Basic Concepts of Digital Terrestrial Television Transmission System

This chapter presents the history and evolution of analog and digital TV over the past century. The key video compression concepts are covered here. Being the most commonly used digital television (DTV) networks worldwide, the Digital Television Terrestrial Broadcasting (DTTB) networks support the largest number of users. The major difference between HDTV and standard-definition TV (SDTV) lies in the image quality, and therefore the bandwidth needed for the transmission is different. From the perspective of visual effects, the image quality of HDTV (over 1000 lines) reaches or comes close to the level of the 35-mm wide-screen film. Moving Image Experts Group (MPEG)-2 is a frame-based compression scheme and is able to reduce interframe redundancy. Currently, many countries are experiencing the migration from analog TV to the DTV. Users can receive DTV services over the air or by cable, satellite dish, Internet protocol television (IPTV), and mobile DTV receiver.