Lecture 1

Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
ELEC 691X/498X – Broadcast Signal Transmission

Fall 2015
Instructor: Dr. Reza Soleymani, Office: EV-5.125,
Telephone: 848-2424 ext.: 4103.
Office Hours: Wednesday, Thursday, 14:00 – 15:00
Time: Wednesday, 5:45 to 8:15
Room: H 521
Slide 1
Lecture 1:
Objective of the Course
 While you learn about techniques for compression, coding,

modulation in different courses, you do not receive a
comprehensive view of the broadcasting. The goal of this
course is to provide a comprehensive view of a
broadcasting system by integrating techniques from
different areas: video and audio compression,
communications, antenna, and RF.
 A more important outcome I wish to see is: Enabling
students to approach a problem at the system level and to
be capable of putting different pieces they have learnt in
various courses together to solve a problem.
Slide 2
Lecture 1:
Contents of the Course
 Digital Transmission Standards (ATSC, DVB-T/T2, DVB-S/S2).

 Video Compression Techniques: MPEG-2, H.264, HEVC, J2K.
 Performance measures for Digital TV: Noise, Error, Impairments.
 Packet Structure: Tables (PAT, PMT).
 Multiplexing and De-multiplexing.
 Channel Coding and Modulation for Digital Television.
 Cyclic codes
 Digital TV Transmitters: Up/converters, Power Amplifiers, Combiners,
Equalizers and pre-correctors.
 Transmission Lines: Cables, Wave Guides, link budget calculation.
 Transmitting Antennas for Digital Broadcasting.
 Advanced Topics: COFDM, LDPC Codes.
 Satellite Broadcasting.
 IPTV and Multi-platform formats.
Slide 3
Lecture 1:
Grading Scheme
Graduate:
 Assignment: 5%
 Project: 20%
 Midterm : 25%
 Final Examination: 50%
 Undergraduate:
 Assignment: 10%
 Midterm : 30%
 Final Examination: 60%
Note 1: Undergraduate students may opt to follow the graduate scheme.
Note 2: Failing to write a Midterm results in losing the 30% assigned to
the test.
Note 3: In order to pass the course, you should get at least 60% in the
final.
Slide 4
Lecture 1:
Course Material
Textbook:
 Ioannis Pitas, Digital video and television – April 16, 2013
References:
• A/300:2017, “ATSC 3.0 System”, https://www.atsc.org/atsc20-
standard/a3002017-atsc-3-0-system/
• ETSI EN 300 744 V1.6.1 (2009-01) Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB);
Framing structure, channel coding and modulation for digital
terrestrial television. Available at:
http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/300700_300799/300744/01.06.
01_60/en_300744v010601p.pdf
• ETSI EN 302 307 V1.2.1 (2009-08) Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB);
Second generation framing structure, channel coding and modulation
systems for Broadcasting. Available at:
Slide 5
Lecture 1:
Course Material
References (Continued):
 http://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/302300_302399/302307/01.02.
01_60/en_302307v010201p.pdf
 Interactive Services, News Gathering and other broadband satellite
applications (DVB-S2). Available at:
www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_en/302300.../en_302307v010102p.pdf
 H264 (05/2003) Advanced video coding for generic audiovisual
services, Telecommunication Standardization Section of ITU. Available
at: https://www.itu.int/rec/T-REC-H.264
 Gerald W. Collins, Fundamentals of Digital Television Transmission,
John Wiley and Sons, 2001.
 IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting: free for Concordia students at:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=11.
 Course Notes.
Slide 6
Lecture 1:
About the Course Material
Why so many references?

 Most of the books written on the subject target practicing engineers
and not the students. They cover either only a few topics or many
topics with not enough depth.
 The area while mature is still evolving. So, it is good to learn to get to
the source of things (Standards).
Why this text?

