Samsung Demonstrates A-VSB Mobile DTV for North America

Samsung Electronics is demonstrating its A-VSB Mobile DTV technology for enabling mobile TV digital broadcasting in North America at very low cost, using broadcasters' existing facilities and frequency spectrum. Samsung said recent advances in the technology have yielded twice the efficiency (using half the broadcasting bandwidth) compared to Samsung's previous demonstration in January.



Advanced-VSB (A-VSB) is a proposed open standard builds on the current ATSC transmission standard to enhance the ability of receivers to display television broadcasts while in motion, both indoors and outdoors.



Samsung said the technology allows broadcasters to include multiple "turbo-coded" streams within the current main stream, resulting in stronger, clearer signal transmission. In addition, A-VSB eases the synchronization of broadcast signal timing among different towers in a Single Frequency Network (SFN). SFNs can improve the quality of broadcast service by providing uniform signal strength throughout a service area, so that receivers can receive a stronger signal from a nearby transmitter and take advantage of the spatial separation of multiple transmitters to mitigate obstacles such as hills and buildings.



A-VSB technology with no impact on legacy (non-A-VSB) digital TV receivers, which will ignore the added information in the signal while continuing to receive the main TV stream (e.g., High-Definition TV programming).



Together, Samsung Electronics and Rohde & Schwarz have developed A-VSB as a dramatic enhancement to the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) digital TV transmission standard.



Samsung said intends to make A-VSB evaluation kits (including prototype transmission and reception equipment) available on a limited basis to broadcasters and other partner companies in the third quarter of 2007.



For the duration of NAB, live A-VSB transmissions will be sent from local Sinclair Broadcast Group TV station KVMY Las Vegas to mobile receivers operating on a chartered bus in the Convention Center area, using the station's current transmitter and frequency. The same programming will also be re-transmitted at a second frequency on a separate low-power SFN. The SFN is being set up with the support of ION Media Networks (which previously has conducted limited testing of A-VSB in Tampa, Florida) and will be operated under an experimental license to ION from the Federal Communications Commission. The SFN will have three transmitter sites, two located on structures north and south of the Convention Center along the Las Vegas Strip and one inside the Convention Center at the ATSC Digital TV Hot Spot. The SFN demonstration will show how A-VSB makes it easy for broadcasters to maintain complete signal coverage and transmission, filling in gaps between buildings and behind mountains for maximum service quality.

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