From the President - IEEE Broadcast Technology...

IEEE

From the PresidentGreetings everyone!

Welcome to mysecond message asthe president of theIEEE BroadcastTechnology Society.As I began writingthis, I was still sit-ting in a hotel room

in Las Vegas on the 8th day of a 10day business trip that included attend-ing the PBS Technical Conference andthe National Association of Broadcast-er convention. It is an extremely busytime for me since I am here at NABand PBS TechCon as the director ofengineering for Iowa Public Broadcast-ing, the vice chairman of the PBSEnterprise Technology Advisory Com-mittee and President of BTS. Trying tojuggle all of the meetings, appoint-

ments, sessions and technologydemonstrations is quite a challenge,but I enjoy what I do, so being tiredand worn out at the end of the day isa reminder of what I was able to seeand accomplish.

As this message began, the BTSAdCom has just completed a quarterlymeeting that was held at NAB. I won’tgo into all the details of what was dis-cussed and decided at the meeting. Iwould however like to share a coupleof observations regarding the BTS’ par-ticipation at NAB.

Throughout the week, traffic at theBTS booth on the second floor by theSouth Hall was brisk. The booth wasmanned by Kathy Colabaugh and vari-ous members of the AdCom and BTSofficers. I hope that many of you hada chance to stop by and meet with the

This newslettercomes to you withsome good newsand some sadnews. As we wereputting the finaltouches on thisedition welearned of the

death of Florence Berman. For thoseof you who did not know Florenceshe was the wife of longtime BTSmember and past President JerryBerman. I will not go into the manycontributions that Florence made tothe BTS since they are better coveredin a separate piece in this newsletter.

However, on behalf of the BTS, Iwould like to offer out deepest sym-pathy to Jerry and his family and tolet them know that Florence will bedeeply missed by the BTS family.

On a happier note we would liketo congratulate Kathy Colabaugh onher promotion to BTS administrator.Kathy has become a familiar face asshe filled in for April Monroe prior toApril’s decision to leave us perma-nently and become a full time mom.During that period Kathy has done agreat job so this is a well deservedpromotion. Congratulations Kathy!

The other good news is that BTS

The technologies to deliver information and entertainment to audiences worldwide, at home and on the go.

From the Editor

continued on page 2

ISSN 1067-490X

Volume 15, Number 2, Summer 2007

BTS representatives that were there. Anumber of new members signed up atthe booth which is always rewardingfor the people working there.

On Saturday the 14th of April, IEEEcontinued on page 2

InsideIn Memory of Florence Berman . . . .3BTS Events Featured at CTIA Wireless 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3IEEE BTS Contributes to Successful NAB2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6BroadcastAsia2007 IEEE BTS Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7IEEE BTS Representation at IBC2007 . . .8Plan to Attend the IEEE 57th AnnualBTS Broadcast Symposium . . . . . . . . . .9Kathy Colabaugh Promoted to BTSAdministrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10BTS Chapter Reports: IEEE BTS Argentina Chapter Report . .10IEEE BTS Japan Chapter Report . . . . .11IEEE BTS New York Chapter Report . .11IEEE Philadelphia Signal Processing/Broadcast Technology/ConsumerElectronics (SP/BT/CE) Chapter Report .11IEEE Russia Northwest Joint Chapter Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12The 4th ITU-T IPTV FG Meeting Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13United States Digital Television - TheChallenges Continue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15DTV Hot Spot at NAB 2007: A Focal Point for Mobile System Proposals . .15IEEE Recomended Practice for DTVEmmision Mask Compliance Measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17The Do’s & Don’ts of Transport StreamLevel Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19Call for Papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23IEEE Broadcast Technology SocietyOrganization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

btsNL_summer07.qxd 7/16/07 8:45 AM

IEEE Broadcast Technology Society Newsletter 2 Summer 2007

Newsletter Deadlines

The BTS Newsletter welcomes con-tributions from every member.Please forward materials you wouldlike included to the editor [email protected]. Here areour deadlines for upcoming issues:

Issue Due Date

Fall, 2007 July 20, 2007Winter, 2007 October 20, 2007Spring, 2008 January 20, 2008Summer, 2008 April 20, 2008

IEEE Broadcast Technology Society Newsletter (ISSN 1067-490X) is published quar-terly by the Broadcast Technology Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electron-ics Engineers, Inc. Headquarters address: 345 East 47th Street, New York, NY10017-2394. Sent at a cost of $1.00 per year to each member of the Broadcast Tech-nology Society. Printed in USA. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and atadditional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to: IEEE BroadcastTechnology Society Newsletter, IEEE, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08855.

© 2007 IEEE. Information contained in this newsletter may be copied without per-mission provided that copies are not made or distributed for direct commercialadvantage, and the title of the publication and its date appear.

recently concluded two very success-ful events. The first being our secondannual International Symposiumon Broadband Multimedia Systemsand Broadcasting in Orlando, FLand the second being the BTS Tutori-al on Display Technology at NAB2007. Both events were well attendedand from what I hear well received bythose attending. These are both greatexamples of how the BTS is remakingitself into a society that will much bet-ter serve the entire broadcast industryas the lines between traditional broad-casting and other media continue toblur. Although the content of thebroadband symposium is out of myarea of expertise I did attend in mycapacity as society Vice President.Beyond the content of the sympo-sium, the two things that give megreat hope for out society were theage of both the attendees and the pre-senters (many were young enough tobe my kids) and the large number ofcountries represented. Both of thesebode well for the society’s future.

These were great events for oursociety but we are not stoppingthere. The IBC is fast approachingand the BTS will be presentinganother tutorial there, plus havingour usual booth presence and a like-ly large contingent of AdCom mem-bers since that will be the venue forthe next meeting of the AdCom. Itwas decided at the AdCom meetingheld in April, at NAB 2007, since theBTS is a major partner in IBC andreceives a substantial amount of rev-

From the President continued

enue from that event, holding ourmeeting there would be educationalfor the AdCom members who havenever attended IBC and also todemonstrate our interest and commit-ment to our other IBC partners.

Then to conclude the year will bethe 57th Annual IEEE BTS Broad-cast Symposium. This symposiumseems to get better every year and oursymposium committee is hard at workto make this one the best ever. It willtake place over three days beginningon October 31, 2007 and be held onceagain at our old home the HotelWashington in Washington, DC. Thiscould be the last time to attend at theHotel Washington since the hotel hasbeen sold and the new owners arereported to be planning a major reno-vation that will also mean a hugeincrease in cost to use the hotel. Theexpected cost increase may make it

economically infeasible to hold futuresymposiums there so take this oppor-tunity to say Goodbye to our oldfriend. Please checkout the announce-ment inside this issue and plan toattend.

Things seem to be really lookingup for the BTS and that is also evi-denced by the size and content ofboth our transactions and the newslet-ter. This issue of the newsletter will bethe largest since I became editor andthe thanks goes to all of you whohave volunteered your time andknowledge to provide the content andto Ted Kuligowski who keeps every-one’s feet to fire to get it all done.Many thanks to all for the great effortand keep it coming. It sure makes myjob easy.

Bill [email protected]

From the Editor continued

BTS presented a half day tutorial onVideo Display Technology which I wasable to attend. AdCom member DavidBancroft of Thomson pulled togetherand chaired an excellent program withthe aid of Fox’s Richard Friedel amongother very active AdCom members.The tutorial was well attended, I esti-mate more than 200 people attendedand based on the feedback wereceived at the booth, the session wasvery well received. I was fortunateenough to be able to attend the entiresession and since I was not on theprogram, I was actually able to enjoythe presentations without worryingabout the logistics of the event. Frommy experience I want to offer my con-

gratulations to David, the team thatpulled together the session and pre-senters on one of the most useful andinformative tutorials I have attended.

Some post NAB news that may beof interest to BTS members in generalis the promotion of Kathy Colabaughto the BTS administrator position.Kathy had been the interim administra-tor for the society while April Monroewas on maternity leave and has decid-ed to focus on being a full-time mom.This is one of those classic good newsbad news situations for BTS in that weare all extremely happy for April andsupport her decision but we are alsosaddened that she will not be with usany longer. Fortunately we also have a

continued on page 3


Summer 2007 3 IEEE Broadcast Technology Society Newsletter

good news more good news situationwith Kathy in that she has been doingan excellent job for the interim andwill now continue as the permanentadministrator. Of course since Kathywas the support person for the BTSTransactions, she leaves a gap there.