 It is well written and covers most of the topics in reasonable detail.
 It is very inexpensive: You may buy it online, e.g., from abebooks.com
for $20 US. ( around $30.00 Canadian with shipping).
Slide 7
Lecture 1:
What will be covered in this lecture
In addition to the introduction given so far, in this lecture, we

will cover:
 The basic components of a broadcast system.
 Overview of Analog TV.
 Overview of Digital TV.
 Advantages of the Digital TV over Analog TV.
Slide 8
Lecture 1:
Components of a TV system
At the highest level, a television system consists of two entities:

• Service provider: A TV station, a cable company, a satellite service
provider, etc. You may include Internet based media streaming)
services such as Youtube and NETFLIX.
• A client (an end user): You and I sitting at home watching TV or
some video on the Internet.
Let’s start with the receiver side (end user), not because it is more
important but because it is simpler.
• The first thing you need is a device to see video and listen to the sound,
that is, a TV, a computer monitor a tablet, a smart phone.
• Next you need some connection to the outside world, i.e., some way to
get the Video signal into your house. This can be a Yagi antenna in case
of terrestrial TV, a Dish antenna in case of satellite TV, a coaxial cable
in case of Cable TV, some sort of Internet connection in case of IPTV.
Slide 9
Lecture 1:
Yagi Antenna A satellite TV dish
Coaxial Cable
Slide 10
Lecture 1:
• An antenna, a cable or a wire bring Radio Frequency (RF) signal to

your house and your TV or monitor only understand levels specifying
the colour and luminance of the image pixels. Hence, you need
something to transform the RF content of the cable, wire or antenna to
video (and audio) signal. First you need to translate waveform from
RF to IF (Intermediate Frequency) easy for your electronic
components to handle. This is called a down converter (D/C). For
example, a satellite TV signal working at Ku-band has a center
frequency in the 12 GHz* range. A down converter can bring it to the
IF range of 0.95 to 2.15 GHz. You need then to amplify this before
putting it again into a cable. This is done using an LNA (Low Noise
Amplifier). In the case of satellite TV, the down converter and LNA are
integrated into a device called Low Noise Block (LNB).
* GHz stands for a billion Hz.
Slide 11
Lecture 1:
An LNB
LNB installed on a dish
Slide 12
Lecture 1:
• Finally, you need a set top box to demodulate the waveform and
separate video and audio signals and give the video to the screen
and the audio to the speakers. We start with an old black and white
analog receiver. Later, we talk mostly about digital receivers.
Slide 13
Lecture 1:
• In the case of digital set top boxes, we have all the components you learn in
ELEC6831: Digital Transmission I. These include:
– Analog to Digital Converter,
– Matched filter,
– Decoder (if applicable),
– Demodulator.
• New TV sets have the receiver for terrestrial TV, so you do not need an
external set top box. Some models of TV (so called, Smart TV) also have
Ethernet input as well as WiFi.
• For satellite TV still you need a set top box. However, it is due to economic
(small market size) of satellite TV rather than technical reasons.
• For cable TV you need set top box (DVR)mainly for recoding and auxiliary
functions such as forward/backward, picture in picture, etc. Otherwise given
the volume, the receiver can be economically integrated in the TV
Slide 14
Lecture 1:
Components of the transmitting side:

