BBC Research & Innovation has demonstrated the first working real-time demodulator capable of receiving DVB-T2 compliant signals. The demonstration took place last Friday (August 29) on the 60th anniversary of the BBC Kingswood Warren facility.
BBC Research & Innovation has been a key mover in the development of the new transmission standard that is capable of producing bandwidth savings of between 30% and 50% of that needed for the standard DVB-T currently used for terrestrial signals. It is seen as a key plank in plans to deliver high definition signals over the terrestrial network. The standard was approved by the DVB on June 26 and the first test transmissions made by the BBC from Guildford 24 hours later.
The demo involved the transmission of a 36 Mbit/sec multiplex containing three high definition programmes each coded at 11 Mbit/sec with the latest MPEG-4 encoders. It was then fed into the prototype DVB-T2 modulator developed by the BBC and currently providing the test transmissions from the Guildford site.
The modulator and demodulator are available for licensing.