We will be working diligently with theIEEE offices to fill that vacancy.

I figured I’d keep this update briefsince I’d like to have you read it all.Remember that BTS will be in Amster-dam at the IBC in September and con-ducting our annual Symposium in

Washington, DC in October. If you planon attending these events, I would wel-come the opportunity to meet you inperson, say hello and find out what BTScan do to become a more valuable assetto you. Take care.

Bill

In Memory of Florence BermanFlorence Berman, wife of GeraldBerman, past president and long timeactivist of the Society, passed awayMay 18th after a heroic battle withacute leukemia.

Florence’s smiling face was a regularat our membership booths at NAB andIBC, and at our Society events. Beforewe had a Society Administrator, volun-teers always ran the booth. Florencecould always be counted on for support.Often, Jerry and other Society members,would be busy with conference andIEEE business, and there would be Flo-rence running things in the booth andsigning up new members. She was fre-quently accompanied by Sally Kuligows-ki, Ted’s wife, and Kareen Hunter, pastpresident Bruce Hunter’s wife.

Florence’s involvement began anumber of years ago the first time wehad a membership booth in Amsterdamat an IBC convention. Jerry was busysetting up the booth and discovered

that all of the materials he had orderedfrom IEEE for the booth had notarrived. Desperately, he called Florenceat the hotel, who was in the middle of agood bubble bath, and asked her tohurry over to “man” the booth while hetried to jury rig signs. Florence ran overand sat in the booth, empty except fortwo chairs and a table. As Florence usedto tell it, people would come by and

ask what the booth was about. She’dsay the “IEEE Broadcast TechnologySociety.” When pressed about what theSociety was all about she’d say, “youhave to wait for my husband, I’m a mar-riage and family counselor.” Well, newsgot around the convention floor andpretty soon she was busy listening tofamily problems, gratis of course!

Florence quickly learned about theSociety and turned out to be one ofthe best recruiters we ever had. Hertechnique was simple. Guilt! Whensomeone came by she’d ask if he orshe was a member. Invariably, whenthe answer was no, she’d retort, “howcan you be a serious broadcast engi-neer and not be a member of theSociety.” With her personality andsmile it worked almost every time!

Florence will be missed by all whoknew her, and especially by Jerry whooften referred to her as his best friend,partner and companion.

BTS Events Featured at CTIA WIRELESS 2007by Tom Gurley, BTS Junior Past President, and Co-chair, IEEE Broadband Multimedia 2007 & Portable 2007Photos by Kathy Colabaugh, BTS Society Administrator

BTS sponsored two of the three con-ferences comprising “IEEE @ CTIAWIRELESS 2007”, held March 25-29 atthe Orange County Convention Centerin Orlando, Florida. Co-located withthe second edition of our IEEE Inter-national Symposium on BroadbandMultimedia Systems and Broadcasting(Broadband Multimedia 2007) werethe IEEE International Conference onPortable Information Devices(Portable 2007) – an interdisciplinary,intersociety event co-sponsored by

BTS – and the IEEE Mobile WiMAXSymposium, sponsored by the Com-munications Society under its WCNC(Wireless Communications and Net-working Conference) flag.

This year’s Broadband MultimediaSymposium was even more successfuland diverse than last year’s inauguralevent in Las Vegas – with more partici-pants, representing some twenty-twocountries. It also had a good balancebetween academic papers and thosefrom industry and research labs, and the

attendees’ evaluations gave this year’sprogram very high marks. Admission tothe CTIA WIRELESS exhibits andkeynotes was included with registrationagain this year, and registrants couldalso attend the other co-located IEEEevents at reduced rates. About a thirdof our attendees also registered for oneor both of the other events.

Next year, Broadband Multimediareturns to Las Vegas, co-located withIEEE WCNC 2008 and CTIA WIRELESS2008 during the week of March 30.



Dr. Claire Gu of the University of California, Santa Cruz,speaks on “Nanotechnologies and PIDS” at the Monday

Luncheon of Portable 2007. Portable was sponsored by theIEEE Technical Activities Board (TAB) New TechnologyDirections Committee (NTDC) and four societies: BTS;

Communications (ComSoc); Components, Packaging, andManufacturing Technology (CPMT); and Electron Devices

(EDS). Technical co-sponsors were the Engineering inMedicine and Biology Society (EMBS), the Vehicular

Technology Society (VTS), and the University of California atSanta Cruz (UCSC).

Nash Parker of Alcatel-Lucent leads off the

Opening Plenary Sessionof Broadband Multimedia2007 with a talk entitled,

“From IPTV to IPMultimedia…the Next

Generation ofCommunications and

Entertainment.”

Jean Macher, Thomson GrassValley, addresses the OpeningPlenary on “Experience in the

Deployment of Mobile TV &IPTV Technologies.”

Symposium Co-Chair Tom Gurleywelcomes attendees to the

Wednesday Keynote Luncheon.

Kay Johansson, Chief TechnologyOfficer of MobiTV, keynotes the

Wednesday Luncheon.

Coffee breaks were good networking opportunities forattendees. Financial support was provided by Corporate

Patrons Mitsubishi Electric and Grass Valley.

Wednesday afternoon’s Poster Session provided an opportunityfor authors and attendees to interact with each other.

BTS Administrator Kathy Colabaugh pauses fora photo at the Poster Session.



Technical Program Co-chair, Yiyan Wu of theCommunications Research Centre Canada

(left) with Jonathan Loo of Brunel University,UK, who chaired the Technical Session on

Content Protection & Watermarking.

Old friendships were renewed and new ones were made at the WednesdayEvening Welcome Reception, which featured a light buffet dinner. The

carving station can be seen in the background. At the table, left-to-right, arePeter Unger, Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, TransmissionTechnology Session Chair; Prof. Stephane Coulombe, University of Quebec,

Canada; Philipp Steckel , Technical University of Braunschweig, DTV SystemsSession Chair; Pascal Marcoux from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., and

Sabri Gurbuz, NICT Cognitive Information Science Labs, Kyoto, Japan.

Seated are Jinyun Zhang of Mitsubishi Electric, USA, Co-chair of the IPTV 2Session, and Demin Wang of the Communications Research Centre Canada

(CRC), Technical Program Co-chair. Standing, left-to-right, are Yuwei Zhang,Genesis Microchips, USA; Wei Li of CRC; Jian Song of Tsinghua University in

Shanghai; Yongheng Liu, University College Dublin, Ireland; and Guoping Tanof Saarland University, Germany.

The Orlando Jazz Trio providedentertainment for the Welcome Reception.

Seated, left-to-right, are Luca Superiori, Vienna University of Technology,Austria; Raffaele Di Bari, Brunel University, UK; Pablo Angueira, University of

the Basque Country, Spain; Ravin Sachdeva, STMicroelectronics, India; andUnai Gil, University of the Basque Country. Standing, from the left, are Jukka-

Pekka Laulajainen, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland; Tero Jokela,University of Turku, Finland; Heidi Himmanen, University of Turku; and Ivan

Pena, University of the Basque Country.

Michael Needham of Motorola Labs speaks atthe Thursday morning Plenary Session on

“Networking Support for ImmersiveCollaborative Applications.”



Roland Schaller of UDcast, France (left), stands with KeynoteSpeaker Kari Lehtinen of Modeo LLC and Symposium Co-

chairs Brett Jenkins and Tom Gurley, following the ThursdayLuncheon.

Three IEEE conferences – Portable 2007, Mobile WiMAX ‘07,and Broadband Multimedia 2007 – were co-located with CTIAWIRELESS 2007 at the Orange County Convention Center inOrlando, Florida USA. Some 275 people registered for one

or more of the IEEE events.