We started by discussing the equipment at the receiver (viewer) side not because
it is more important, but because it is simpler and we deal with more familiar
devices: things that we deal with in our daily lives such as a TV, and antenna, cable
or telephone wire, DVR, etc. Now, we use our knowledge of what we use at home
to list the entities (hardware and software) that a service provider such as a
television station, a cable company or a satellite TV company needs to have in
order to be able to send the signal to our homes.
Most of you have some communications background. In particular, many of you
have taken digital communications course or possibly are taking it concurrently
with this course. So, you are familiar with the fact that any device you have at the
transmitter side has a counterpart at the receiver side, i.e., an entity that undoes
what the transmitter side entity has done. For example, you have a modulator at
the transmitting station and need a demodulator at the receiver side to translate
back the modulated information to the its original form, maybe with some error.
Similarly, an encoder at the transmitter requires a decoder at the receiver.
Slide 15
Lecture 1:
The terms like MODEM (modulator plus demodulator) or CODEC (a coder and a
decoder) have been tossed to emphasize this fact. It is important to note that, in a
communication system we have modem or codec because the communications
process is bi-directional (or in technical terms, full-duplex), i.e., each node is both
the transmitter and the receiver. However, a TV system is almost always one way,
i.e., there is no signal going from our TV to the TV station or cable company. There
might be a minor level of interactivity in new systems, but they are usually at
much lower data rate and are for request and signaling. So, the good news is that
most of the things you have learnt in your digital communications course can help
you in grasping the subjects discussed in this course. On the other hand if you
have not taken any communications course, what you learn in this course will
prepare you for such course.
Now, let’s see what we need to have in order to broadcast a TV program. In order
not to be very abstract, let’s focus on regular (terrestrial) TV station.
The first thing a TV station needs is a way to generate the content (of course
some of the content such as movies are generated by a third party). In order to
create content, a TV station needs rooms furnished according to their
functionality.
Slide 16
Lecture 1:
Video Signal
For example, a News room for broadcasting news another for interviews. Each of
these will be called a studio. In addition to the furniture, a studio needs lighting,
cameras, mixers, etc. In this course, we will not be concerned with the studio and
studio equipment. Our job starts at the output of the studio, that is, with a cable
providing us with video and accompanying audio and possibly data signals. The
most important part of the signal coming out of the studio, and the one taking
most our transmission bandwidth is video signal. Let’s digress from the station
equipment and see what the video signal is.
A video signal is a sequence of still pictures. In order for us to feel the movement
there should be a certain number of still pictures per unit of time. Human visual
system can process 10 to 12 images per second. So in order to perceive any
motion at all, we need the number of still images (called frames) to exceed ten. Of
course such low numbers does not result in natural looking video. The number of
frames per second (frame rate) for the movies was established as 24 frames per
second. For the TV the frame rates are 30 in North America and Japan, and 25 in
most other places. Higher rate (60 and 120) have been added in more recent
versions of the standard.
Slide 17
Lecture 1:
Video Signal
Although rates such as these (25 or 30) give the feeling of motion to the
viewer, and are good for projecting movies on the TV, due to low refresh
rate of the screen (CRT in particular), they cause an effect called
flickering. Flickering is a result of drop in the screen brightness for
sufficiently long periods of time so that it is perceivable by the human
eye. To avoid flickering a technique called interlacing is used. In an
interlaced system, each frame is divided into two fields. These are called
odd and even fields.
Slide 18
Lecture 1:
Video Signal
The original full frame scanning is called progressive. A scanning scheme

with 30 frames per second and 30 refreshes is denoted as 30p while, a 30
frame per second scheme where each frame is divided into two field is
denoted as 60i. The interlacing results in removing the flickers without
increasing the bandwidth.
These days the TV industry is moving towards 60p and even 120p and
frame rates up to 350p are being considered by researchers at BBC.
Slide 19
Lecture 1:
Video Signal
The lines seen in the above figures are a trace of the intensity of light
coming out of the camera. Let’s first consider a black and white TV. If
the video signal were kept constant, i.e., a voltage in the dynamic
range of the CRT input, then we would see a shade of gray caused by
lines of the same color. However, if the signal changed in proportion to
the brightness (luminosity) of the object in front of the camera we
sense he object.
The number of lines per frame, which is twice the number of lines per
field in an interlaced video signal, is a measure of the resolution.
Slide 20
Lecture 1:
Video Signal
The number of lines per frame for analog TV were 525 in North
America (NTSC standard) and 625 in the European standards
(PAL and SECAM).
In addition to luminosity, a video signal contains audio and
signaling information. The latter refers to control information
specifying the beginning of a field and end of a trace.
Now let’s move to colour TV (We are still talking about analog
TV). In addition to luminosity, we need the video signal to convey
the colour. From high school physics you know that all colours
can be generated by proper mix of three distinct colours. In TV
and computer industry, the three basic colours used are Red (R),
Green (G) and Blue (B) thus the notation RGB. The RGB
(component) interface has five cables: 3 four colours Red, Green
and Blue and 2 for audio (stereo). The picture in next page shows
and RGB to HDMI converter.
Slide 21
Lecture 1:
Video Signal: Component
Slide 22
Lecture 1:
Video Signal: Composite
While it is not a big deal running five wires between two devices
close to one another such as a camera and a monitor, recorder
or encoder (except for some inconvenience), it is not a good
idea to have five separate lines when it comes to transmission. It
is best if we could combine all these five signals into one and
convey it with one cable to the RF section for modulation and
transmission. This was the reason for introducing
C
composite video.
Before talking about composite video, let’s mention that, we do
not need necessarily to send the three colours Red, Green and
Blue. Any linear combination of these three colours can be
transmitted and the receiver can recover the three colours. It is
just solving a system of three linear equations with three
unknowns. The tree signals sent are 𝑘𝑟 𝑅 + 𝐾𝑔 𝐺 + 𝐾𝑏 𝐵 𝐶𝑏 = 𝑌 −
𝐵 and 𝐶𝑟 = 𝑌 − 𝑅. The signal Y is the luminosity (called luma) and
makes the colour TV backward compatible with black and white
TV.
Slide 23
Lecture 1:
𝐶𝑏 and 𝐶𝑟 convey the colour information thus called chroma. The above
scheme denoted by 𝑌𝐶𝑏 𝐶𝑟 was suggested by CCITT* predecessor to ITU-
T** and ITU-R***). The TV standards in North America and Europe used
YIQ (NTSC in North America and Japan) and YUV (PAL and SECAM in
Europe and most other parts of the world). In order to recover R, G and
B from YCbCr one has to know 𝑘𝑟 , 𝑘𝑔 and 𝑘𝑏 . There are several values
used based on the standard as well as the application. The one
suggested by ITU-R called BT.601 is 𝑌 = 𝑘𝑟 𝑅 + (1 − 𝑘𝑟 − 𝑘𝑏 )𝐺 + 𝑘𝑏 𝐵, 𝐶𝑏 =
1 𝐵−𝑌 1 𝑅−𝑌
. and 𝐶𝑟 = . with 𝑘𝑏 = 0.114 and 𝑘𝑟 = 0.299.
2 1−𝑘𝑏 2 1−𝑘𝑟
The three video signals generated according to the above scheme are
frequency multiplexed forming a single signal called the composite
signal.
• * Comité Consultatif International Téléphonique et Télégraphique.
• ** International Telecommunications Union – Telecommunications Sector.
• *** International Telecommunications Union – Radiocommunications Sector.
Slide 24
Lecture 1:
Figure below shows the composite signals in NTSC (National

