DTVG Licensing, Inc has begun the licensing process for the DVB-S2 technology used in the transmission of digital TV signals by satellite. The company is owned by DirecTV, which has been assigned the essential DVB-S2 patents, and the Italian public broadcaster RAI. ESA is currently in the later stages of agreeing to the initiative and is expected to join the process by the end of the year.
The DVB Project, which masterminded the development of DVB-S2 will be hoping that enveloped the licensing of the MHP interactive protocol is not repeated, when users balked at rates put forward by the patent pool led by Via Licensing.
DTVG Licensing is covering 20 patent families and will charge a one-time fee of $1 per decoder for consumer applications. The fee falls to $0.50 for quantities exceeding 500,000 over the term of the licence. Fees for other applications including digital satellite newsgathering, data trunking, and up-link station modulation are available on request to the company.
The technology has been of significant benefit to providers of HD television services where savings in the data rate of 30% have been possible.
Further details are available from the DTVG Licensing website at www.s2licensing.com and representatives from the organisation will be present at IBC 2008.
