PROSPECTS FOR DIGITAL TV

Philip Laven

Chairman, DVB Project

Vice-Chairman, FOBTV

NATEXPO, Moscow 6 November 2012

DVB STANDARDS

• DVB is a not-for-profit organisation that develops technical standards for digital TV

• DVB’s initial standards were:– DVB-S (digital satellite TV) in 1993– DVB-C (digital cable TV) in 1993– DVB-T (digital terrestrial TV) in 1995

DVB’s SECOND-GENERATION

• The second-generation standards are based on technologies that were not available in the mid-1990s or were too expensive at that time

• Each of the second-generation standards offers dramatic improvements in performance compared with the earlier standards

• DVB-T2 can deliver 50% more data than DVB-T

• DVB-T is typically used to deliver 24 Mbit/s in a standard 8 MHz channel

• DVB-T2 can deliver 36 Mbit/s in the same channel

– with no change to the coverage area

– with no increase in the transmitter power

DVB AROUND THE WORLD

DVB = SUCCESS

• Screen DigestTM study reported that

“DVB is the most widely used transmission standard in the world”

HEADING TOWARDS 1 BILLION

CHALLENGES AHEAD

• Challenge #1 is to get people to adopt digital TV– consumers need to buy new equipment (set-

top boxes or new integrated digital TV sets)• Challenge #2 is to persuade everybody to stop

using analogue TV– the analogue TV services cannot be switched

off until ~99% of consumers have changed over to digital TV

– it is easy to convert 50% of homes to digital, but the last 5% are much more difficult

– this process can take up to 10 years

CHALLENGES AHEAD

• In 2005, the European Commission proposed the beginning of 2012 as the deadline for completing analogue TV switch-off in all EU countries

• Analogue switch-off has now been completed in 22 of the 27 EU countries

• The remaining 5 EU countries are: – Poland (July 2013)– Bulgaria (September 2013)– Greece (2014?)– Hungary (2015)– Romania (2015)

REGIONAL STANDARDS

• Different regional standards for digital TV might have been excusable when TV sets were rarely moved between countries

• High-quality portable displays (e.g. smart-phones and tablets) dramatically change the environment

• Achieving a single global standard is undoubtedly “easier said than done”, BUT it would be sad if the next-generation of digital terrestrial TV perpetuated the existing fragmentation of standards

• A unified standard would offer huge benefits for broadcasters, manufacturers and, above all, consumers

• The FOBTV (Future of Broadcast TV) initiative was established by a declaration agreed in Shanghai on 11 November 2011

at precisely 11.11.11 on 11/11/11

FOUNDING MEMBERS

A NEW BEGINNING?

• FOBTV is hopefully the start of a new era in which “global collaboration” will be the key principle

• Such enhanced collaboration is emphasized by the appointment of Mark Richer (ATSC’s President) as FOBTV Chairman and Phil Laven (DVB’s Chairman) as FOBTV Vice-Chairman

What will FOBTV do?

GOALS OF FOBTV

• Develop future ecosystem models for terrestrial broadcasting taking into account business, regulatory and technical environments

• Develop requirements for next generation terrestrial broadcast systems

• Foster collaboration of DTV development laboratories

• Recommend major technologies to be used as the basis for new standards

• Request standardization of selected technologies (layers) by appropriate standards development organizations (ATSC, DVB, ARIB, TTA, etc.)

FOBTV

• There is no shortage of ideas in FOBTV– which ones are the most important?

• FOBTV must overcome other challenges:– The “not invented here” syndrome in which

protagonists prefer their own technology over technologies suggested by others

– “IPR stuffing” where participants suggest that a particular technology be included in the specification because their employer has a relevant patent

LOOKING FORWARD

• Continuing pressure on the spectrum means that broadcasters must adopt the most efficient technologies– modulation and coding systems– video compression systems

• Although many countries have still to make the transition to HDTV, some countries are considering the introduction of UHDTV

• We must not miss these opportunities for global standardisation . . .

CONCLUSIONS

• Russia’s adoption of DVB-T2 is absolutely the right decision

• Analogue switch-off will require careful planning– and lots of publicity addressed to consumers

• In the longer term, the next generation of standards for digital TV must be global . . .

• New spectrum-efficient delivery systems must – provide TV services to mobile and portable

devices, such as smart-phones and tablets– meet the demands of SDTV, HDTV and UHDTV

• FOBTV is likely to lead such developments