IEEE BTS Contributes to Successful NAB2007NAB2007 held April 14-19, 2007 in LasVegas, garnered near-record atten-dance with 108,232 registered atten-dees including an unprecedented26,824 international attendees from141 countries. The show also madenational and international news, withpolicy announcements, vendor newsand keynotes from industry leadersand regulators. Visit the NAB ShowWeek section of the NAB2007 Website (www.nabshow.com) for detailsof key sessions and webcasts ofselected sessions.

IEEE BTS Information BoothThe IEEE BTS Information Booth washighly successful this year with a con-stant stream of visitors asking aboutthe services and benefits IEEE BTSprovides to its members through tech-nical publications, conferences andsymposiums. The booth was locatedat the NAB site “L27” on the upperlevel near the escalator in the LVCCSouth Hall Lobby.

IEEE BTS representatives alsoanswered general questions aboutIEEE global organization and services.Through its global membership, IEEEis a leading authority on areas rangingfrom aerospace systems, computersand telecommunications to biomedicalengineering, electric power and con-sumer electronics, among others. The

BTS offers its thanks to KathyColabaugh, BTS Administrator, forcoordinating, planning and staffing theBTS Information Booth. The BTS alsoextends its thanks and appreciation toseveral BTS members who generouslyvolunteered their time to staff the IEEEBTS Information Booth including MikeBennett, Valentino Trainotti, Yiyan Wu,James Fang and Dmitry Tkachenko fortheir kind assistance and time.

NAB2007 BroadcastEngineering Conferenceand IEEE BTS TutorialCovering broadcast and broadcast-related technologies in-depth, the 61stannual Broadcast Engineering Confer-ence focused on issues relevant topracticing broadcast engineers andothers concerned with future technol-ogy trends for the broadcast industry.The IEEE BTS presented a four-hourTutorial on Video Display Technologyat NAB2007, on April 14, 2007, startingat 1:00PM and ending 5:00PM at theLas Vegas Convention Center in RoomS226/227.

IEEE BTS Tutorial SummaryVideo display technology has under-gone a sea change over the lastdecade, as LCD, plasma, and DLPdevices have all but supplanted thevenerable CRT in consumer applica-

tions. Recent developments haveimproved such parameters as dynamicresolution, viewing angle, contrast,and color gamut – long-held advan-tages of the CRT – challenging its con-tinued dominance even for criticalprofessional viewing. However, chal-lenges remain in achieving standardi-zation of color gamut, contrast rangeand other parameters across thesenew replacement technologies, forcontent creators to continue toachieve consistent quality control.

This half-day tutorial was presentedby the IEEE BTS, a co-sponsor of theIEEE/OSA Journal of Display Technol-ogy. The tutorial was presented byleading technical experts representinguser groups, manufacturers,researchers and standards organiza-tions. They explained recent videodisplay developments within the con-text of both consumer and profession-al applications.

ProgramThis IEEE BTS program was plannedand organized by David Bancroft andRichard Friedel, BTS AdCom mem-bers, and Tom Gurley, who served asPresident of the IEEE Broadcast Tech-nology Society during the past fiveyears.

David Bancroft, Manager ofAdvanced Technology, Thomson



Grass Valley, United Kingdom, servedas Moderator of the NAB2007 - IEEEBTS Tutorial. He opened the tutorialby presenting an overview of the top-ics, introduced the presenters andthen moderated a panel discussionfollowing their presentations.

The topics and presenters were:1. “Impact of Today’s HDTV and

Future Formats on Perceived Quali-ty with Flat Panel Displays” byHans Hoffman, Senior Engineer,European Broadcasting Union,Grand Saconnex, Switzerland.

2. “Displays in the Production Envi-ronment – The Broadcasters’

Requirements” by Richard Salmon,Senior R & D Engineer, DigitalMedia Group BBC Research,Tadsworth, United Kingdom.

3. “The Challenge to Measuring Dis-play Performance: Whom Do YouTrust?” by Paul Boynton, ElectronicsEngineer, National Institute of Stan-dards and Technology (NIST),Gaithersburg, MD.

4. “An Overview of Current DisplayTechnologies and PerformanceBenchmarks” by Peter Putman,Publisher, HDTVexpert.com,Doylestown, PA.

5. “A Display Manufacturer’s Perspec-

tive and Description of Latest FlatPanel Proposal for ProfessionalMonitoring Use” by Gary Mandle,Senior Product Manager, Sony Elec-tronics Inc, Culver City, CA.More than 200 people attended the

tutorial and received CD’s with copies ofthe presenters’ PowerPoint presentations.

As reported by Hans Hoffman, thepresentation triggered a number ofquestions and comments from theparticipating audience. Hans Hoff-mann presented a new subjectivetesting method for HDTV using threelarge flat panel displays. Commentsfrom the audience agreed with Hoff-mann's test results that the use of flatpanel displays for viewing HDTV inhomes is best served by progressiveHDTV signal standards. An interest-ing discussion, however, occurredabout the topic of how consumer flatpanel displays can be built and spec-ified, so that they provide HDTVimages in the quality that wasintended by the creative choice ofthe producers.

Overall the event and the highinterest of the audience have proventhat IEEE is addressing a topic of rele-vance for the professional audiovisualcommunity.

“Hans Hoffmann - Senior Engineer of the EBU explaining a new HDTV subjectivetesting method with Flat Panel Displays”

BroadcastAsia2007 IEEE BTS Representation

BroadcastAsia2007 Asia’s leading digital multimedia andentertainment technology event,BroadcastAsia, will return to the Sin-gapore Expo Center from 19-22 Juneto showcase the latest digital technol-ogy, professional equipment and serv-ices. Over 800 exhibiting companiesincluding Harris, Sennheiser, Miranda,Vizrt, Magna, Innoxius, Conax andQualcomm will demonstrate a fullspectrum of products and applicationsfrom media content creation to deliv-ery including new technologiesbirthed as a result of digital conver-gence. Strong group participation isalso expected at BroadcastAsia2007

with pavilions from Singapore, China,France, Germany, Italy, Korea, USAand UK.

IEEE BTS Information BoothDr. Yiyan Wu and members of theIEEE BTS Taipei Chapter will bestaffing an Information Booth in Sin-gapore Expo Hall location 8/8G2-05.Dr. Yiyan Wu, BTS Transnational Chairand Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Trans-actions on Broadcasting, and the BTSTaipei representatives will be availableto provide information and answerquestions about the goals, benefits,services and technical publicationsprovided by the IEEE and, in particu-

lar, the IEEE Broadcast TechnologySociety.

The IEEE BTS extends it thanksand appreciation to Dr. Wu for hishard work in leading this activity, tothe BTS Taipei Chapter representativesfor volunteering their time staffing thebooth, to Kathy Colabaugh, BTSAdministrator for assisting with thiseffort and the IEEE Singapore Officefor its support with the logistics ofreceiving materials and publications tobe displayed at the IEEE InformationBooth.

For the latest information aboutBroadcastAsia2007, please visitwww.broadcast-asia.com



The IEEE BTS will staff an information booth at the 2007International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) from 6 through11 September 2007 at the RAI Convention Center in Amster-dam, Netherlands.

The IEEE BTS booth will be located at IBC ExhibitionStand Number 8.750b in the RAI Convention Center. We willbe in the same familiar location as last year in the lobby ofexhibit hall 8.

You are invited to stop by and meet with the BTS repre-sentatives Bill Hayes, BTS President, Mike Bennett, BTSAdCom, Yiyan Wu, BTS Transnational Chair and Editor-in-Chief IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, and KathyColabaugh, BTS Administrator. They look forward to meet-ing you and will be glad to help you with any questionsyou may have about the IEEE and the BTS.

IEEE BTS Tutorial at IBC2007IEEE BTS will be hosting a tutorial session during IBC2007,The details are:Conference Theme: Broadcasting by Broadband

BTS Tutorial Title: IPTV Tutorial – The technologybehind broadband broadcasting

Session Moderator: Dr. Yiyan WuCommunications Research CentreCanada

Presenters: 1. Introduction to IPTVDr. Wei LiResearch Scientist, Communica-tions Research Centre Canada IPTV Networks and QoE (Qualityof Experience)

2. Mr. Nick FielibertCTO & Chief Architect Europe&Asia, Scientific Atlanta / Cisco

3. IPTV End Systems (middleware, home network, terminal devices) Dr. Shuji Hirakawa, Secretary, IECTC 100 / Toshiba Corporation

Date: Thursday, 06 September 2007

Time: 11:30 -1300 hours

Location: Forum Room (can accommodateup to 750 people)Located in the Conference CenterRAI Convention Center

Synopsis:Internet protocol television (IPTV) has been a hot topic inrecent years. IPTV can deliver broadcast television andother multimedia services over secure, managed, IP-basedbroadband networks with the required level of quality ofservice. It can also provide bundled service offerings thatencompass internet access, audio/video/data and interactiveservices, as well as mobile delivery.

