The DVB Steering Board has given its approval to the Next Generation Hand Held (NGH) specification.
Based on DVB-T2, a number of extensions have been made to improve mobile and portable reception.
These additional techniques include MIMO (Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output), Time Frequency Slicing (TFS) with a single tuner, non-uniform constellations, improved and extended LDPC codes for lower code rates, more efficient time interleaving and ultra-robust layer-1 signalling. It also covers a hybrid profile where terrestrial and satellite transmission schemes can be combined.
“NGH covers the latest modulation as well as coding technologies and can be regarded as the most sophisticated terrestrial broadcast air interface. Furthermore it also offers additional operational flexibility, such as different protection for audio and video streams in one service,” commented Peter Siebert, DVB’s executive director.
DVB-NGH is the successor to DVB-H, launched to provide linear TV and radio services to handheld devices, but which failed to establish itself in a market undergoing profound change.
The specification will be submitted immediately to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) for formal standardisation and an NGH BlueBook is to be published.