Television System Committee).
A composite interface has all the video on one RCA cable (the
yellow one) and two cables for Left and Right Audio see next
slide).
Slide 25
Lecture 1:
Slide 26
Lecture 1:
Video Signal: S-Video
A compromise between component video and composite video

is Separate Video named S-Video, Super-Video or Y/C.
In S-video, carries video using two synchronized signal and
ground pairs, termed Y and C.
Y is the luma signal, which carries the luminance - or black-and-
white - of the picture, including synchronization pulses.
C is the chroma signal, which carries the chrominance of the
picture.
Pin 1: GND Y
Pin 2: GND C
Pin 3: Y
Pin 4: C
Slide 27
Lecture 1:
Digital Television standards
There are mainly four Digital TV (DTV)standards:

• DVB: Digital Video Broadcasting.
• ATSC: Advanced Television Systems Committee.
• DTMB: Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcast used
in People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, and
Macau.
• ISDV: Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting used
in Japan and most of South America.
Slide 28
Lecture 1
Coverage of different standards
Slide 29
Lecture 1:
Digital Television: DVB
• DVB is a suite of internationally accepted standards

developed under DVB project which is an industry alliance
with over 200 members formed in 1993 (www.dvb.org). The first
versions of DVB were released in 1997 and was published by a
Joint Technical Committee (JTC) of the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), European
Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC)
and European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
• DVB has standards for different media such as:
– DVB-T/T2 for terrestrial.
– DVB-S/S2/S2X for satellite.
– DVB-C/C2 for cable.
– DVB-H for Handheld devices (mobile).
– DVB-IPTV for streaming content over IP.
Slide 30
Lecture 1
DVB-X2 Parameters
DVB-S2 DVB-T2 DVB-C2

Multiple Transport Multiple Transport Multiple Transport
Input Stream and Generic Stream and Generic Stream and Generic
Interface Stream Encapsulation Stream Encapsulation Stream Encapsulation
(GSE) (GSE) (GSE)
Variable Coding &
Variable Coding &
Variable Coding & Modulation and
Modes Modulation and Adaptive
Modulation[4] Adaptive Coding &
Coding & Modulation
Modulation
LDPC + BCH 1/4, 1/3,
LDPC + BCH 1/2, 3/5, LDPC + BCH 1/2, 2/3,
FEC 2/5, 1/2, 3/5, 2/3, 3/4, 4/5,
2/3, 3/4, 4/5, 5/6 3/4, 4/5, 5/6, 8/9, 9/10
5/6, 8/9, 9/10
Carrier Single Carrier PSK with
OFDM absolute OFDM
Modulation Multiple Streams
Modulation QPSK, 8-PSK, 16-APSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-
16- to 4096-QAM
Schemes 32-APSK QAM, 256-QAM
Guard 1/4, 19/256, 1/8, 19/128,
Not Applicable 1/64 or 1/128
Interval 1/16, 1/32, 1/128
Fourier
1k, 2k, 4k, 8k, 16k, 32k
transform Not Applicable 4k Inverse FFT
DFT
size
Bit- Time- and Bit- Time- and
Interleaving Bit-Interleaving
Frequency-Interleaving Frequency-Interleaving
Scattered and Continual Scattered and
Pilots Pilot symbols
Pilots Continual Pilots
Slide 31
Lecture 1:
Digital Television: ATSC
ATSC standard has been developed by the Advanced Television