IPTV is being regarded as a great business opportunity - amulti-billion dollar market - for content providers, serviceproviders and equipment manufacturers. With ever-increasinginvestment in broadband networks, and fibre to the home,the door is open to a seemingly endless array of services anda fully converged network experience for consumers.

This tutorial provides a high level overview of IPTV net-work architectures and underlying technologies. As far aspossible, the issues will be illustrated with field trial anddeployment case studies. IPTV issues to be discuss include:

* architecture overview* underlying technologies* end systems* quality of service and performance management* network control* middleware, application and content platforms.

Speaker biosDr. Wei Li is a Research Scientist with the CommunicationsResearch Centre Canada (CRC). Dr. Li received his Ph.D.degree in Electrical Engineering from INSA of Rennes, Francein 1996. Before joining CRC, he was a Research Fellow withthe CARTEL of the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canadain 1997 and 1998. From 1999 to 2001, he was a software engi-neer at Motorola Canada Software Centre (MCSC) in Montreal.His current research interests include broadband wireless sys-tem, IPTV and DTV system engineering, broadband multime-dia processing, digital signal and image processing.

Mr. Nick Fielibert is the chief technical officer and chief archi-tect for Scientific Atlanta’s (a Cisco company) European andAsian operations. He is responsible for developing and direct-ing the technical roadmap and the systems architectures forScientific Atlanta products for the European and Asian markets.His areas of focus include the development of cutting-edgetechnologies to provide innovative ways of delivering increas-ing amounts of content, such as new IP-based digital distribu-tion systems. Mr. Fielibert possesses a detailed understandingof the current and future demands of the cable television,broadcast and telecommunications industries, which can helpCisco/SA new products exceed customers’ expectations.

Mr. Fielibert has 22 year working experience in R&D andmarketing. He was a senior vice president and chief oper-

IEEE BTS Representation at IBC2007

See IBC 2007 continued on page 25



Plan to Attend the IEEE 57th Annual BTS BroadcastSymposium 31 October through 2 November 2007The 57th Annual Broadcast Symposium,presented by the Institute of Electricaland Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Broad-cast Technology Society (BTS) will beheld at the Hotel Washington, Washing-ton, DC, USA on November 1st and2nd, 2007. Preceding the Symposiumwill be an engineering tutorial, also atthe Hotel Washington, on Wednesday,October 31, 2007.

Broadcasting remains a dynamic,constantly evolving technology, partic-ularly in light of the sweepingchanges brought about by digitaltransmission for radio, television, mul-timedia and Internet broadcasting.The mission of the IEEE BroadcastTechnology Society (BTS) is to presentthe latest technical developments inall aspects of digital broadcastingthrough its annual Symposium and itspublications, including the quarterlyIEEE Transactions on Broadcasting.The BTS consists of over 2,000 mem-bers worldwide with chapters locatedin Beijing, China; New York USA;Philadelphia USA; Moscow, Russia;Shanghai, China; St. Petersburg, Rus-sia; Ottawa, Canada; Seoul Korea,Tokyo, Japan; Taipei, Taiwan; andBuenos Aires, Argentina.

The 2007 Broadcast Symposium willinclude presentation of 20 papers overtwo days that address radio and televi-sion transmission systems concerningdigital broadcast systems being devel-oped and implemented worldwide forterrestrial, cable, satellite, Internet andwireless. Technical areas to be cov-ered during the Symposium includeIPTV, Mobile TV, Wireless Multimedia,transmission, propagation, reception,and re-distribution of broadcast signals.

The Symposium also expects toshare knowledge regarding advancedtechnologies and systems for emerg-ing broadcasting applications toinclude reception and transmission,wireless broadband networks, e.g.IEEE 802.22 Wireless Regional AreaNetworks (WRANs), and information

technology for broadcasters.The 2007 BTS Symposium program

starts on Wednesday, October 31st,2007, with an all-day tutorial. Thetutorial is tentatively planned toaddress Digital Television systemsevolution and DTV Transition issues.

The four technical sessions beingplanned for Thursday and Friday,November 1st and 2nd are AdvancedRadio Broadcasting, Cable Televisionand IPTV, Mobile Digital TelevisionEngineering, and Satellite for broad-casters. Technical paper presentationswill take place each morning andafternoon with each session typicallyconsisting of five 30-minute technicalpapers or a panel discussion.

An awards luncheon will be heldon November 1st during which IEEEvolunteers will be recognized for theirtime and dedication given to the IEEEBroadcast Technology Society and tothe IEEE profession. On November2nd a joint IEEE/Association of Feder-al Communications Consulting Engi-neers (AFCCE) luncheon will be heldwith a key note speaker from thebroadcast industry.

The IEEE BTS welcomes all engi-neers, consultants, and others associ-ated with the broadcast industry toattend the 57th Annual BroadcastSymposium. This event offers the lat-est engineering information about thecutting edge broadcast technologiesfor advanced digital radio, TV, anten-nas, propagation, cable, satellite, Inter-net, mobile digital TV and WirelessMultimedia..Event Date: October 31 through

November 2, 2007Sponsor: IEEE Broadcast Technology

Society (BTS)Event: 57th ANNUAL IEEE BTS

BROADCAST SYMPOSIUMPlace: The Hotel Washington

15th & Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.Washington, D.C. 20004 USAPh: +1 202-638-5900 or

+1 800 424 9540Fax: +1-202-638-1594

Email reservations directly to theHotel Washington at: [email protected] or call + 1 800424 9540 (U.S. & Canada only) or + 1202 638 5900 (International).

Please be sure to mention IEEE2007 Broadcast Technology Sympo-sium. Include your arrival and depar-ture dates and any special requestssuch as Smoking/Non-Smoking, etc.Time: Tutorial Session 9:00 AM

to 5:00 PM on October 31stTechnical Program 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM on November 1st and 2nd Awards Luncheon 12:00 Noon, November 1stJoint IEEE BTS/AFCCE Luncheon 12:00 Noon, November 2nd

Contact: Symposium Chair: Guy Bouchard Senior Manager, Broadcast & Signal TransportNew Broadcast TechnologiesCBC/Radio-Canada Tel: 514 597 3863Fax: 514 597 3838Email: guy_bouchard @radio-canada.ca

For information about the Broad-cast Technology Society activities andmembership, visit the BTS web site atwww.ieee.org/bts or contact KathyColabaugh, Administrator, IEEE Broad-cast Technology Society, at+1.732.562.3906 or by e-mail [email protected]

For information about the Sympo-sium, visit the BTS website athttp://www.ieee.org/organizations/society/bt/index.html or contact KathyColabaugh, Administrator, IEEE Broad-cast Technology Society, at+1.732.562.3906 or by e-mail [email protected]



Kathy Colabaugh Promoted to BTS Administrator

The IEEE Broadcast Technology Societyis pleased to announce that Ms. KathyColabaugh was promoted to BTSAdministrator effective 26 April 2007.Kathy is managing the day-to-day BTSociety administrative activities by coor-dinating society planning, symposiums,meetings, projects and new initiativeswith the AdCom Offices, AdCom mem-bers, Committees, members and servingas the BTS interface with all elementsof the IEEE organization.

Kathy first joined the BTS office inPiscataway, New Jersey in June 2001when she came aboard as PublicationsAdministrator for the IEEE Transactionson Broadcasting. She quickly learnedthe peer review process and continuous-ly made numerous improvements to theprocessing of manuscripts submitted forpublication by shortening the time toconfirm receipt of manuscripts, coordi-nating with the Editor-in-Chief, distribut-ing manuscripts to Associate Editors andto Referees in a timely and efficient man-ner. She organized monthly teleconfer-ences electronically distributing agendasand manuscript status reports for the BTSPublications Committee under the direc-tion of the BTS Vice President with par-ticipation by the BTS web site designer,

Newsletter Editor, BTS Transactions Edi-tor-in-Chief and Associate Editors.

