of flexible and advanced error protection techniques, based on the concatenation of Reed-Solomon and convolutional codes (with Viterbi decoding), allows optimum adaptation to different satellite transponder characteristics, i.e. bandwidth and power, providing high service quality and availability with small receiving antennas. For example, in climatic zone E (in Europe) on a 33 MHz transponder a data-rate of 38.1 Mbit/s can be transmitted, adequate to provide five standard definition TV programmes (SDTV) or, alternatively three to four enhanced definition programmes (EDTV), while ensuring 99.90% service availability (in the average year) with 50-cm receiving antenna within the 51 dBW EIRP (equivalent isotropic radiated power) service area contour.<>