Italian public broadcaster RAI is testing DVB-T2 Lite in addition to its first DVB-T2 broadcasts in the Valle d’Aosta region.
According to the broadcaster, there is no time schedule yet for the nationwide roll-out of DVB-T2. At the moment there are two DVB-T2 transmitters on the air in the Alpine region, in Aosta and Saint-Vincent.
In addition, RAI is now also conudcting test for DVB-T2 Lite in the region to test mobile reception.
“The Valle d’Aosta, with its mountains and its formation -is an ideal breeding ground to test the reliability of the signal and reception problems,” said Gino Alberico, responsible for study and research center of research and innovation at RAI, to local press.
The plan is to next launch the service in the regional capitals. The current multiplex consists of four channels, Rai 1 HD, Rai 2 HD, Rai 3 HD and Rai Test 3D, but there is no word yet on the final line-up of the mux.
Agcom, Italy’s regulator, has earmakerd VHF channel 11 for exclusive DVB-T2 usage. RAI is using this frequency in the Valle d’Aosta region for the pilot, but in other areas the channel transmits the regular RAI DVB-T mux.
Private broadcaster Mediaset is experimenting with DVB-T2 broadcasts on some areas, but has so far not announced any plans to start using the new standard.
Following the launch of DVB-T2 by private broadcaster Europa 7 in 2010, the Italian government decided last year that all DTT tuners sold in Italy from 2015 onwards must include the DVB-T2 standard using HEVC profile, both for set-top boxes and for IDTVs.
More information, courtesy of DVB Scene e-News: Two transmitters, one located in Salirod-St.Vincent and another located near the city of Aosta (Gerdaz-Aosta), made it possible for Rai to set up a small DVB-T2 regional single frequency network (SFN). The field trial allows Rai to test typical issues associated with an SFN, such as, synchronization of transmitters, assessment of overlapping coverage areas, tuning of the delays inserted to avoid static interference zones, etc.
In the first part of 2013, Rai-CRIT also tested a combined T2 and T2-Lite transmission mode by using Future Extension Frames (FEF).
The modulation parameters of both systems were: DVB-T2: Constellation 256QAM rotated, FEC ¾, FFT 32k, Guard Interval 1/128 (corresponding to 28 ?S), Pilot pattern PP7, useful Bit rate 28.2 Mbit/s.
DVB-T2-Lite: Constellation QPSK rotated, FEC ?,½ and ?, FFT 8k, Guard Interval 1/32 (corresponding to 28 ?S), Pilot pattern PP4, useful bit rate 2.2 Mbit/s. The DVB-T2-Lite trial focused on mobile reception and was carried out using a prototype receiver based on the Sony CXD2837 chip .
The main preliminary results can be summarised as follows: Mobile reception: very good coverage on all type of roads (highway, main roads, secondary roads, etc.) in most of the main valley (from the towns of Arnad to Aymavilles); good coverage of many secondary lateral valleys; the T2-Lite configuration under test proved to work well up to 130 km/h speed (on highways).
Fixed reception: measurements in the service area showed a high reception margin in all the predicted coverage area.