During the past five years, Kathyhas effectively administered all thepublications activities during whichthe number of manuscripts submittedto BTS increased from 70 in 2001 to272 manuscripts in 2006. Throughoutthis time, Kathy has provided prompt,efficient administrative coordinationand correspondence with the Transac-tions Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editors,Referees, Authors and IEEE Publica-tions Production staff.

In August 2006, April Monroe, theBTS Administrator, went on maternity

leave. Kathy assumed her duties as act-ing BTS Administrator. In this capacityKathy carries out a challenging spec-trum of time critical BTS Administratorduties. In addition to her regular day-to-day IEEE BTS office activities,Kathy’s duties also include supportingthe BTS Committees with planning,coordinating and staffing the annualIEEE BTS Broadcast Symposium inWashington DC and the IEEE BTS Inter-national Symposium on BroadbandMultimedia Systems and Broadcastingin the US. Kathy is also the BTS focalpoint for coordinating plans, tutorials,logistics and BTS representation at theannual International Broadcasting Con-vention (IBC) in Amsterdam and theNational Association of Broadcasters(NAB) Convention in Las Vegas.

In April 2007, Kathy was officiallypromoted by the IEEE to the position ofBTS Administrator. She continuesaccomplishing all the Society Adminis-trative functions in an efficient, profes-sional manner for the AdCom, BTSmembers and IEEE staff. The BTS Offi-cers and AdCom extend their best wish-es and support to Kathy for hercontinuing success as Administrator ofthe IEEE Broadcast Technology Society.

BTS Chapter Reports: IEEE BTS Argentina Chapter Reportby Valentín Trainotti, Chair

Upcoming presentations and seminarsto be conducted by the IEEE BTSArgentina Chapter are:

Date and time: 7 June 2007 at 6:00 PMSpeaker: Eng. Jorge OsowTitle “Cellular, PCS and TrunkingAntenna Technology”

The presentation will include topicson: Dipole Concept, dBI/dBd Anten-na Gain, Basic Radiators; Vertical andHorizontal Radiation Patterns,Mechanical and Electrical PatternSquints, Omnidirectional Antennas,Special Applications, AnechoicChambers, Radiation System Patternsof Several Buenos Aires Installations,

and Directional and Sector Antennas.

Date and Time: 20 and 21 June 2007at 6:00 PMSpeaker: Eng. Eduardo MarianiTitle: “Grounding and Equipment Pro-tections”

This presentation will cover GroundingSystems for Low Voltage Installations,ANSI/IEEE 142 Standard, Concepts onSeparated Groundings, Neutral Pointand Security Groundings, ArmonicComponents on Non Linear Loads,Atmospheric Discharge Groundings,IEC and NFPA Standards, GroundingGeometry, Lightning Road Coverages,and the. ANSI/IEEE 80 Standard

Date and Time: 4 July 2007, 3:00 PMTitle: FM and TV Transmitting AntennaTechnologySpeakers (by video conference): ThomasSilliman and Kinsley Jones, ERI Inc.,Chandler Indiana, USADate and Time: 5 July 2007 3:00 to 6:00 PMEvent: Seminar at IEEE BTS ArgentinaChapter, 744, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaDate and Time: 11 July 2007 at 10:00 AMEvent: Technical Visit to LS4 Radio Con-tinental AM 590 KHz 100 KW Transmit-ting Station. Visit will include membersof the IEEE UTN Student Branch with atechnical presentation by ValentinoTrainotti to students who will soon bereceiving their degrees in electronicengineering.


BTS Japan Chapter had two joint meet-ings below with the Institute of ImageInformation and Television Engineers(ITE) during February to April 2007.

A technical meeting was held onFebruary 9, 2007 at NHK Hiroshima Sta-tion, Hiroshima, Japan. There were sixtechnical presentations on transmissiontechnologies for digital terrestrial broad-casting and general topics for broadcast-ing technology and one special topic forDigital Rights Management forAdvanced Digital Broadcasting.

On February 23-24, 2007, a technicalmeeting was held in Kyuka-villageMinami-izu, Shizuoka, Japan. Therewere seven technical presentations on

video compression, antenna and trans-mission technologies for digital terrestri-

al broadcasting and general topics forbroadcasting technology and one spe-cial topic on overview and service strat-egy of ISDB-T One-Seg mobilemultimedia data broadcasting.

The BTS Japan Chapter is planningto have four joint meetings below withthe Institute of Image Information andTelevision Engineers (ITE).June, 2007 at Kikai Shinko Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan.

July, 2007 at Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.

October, 2007 at NHK Nagoya Station, Nagoya, Japan.

January, 2008 at NHK Fukuoka Station, Fukuoka, Japan.


IEEE Philadelphia Signal Processing/BroadcastTechnology/Consumer Electronics (SP/BT/CE) ChapterReportby Gail Rosen, Chair

It has been an eventful year for theIEEE Philadelphia SP/BT/CE chapter.In Jan. 2007, Dr. Gail Rosen, assistantprofessor in Electrical and ComputerEngineering at Drexel Universitybecame chapter chair. On April 17th,the SP/BT/CE and the Power Engi-neering/Industry Applications (PE/IA)both sponsored an IEEE Night meetingat the Sheraton Hotel in University Citywith 30 attendees. There, Dr. Rosen

presented on her research lab's workin a presentation titled "Signal Process-ing for Chemotaxis-Inspired Designand DNA Analysis". Also at the co-sponsored meeting, Dr. Stan Bumble,Adjunct Professor of Engineering,Physics and Mathematics, at the Com-munity College of Philadelphia spokeabout “Networks and Pathways to aSustainable Planet Energy Productionand Environmental Health”.

Dr. Rosen's presentation describedthe field of bio-signal processing andusing biological complexity to engineerbetter systems. Two areas were identi-fied as critical to understanding biolo-gy: 1) examining the overall biologicalfunction and 2) evaluating these sys-tems in environmental (i.e.: turbulent)conditions. The Bio-Signal Processing(BSP) Laboratory at Drexel Universitymodels bio-systems such as DNA struc-

IEEE BTS Japan Chapter Activity Reportby Keiichi Kubota,Chair

Mr. Imaizumi’s presentation on“Digital Rights Management forAdvanced Digital Broadcasting” atHi-Vision theatre in NHK HiroshimaStation

IEEE BTS New York Chapter Reportby Warner Johnston, Chair

The NY BTS Chapter participated,along with Women in Engineering, thePower Engineering Society, the Tap-pan-Zee subsection of the New Yorksection and the New York section inthe Lower Hudson Engineering Expo.

Expo 07 is an annual event, withmajor sponsors being the NYSPE andthe McLaren Engineering Group,

aimed at the high school student andmiddle school student who have aninterest in a career in Engineering.Over 80 engineering employers, pro-fessional societies and colleges partici-pated, drawing well over 300 studentsto the all day event, a 40% increaseover last year. This year the event washeld at the Westchester Community

College on March 25.Warner Johnston will be addressing

the Institution of Engineering andTechnology (IET) New England Net-work on the subject of Closed Cap-tioning. This will take place onOctober 26 in Sturbridge, Massachu-setts during a joint meeting with theIEEE Worcester County Section.


ture and chemotaxis, the way a single-cell mobilizes in response to a chemi-cal gradient. The lab is engineeringnew techniques and devices for chemi-cal tracking using bio-inspired signalprocessing methods. It was shownhow a model of cellular membrane-receptor cooperation with modifiedHebbian learning was effective in locat-ing chemicals. Also, methods for struc-ture discovery and analysis in DNA via

coding, communication and signal pro-cessing theory were discussed.

Dr. Stan Bumble spoke about mod-eling microbial metabolic networks. Anew computer method was describedthat can help improve efficiency, costand environmental benefits to bothnew and old control processes and toconvert both old and new feedstocksto fuels for energy. The control-theo-retic model may also help the new

fields of systems biology and syntheticbiology to supply energy by harness-ing microbial metabolic networks toproduce fuels of the future.

