ENENSYS DEMONSTRATES EXPANDED DTT ISDB-T CAPABILITIES AT SET EXPO

At SET EXPO 2016, ENENSYS Technologies, designers and manufacturers of digital TV transmission technologies, will demonstrate increased capabilities of its ISDB-T portfolio enabling BTS compression/decompression, BTS over IP adaptation, ISDB-T/Tb rebroadcasting as well as targeted regional ad insertion. ENENSYS has also leveraged its ASI and IP switches, ASIIPGuard and IPGuard V2, to support automatic near-seamless and seamless switching between redundant ISDB-T signals.

OneBeam is a central part of ENENSYS’ network efficiency solutions, sitting between encoding/multiplexing and transmission. The system is composed of the TbGateway product at the headend and the TbEdge product – which generates the BTS signal at the transmission sites. OneBeam tackles key issues related to the specific nature of the broadcast transport stream (BTS) in ISDB-T/Tb, which is required for broadcasting ISDB-T/Tb signals. Not only is the BTS composed of 204 bytes long MPEG-2 transport stream packets – which necessitates adaption in order to convey it over the delivery network – but it also requires a bandwidth of 32 Mbit/s stream, regardless of how many channels or services are included, making it costly for content delivery over satellite to DTT headends.

OneBeam ISDB-T/Tb allows a standard (MPEG-2) transport stream to be used within the delivery network, removing the need for proprietary equipment to deliver and receive the BTS stream. This also means that services can easily be monitored across the delivery network because of the standardised MPEG signal.

TbEdge can be used as a standalone system to generate the BTS for a specific region. However, adding the system to the network allows the operator the added benefit of being able to control all the TbEdge from a centralized location. In this case, the TbGateway serves as central point for the network.

ENENSYS has now developed BTS compression/decompression capabilities within the OneBeam system to better support its customers in Brazil. Brazilian operators currently use a solution to compress the BTS before it is sent over satellite, and decompress it at the transmitter sites. The new development will allow them to do this within OneBeam or using the BTS decompression feature within the TbEdge which is interoperable with third-party BTS compressors.

At this year’s SET EXPO, ENENSYS will also present the DTTCaster product that enables an ISDB-T/Tb off-air signal to be rebroadcast over ASI and IP. This is designed to provide highly cost-effective retransmission of DTT networks at regional/local transmitter sites where IP (microwave, fibre, etc.) or satellite connectivity isn’t possible or is cost-prohibitive. DTTCaster allows reception of the network content using a simple antenna then re-generates that content on another frequency. This provides low-cost, high-quality retransmission of a network. DTTCaster units are housed in ENENSYS’s HDc chassis with a maximum of six DTTCaster units in 1U enabling the reception of 24 RF signals.

Last but not least, ENENSYS will also demonstrate its ad insertion product AdsEdge. AdsEdge addresses the problem of cost-effective regional content insertion in DTT and cable networks. It supports the ‘splicing’ of file-based content, such as advertising spots, local news and regional weather forecasts, at the final stage of signal distribution – the transmitter site in DTT’s case, and local cable headends for redistribution in others. Its single frequency network is fully compatible with DTT, and combines the Ads Server and Splicer in a single unit, reducing cost and complexity. AdsEdge is based on industry standard SCTE signalling enabling integration with existing systems.