Systems Committee, Inc., which is an international, non-profit
organization developing voluntary standards for digital television.
ATSC was formed in 1982 by the member organizations of the
Joint Committee on InterSociety Coordination (JCIC): the
Electronic Industries Association (EIA), the Institute of Electrical
and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the National Association of
Broadcasters (NAB), the National Cable Telecommunications
Association (NCTA), and the Society of Motion Picture and
Television Engineers (SMPTE). ATSC members represent the
broadcast, broadcast equipment, motion picture, consumer
electronics, computer, cable, satellite, and semiconductor
industries.
ATSC standard is used in Canada, Dominican Republic, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and South Korea.
Slide 32
Lecture 1:
Digital Television: ATSC
ATSC standard has been developed by the Advanced Television

Systems Committee, Inc., which is an international, non-profit
organization developing voluntary standards for digital television.
ATSC was formed in 1982 by the member organizations of the
Joint Committee on InterSociety Coordination (JCIC): the
Electronic Industries Association (EIA), the Institute of Electrical
and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the National Association of
Broadcasters (NAB), the National Cable Telecommunications
Association (NCTA), and the Society of Motion Picture and
Television Engineers (SMPTE). ATSC members represent the
broadcast, broadcast equipment, motion picture, consumer
electronics, computer, cable, satellite, and semiconductor
industries.
ATSC standard is used in Canada, Dominican Republic, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and South Korea.
Slide 33
Lecture 1:
Advantages of Digital TV over Analog TV
• Digital information is made up of symbols, e.g., bits taking a

finite number of distinct hence easily identifiable values. This
reduces the effect of noise.
• Having video in digital format allows us to use the digital
electronics and digital signal processing techniques to modify
the video information like any other computer data. For
example, we can perform:
– Data compression,
– Error Control Coding,
– Using new digital modulation techniques,
– Translation between formats,
– Changing the rate of transmission according to user’s demand,
– Performing advanced video editing such as collage, zooming,
special effects,
– Easy storage of information as well as easy retrieval, content
search, etc.
Slide 34
Lecture 1:
Advantages of Digital TV over Analog TV
• Digital TV allows non-linear TV, i.e., stopping the program,

forward, backward, schedule recording, etc. The viewers do
not have to lose content because they cannot sit in front of
the TV all the time.
• Digital TV moves the video from a stream based system into a
file based system. The file can be retrieved, parts of it
extracted or some other video be added to it. It is also
possible to add metadata allow the viewers to effortlessly
discover the content they want to watch across multiple
platforms.
• Being able to change between formats and adding
metadata, DTV brings forward TV Everywhere (TVE) allowing
the people watch programs of their choice on TV, over the
PC, Tablet, smartphone, even in metro stations.
Slide 35

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Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

ELEC 691X/498X – Broadcast Signal Transmission

 While you learn about techniques for compression, coding,

 Digital Transmission Standards (ATSC, DVB-T/T2, DVB-S/S2).

Why so many references?

Why this text?

In addition to the introduction given so far, in this lecture, we

At the highest level, a television system consists of two entities:

Yagi Antenna A satellite TV dish

• An antenna, a cable or a wire bring Radio Frequency (RF) signal to

* GHz stands for a billion Hz.

Components of the transmitting side:

The original full frame scanning is called progressive. A scanning scheme

Figure below shows the composite signals in NTSC (National

A compromise between component video and composite video

There are mainly four Digital TV (DTV)standards:

• DVB is a suite of internationally accepted standards

DVB-S2 DVB-T2 DVB-C2

ATSC standard has been developed by the Advanced Television

ATSC standard has been developed by the Advanced Television

• Digital information is made up of symbols, e.g., bits taking a

• Digital TV allows non-linear TV, i.e., stopping the program,

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