The Philadelphia SP/BT/CE Chapterwill be co-hosting another IEEE Nightin the Fall. For more informationabout the IEEE SP/BT/CE PhiladelphiaChapter, contact Gail Rosen, Philadel-phia SP/BT/CE Chapter Chair [email protected].


IEEE Russia Northwest Joint Chapter Report forBroadcast Technology, Consumer Electronics andCommunications by Dmitry Tkachenko, Chair

During 2006, the following activitiesof the IEEE Russia Northwest JointChapter took place:1. Chapter Chair Dmitry Tkachenko

took part in the IEEE BroadcastTechnology Society AdministrativeCommittee meeting in Las-Vegason 7 January 2006.

2. The Chapter participated in theInternational Conference CSTB2006 in the framework of the exhi-bition CSTB 2006 (Moscow, Exhibi-tion Center "Sokolniki", 6-9February 2006). The conferencewas organized by the MIDEXPOCompany in association with Inter-national Broadcasting Convention(IBC), International Association ofBroadcasting Manufacturers(IABM), Cable TV Association ofRussia and other organizations. 77papers were presented at the con-ference.

3. The Chapter took part in organiz-ing the 6th International Confer-ence on Next GenerationTeletraffic and Wired/WirelessAdvanced Networking NEW2AN2006 (St.Petersburg, 29 May – 2June 2006). The conference wasorganized by Tampere Universityof Technology (Finland) and

BalticIT (Russia) in cooperationwith ITC (International TeletrafficCongress), Popov Society, IEEESt.Petersburg BT/CE/COM Chapterand COST 290. 51 papers werepresented at the conference.

4. Members of the Chapter activelyparticipated in the meeting withIEEE President Michael Lightner inSt.Petersburg on 11 May 2006.

5. Chapter Chair Dmitry Tkachenkotook part in Regional Chapter ChairsCongress organized by IEEE Com-munications Society in conjunctionwith ICC’06 conference in Istanbul,Turkey on 11-13 June 2006.

6. The International Symposium onMobile Communications wasorganized under the leadership ofProf. Mstislave Sivers, who is anactive member of the Chapter(St.Petersburg, 27 – 28 June 2006).18 papers were presented at theSymposium.

7. IEEE Tenth International Sympo-sium on Consumer ElectronicsISCE 2006 was held in St.Peters-burg on 28 June- 1 July 2006. TheChapter was a key organizer of thissymposium together with St.Peters-burg State University of Film andTelevision. ISCE 2006 Chair Prof.

Konstantin Glasman is an activemember of the Chapter. 140 papersfrom 22 countries were presentedat the Symposium.

8. The Chapter took part in organiz-ing a welcome reception forISCE2006 participants that was heldon June 28 with financial supportfrom the IEEE Broadcast Technolo-gy Society.

9. A technical meeting of the Chaptertook place at MART Company inSt.Petersburg on 10 November2006. Issues were discussed duringthe meeting concerning the currentsituation with the introduction ofdigital TV and radio broadcastingin Russia.

10. A dinner for Chapter members andinterested colleagues was spon-sored by the Chapter after thetechnical meeting on 10 November2006. IEEE membership renewaland recruitment information wasdistributed during the dinner.

11. A technical meeting of the Chap-ter took place at St.PetersburgState Polytechnical University on22 November 2006. The meetingwas devoted to technical discus-sions of current technologies inthe field of Peer-to-Peer networks.


The 4th IPTV Focus Group (FG) meet-ing was hosted by ITU-T in Bled, Slove-nia from May 7 to 11 of this year. Morethan 200 persons attended includingrepresentatives from telecom equip-ment manufacturers (Alcatel-Lucent,Nortel, Ericsson, Siemens, Samsung,Cisco, etc.), telecom service providers(Korean Telecom, China Telecom, NTT,etc.), associations (ISMA, ATIS,IEEE/BTS, CEA, etc.) as well as researchinstitutions (ETRI of Korea, CRC ofCanada, RNIB of UK, etc.). A total of184 incoming contribution documentsand 20 incoming liaison statementswere received prior to the meeting. Inadvance of this meeting, one contribu-tion proposed jointly by IEEE BTS andCRC Canada was submitted to the FGIPTV, titled “Considerations on restruc-turing the working document: Qualityof Experience Requirements for IPTV(FG IPTV-DOC-0063)”.

Mr. Ghassem Koleyni, IPTV FGChairman, opened the meeting. Mr.Matjaz Jansa, Director General ofDirectorate for Electronic Communica-tions, Ministry of the Economy, Slove-nia, followed with opening remarks.

The meeting agenda and work planwere then approved. The allocation ofmeeting documents and incoming liai-son statements to the six workinggroups (WG) for discussion wasaccepted with little modification. Thedistribution of the contribution docu-ments is listed as follows:•WG 1 (Architecture and Require-

ments): 70•WG 2 (QoS and Performance

Aspects): 24•WG 3 (Service Security and Contents

Protection): 28•WG 4 (IPTV Network Control): 26•WG 5 (End Systems and Interoper-

ability Aspects): 26•WG 6 (Middleware, Application and

Content Platforms): 43Compared with the last meeting,

the number of contributions decreased

in WG1 only, from 90 to 70. In spiteof that, WG1 still had a full meetingschedule and remained very busythroughout the duration of the IPTVFG meeting.

In the plenary session on the firstday, Mr. Ghassem Koleyni stressed theimportance of keeping to IPTV FGmilestones and timelines set for thesubsequent IPTV FG meetings inorder to make sure that all the workwill be completed by the end of Janu-ary 2008, at which time its final docu-ment will be provided to ITU StudyGroup (SG) 13 for review andapproval. Two important deadlinesare noteworthy in particular: (1) July2007 being the last meeting to acceptnew material into the Service Require-ments and Architecture documents;(2) October 2007 being the latest oneto accept new material for all otherdocuments.

During the previous IPTV FocusGroup meeting, in order to speed upthe progress of examining the contri-butions related to IPTV servicerequirements normally discussed inWG1, they were discussed in otherworking groups. Due to a lack oftime, all these service requirementsweren’t addressed adequately byWG1. This resulted in some objectionsto certain decisions made by WG1.Consequently, all attendees firstapproved the proposal, IPTV-C-0427from the Chairman of IPTV FG, toreview these requirements in a jointmeeting between all work groups.The contribution document, IPTV-C-608 from Korea, proposed a roadmapfor IPTV standardization activity.Although the meeting noted theimportance of the roadmap to thestandardization, it was decided thatthe decision on the roadmap shouldbe left to the next Study Group 13meeting in January 2008 since bythen, all working documents will havebeen submitted to them.

Two incoming liaison statementswere reviewed thereafter. IPTV-IL-0048 provided information on theissue of the patent statement andlicensing declaration forms withrespect to technology submitted incontributions; IPTV-IL-0054 providedguidance on the use of the terms:“shall”, “should”, and “may”. It wasaccepted with enhanced explanationfrom the Chairman of IPTV FG byconcrete examples.

During the remaining meetingdays, I mainly participated in all activi-ties of WG2 since our contributionwas allocated to this group. 24 incom-ing documents and 9 incomingliaisons were examined, and decisionswere made accordingly. No new workitems were identified in this meeting.The work continuously focused onthe revision, clarification and updateof the four existing work items, whichare (1) QoE requirements for IPTV, (2)traffic management for IPTV, (3) appli-cation layer reliability solutions forIPTV and (4) performance monitoringfor IPTV.

Our IEEE BTS and CRC Canadacontribution proposed that WG2 fol-low the structure of the IPTV qualitylayers as presented in the ATIS-0800004 document. The BTS/CRC rec-ommended restructuring the contentof the working document of IPTV-DOC-0063. The Chairman would notfully agree to redo the document dueto time constraints. However, he didconsent to partially change the struc-ture of the original text.

The following are highlights ofresults by WG1:Incoming Liaison statements• IPTV-IL-0049 from ITU-T SG 12

informed IPTV FG of its revision ofthe text of Q.13/12 on QoE/QoSperformance requirements andassessment methods for multimediaincluding IPTV.

• IPTV-IL-0050 from ITU-T SG 12


The 4th ITU-T IPTV FG Meeting Reportby Hong LiuCommunications Research Centre Canada


informed IPTV FG of the definitionof Quality of Experience which wasnot adopted.

• IPTV-IL-0064 from the DVB projectprovided the latest information onthe Application Layer Forward ErrorCorrection (AL-FEC) work, includingthe DVB-IPTV Phase 1.3 draft docu-ment and the blue book on AL-FECevaluations. It was noted.

• IPTV-IL-0067 from the Telecoms &Internet converged Services & Proto-cols for Advanced Networks(TISPAN) informed IPTV FG of itslatest work on Next Generation Net-work (NGN) Release 2 and providedtheir relevant draft documents.

Quality of Experience require-ments for IPTV• IPTV-C-571 from Nortel Networks

requested the deletion of the figureon the QoE/QoS relationship in theworking document [3]. This isbecause characterization of thedependence of QoE on the variouselements of the QoS (like packetloss rate, delay, bandwidth) is notstraightforward. The group reachedagreement on a revised statementstating that in general a correlationexists between the subjective QoEas measured by the mean opinionscore (MOS) and various objectiveparameters of service performance(e.g. encoding bit rates, delay, avail-ability, etc.). This was updated inthe working document [3].

• The proposal from Huawei, China inthe document IPTV-C-0495 to usethe corresponding material on videoand audio performance require-ments and requirements for networktransmission from DSL Forum TR-126[2] to update the corresponding sec-tions in the working document [3]was accepted. Consensus wasreached to integrate the pertinentcontents from [2] into the workingdocument [3]. Since a concern wasbrought forward concerning the justi-fication of the derived objective data,a liaison statement was created andsent to the DSL forum for verification.

• The group reconsidered the require-ment of IPTV_QoS_23 in IPTV-C-

0427 on IPTV supporting networks,which stated the networks shall sat-isfy the IP QoS requirements speci-fied in Y.1541 [1]. One concernarose about IP packet loss ratios forQoS classes 6 and 7 specified inY.1541. Some people worried thatthey may not fit the requirement forIPTV, especially in the case of highdefinition video. Furthermore, withapplication layer reliability solutionsin place, these IP packet loss ratioscould be relaxed so that it is helpfulto ease the performance require-ments of the transport networks interms of IP packet loss rate. As aresult the requirement was rewrittensuch that networks that supportIPTV are required to follow the IPQoS class and associated perform-ance requirements specified inY.1541. It is recommended that theselection of the specific QoS classdepend on the available applicationlayer reliability solution and theservice requirements. The revisionwas then discussed and accepted inthe joint meeting all work groups.

Traffic management for IPTV• IPTV-C-468 from Nortel Networks

further clarified the role of admis-sion control in networks supportingIPTV services. IPTV-C-469 proposedcross layer interaction for the sup-port of IPTV service. They wereadopted for integration into workingdocument [4]

• IPTV-C-494 from Huawei proposedto modify the text of “AdmissionControl” and “Multicast” regardingthe Traffic Management Mechanismsfor the Support of IPTV Services inthe working document [4]. Thischange was adopted.

Application layer reliability solu-tions for IPTV• IPTV-C-579 from Sumitomo Electric

and IPTV-C-586 from Digital Foun-tain, Nokia, and Siemens Networkstrongly encouraged IPTV FG toadopt DVB-IPI AL-FEC solutionspresented in the working document[5]. After discussion, a consensuswas reached in the group that if AL-

FEC is required, then the DVB-IPIsolution should be endorsed. Sincethere is no formal agreementbetween DVB and ITU-T, it was notintegrated into the working docu-ment [5] for the time being.

• IPTV-C-540 from Korea recommend-ed that AL-FEC use should beoptional, not mandatory. After dis-cussion, an agreement was reachedthat FEC may not be necessarydepending on the underlying trans-port network engineering.

Performance monitoring for IPTV• IPTV-C-505 from PixelMetrix Corpo-

ration, Singapore proposed themonitoring of parameters for chan-nel line up, service meta-data, chan-nel zap time etc. Its contributionIPTV-C-506 suggested measuring theperformance of IPTV by monitoringthe parameters of the MPEG-2 trans-port streams. Both contributionswere adopted and incorporated intothe working document [6].

• IPTV-C-509 from PixelMetrix Corpo-ration and IPTV-C-573 from ChinaTelecom were accepted. Both oftheir proposed concerning IPTV per-formance metrics are to be integrat-ed into the working document [6].

• IPTV-C-545 from Korea about onchannel zapping time in IPTV per-formance monitoring was selectivelyput into the related sections in doc-uments [3] and [6]. As a consequence, four working

documents [3-6] were updated andtheir edited versions have beenrevised and approved in the final ple-nary meeting of May 11. Two outgo-ing liaison statements were generatedand they were sent to both the DSLforum and ITU-T Q.14/12

Regarding my involvement in theother group activities, I also took partin some of discussions in WG1 andWG6. There was a lot of activity relat-ing to the IPTV architecture. Consen-sus was reached that the IPTVarchitectural approaches consist ofNon-NGN IPTV based on existingIPTV networks, NGN-non-IMS IPTVand NGN-IMS-IPTV. As a result of har-monization discussions, new versions




of the architecture diagrams were pro-duced and then adopted. The moredetailed diagrams created in these ses-sions were still in dispute and havenot been included in the IPTV archi-tecture working document. They wereplaced in living document list for fur-ther verification.

In summary, six meeting reportswere edited and approved in the ple-nary session on the last day. The sumof 17 working documents and 13 out-going liaison statements were createdby all working groups respectively.Some of the living documents from theliving lists were updated during themeeting.

The next meeting of the IPTV FG

will be held July 23-31, 2007 inGeneva, Switzerland.

References1. [ITU-T Y.1541] ITU-T Recommenda-

tion Y.1541 (2006), “ Network Per-formance Objectives for IP-basedServices”

2. [DSL TR-126] DSL Forum TR-126(2006), “Triple-play Service Qualityof Experience (QoE) Requirements”

3. [IPTV-DOC-0086] ITU-T IPTV FGIPTV-DOC-0086, “Working docu-ment: Quality of ExperienceRequirements for IPTV”

4. [IPTV-DOC-0087] ITU-T IPTV FGIPTV-DOC-0087, “Working docu-ment: Traffic Management Mecha-

nism for the Support of IPTV Ser-vices”

5. [IPTV-DOC-0088] ITU-T IPTV FGIPTV-DOC-0088, “Working docu-ment: Application layer reliabilitysolutions for IPTV”

6. [IPTV-DOC-0089] ITU-T IPTV FGIPTV-DOC-0089, “Working document:Performance monitoring for IPTV”

About the AuthorMr. Hong Liu is a research engineer atthe Communications Research CentreCanada (CRC). His current researchinterests include DTV system, DTV dat-acasting, video processing and stream-ing, multimedia communications. Mr.Liu is a member of IEEE and BTS.

United States Digital Television – The ChallengesContinue

The third article in this series describingthe United States DTV transition willresume with the 2007 Fall Issue of theIEEE BTS Newsletter. To review theprevious first and second DTV Transi-tion articles published in the Winter

2006 and Spring 2007 Newsletters,please visit the IEEE BTS web site atwww.ieee.org/bts and go to the sectionon the home page where the Newsletteris located and click on the area whichstates :”click here for previous issues”.

Your comments on this topic aremost welcome. Please contact medirectly at [email protected]

Bill Meintel, BTS Vice President and Editor BTS Newsletter

DTV Hot Spot at NAB 2007: A Focal Point for Mobile System ProposalsBy Jerry Whitaker, VP Standards Development, ATSC

With a focus on Digital Evolution, theAdvanced Television Systems Commit-tee (ATSC) and the U. S. NationalAssociation of Broadcasters (NAB)again this year sponsored and organ-ized the “DTV Hot Spot” at NAB2007.The exhibit (held April 16 through 19in Las Vegas) featured previews of awide array of new DTV applications.Hot Spot technology demonstrationsincluded:• Advanced VSB (A-VSB) for

improved indoor and mobile/hand-held reception.

• Mobile/Portable/Handheld (MPH)technology for a variety of mobileapplications.

• An operating single-frequency net-

work (SFN).• Distributed transmission test genera-

tor and analyzer.• Demonstration of the capabilities of

the ATSC Advanced Common Appli-cation Platform (ACAP) Standard,including development tools andconsumer solutions.

• ATSC receiver software and devel-opment tools.

• Advanced DTV multicasting services.• Digital-ENG data return channel

capabilities using an over-the-airDTV signal.

• A trial implementation of a datareturn link (DRL) system for usewith remote broadcast systems.

• Implementation of the ATSC Soft-

ware Data Download Standard and anovel broadcast monitoring system.

• Home networking.• Practical implementations of the

CEA-909 Smart Antenna interface.• DTV analog-to-digital set-top con-

verter boxes.Organizations demonstrating these

technologies at the DTV Hot Spotincluded AMD, BitRouter, ETRI,HANA, Harmonic, Harris, KBA,Microwave Radio Communications,MSTV, NAB, Rohde & Schwarz, Sam-sung, Unisoft, UpdateLogic, andZenith/LG. The intent of the “HotSpot” was to highlight the ongoingevolution of technologies and prod-ucts based on ATSC standards.


Mobile and Handheld atthe DTV Hot SpotNot surprisingly, a great deal of atten-tion was focused on the twomobile/handheld systems beingshown: A-VSB from Samsung/Rohde &Schwarz, and MPH fromHarris/Zenith/LG.

These demonstrations were well-timed, given that barely a week earlierthe ATSC had formally announced itwas launching a process to develop astandard that will enable broadcastersto deliver television content and datato mobile and handheld devices viatheir DTV broadcast signal. Tentativelynamed “ATSC-M/H,” the standard willbe backward compatible, allowingoperation of existing DTV services inthe same RF channel without adverseimpact on existing receiving equip-ment. A key element of the work is toensure that broadcasters will be ableto allocate a portion of their 19.39Mbps/8-VSB signal to mobile andhandheld while continuing to transmitservices such as HDTV.

Discussion of ATSC M/H has beenunderway for some time, having beendesignated a major priority in theATSC Strategic Plan, approved by theBoard of Directors last December. Asenvisioned, ATSC-M/H will support avariety of services including free(advertiser-supported) television andinteractive services delivered in real-time, subscription-based TV, and non-real-time content download forplayback at a later date. It could alsobe used for transmission of new databroadcasting services such as real-timenavigation data for in-vehicle use.

Samsung and Rohde & Schwarzdemonstrated their A-VSB technology,which is a proposed enhancement tothe DTV system being considered bythe ATSC Specialist Group on Trans-mission (TSG/S9). The current focus ofthe TSG/S9 work is on improvementof fixed reception. Laboratory testshave been completed and field testwere about to begin as this issue wentto press.

At NAB2007, Samsung and Rohde& Schwarz showed how A-VSB could

enable mobile DTV reception and beused as a mechanism to implement asingle frequency network.

The MPH in-band mobile DTV sys-tem—developed jointly by LG Elec-tronics, Zenith, and Harris—was alsodemonstrated at the DTV Hot Spot.Results of field tests of the system con-ducted in Columbus, Ohio (at WBNS),were shown in a video presentationthat compared the operating terrain,received spectrum, and reproducedMPH video program.

A-VSB and MPH both use a multi-ple-stream approach, with the mainservice stream for existing DTV andHDTV services, and the enhancedstream for one or more mobile, pedes-trian and/or handheld services. Bothsystems are said to be backward com-patible, not precluding or preventingoperation of current ATSC services inthe same RF channel or having anyadverse impact on legacy receivingequipment.

In addition to the demonstrations inthe DTV Hot Spot, both groups con-ducted impressive live, mobile demon-strations using a bus driving arounddowntown Las Vegas. Both demon-strations used Las Vegas broadcastfacilities of Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Technical papers given during theBroadcast Engineering Conference atthe NAB Convention provided generaloverviews of the systems, and earlytest results.

Moving ForwardIt was clear from the mobile DTVdemonstrations and the high level ofinterest at the DTV Hot Spot thatthere is some urgency in developingmobile and handheld video services.Broadcasters have indicated that theywould like the opportunity toannounce new ATSC based mobileand handheld broadcast servicesbefore the close of analog services inFebruary 2009. The planned workschedule for a mobile/handheld solu-tion, therefore, is based on this prem-ise. The target dates for completion ofthe standards documentation areintended to take account of the time

needed for professional and consumermanufacturers to develop equipmentfor implementation before such serv-ices can be introduced. This empha-sizes the need for the standards workto be started and completed as soonas possible.

In May the ATSC issued a Requestfor Proposals (RFP) for mobile andhandheld services. The general cate-gories included in the RFP are:• Scope of the planned work.• Overall architecture, emphasizing

that ATSC is looking to standardizeon a complete systems solution.

• Target project schedule.• Details regarding the materials

required for submission.• The consideration process by which

the Technology and StandardsGroup (TSG) will review the sub-missions.

• Administrative and process issues.With the mobile DTV demonstra-

tions at the NAB2007 DTV Hot Spot asa backdrop, work was expected tobegin soon on standardization withinATSC. As with all ATSC work, protect-ing legacy receivers and the existingvaluable services is a top priority. Inaddition, ATSC references the stan-dards of other organizations whereappropriate, as reinventing the wheelis seldom a useful exercise. And,wherever possible, harmonization withother industries and services is animportant goal.

If you would like to be involved inthis or other ongoing work with ATSC,please contact the author at [email protected].

About the AuthorJerry Whitaker is Vice President forStandards Development at theAdvanced Television Systems Commit-tee (ATSC). He supports the work ofthe various ATSC technology andplanning committees and assists in thedevelopment of ATSC Standards andrelated documents. He currently servesas Secretary of the Technology andStandards Group and Secretary of thePlanning Committee, and is closelyinvolved in work relating to educa-




tional programs. Mr. Whitaker is aFellow the Society of Broadcast Engi-neers and a Fellow of the Society ofMotion Picture and Television Engi-neers. He is the author and editor ofmore than 30 books on technical top-

ics, including: The Standard Hand-book of Video and Television Engi-neering, 4th ed.; NAB EngineeringHandbook, 9th ed., DTV Handbook,3rd ed., and The Electronics Hand-book, 2nd ed. Prior to joining the

ATSC, Mr. Whitaker headed the pub-lishing company Technical Press,based in Morgan Hill, Calif. He hasserved as a Board member and VicePresident of the Society of BroadcastEngineers.

IEEE RECOMMENDED PRACTICE FOR DTV EMISSIONMASK COMPLIANCE MEASUREMENTby Greg BestChair, IEEE BTS G2.2 RF Standards Committee

This is the first of a series of three arti-cles from the IEEE BTS RF StandardsCommittee.

The objective of the Recommend-ed Practice is to provide a straightfor-ward, practical measurement processfor Station Engineers.

INTRODUCTION ANDBACKGROUNDI can remember Bill Hayes (DOE atIowa Public TV) asking me “Wouldyou like to help out with this commit-tee?” when I called him (CommitteeChairman) to ask about the RF stan-dards committee and what it does. Iwasn’t sure so I asked a whole lot ofquestions about the committee andwhat its objective was. To put it suc-cinctly, the immediate task was to beable to accurately and consistentlymeasure DTV spectrum to determine ifthe signal would meet FCC specs. Thatwas back in 2002 and a lot of time andenergy has gone by since then.

The actual origin of the committeestarted much earlier--soon after theFCC determined the emission maskfor DTV transmitters. Transmitterdesigners and engineers then had tofigure out how to measure compliancewith it. Within the group of standardsorganizations, IEEE is the typicalorganization that provides measure-ment procedures. The ATSC soughtthe IEEE’s help and it came throughthe form of the Broadcast TechnicalSociety.

This is the first of a series of threearticles that addresses the documentthat is the result of the committee’s

work. This segment addresses theoverall objective, the committee’smake-up and evolution, major tasks, avery brief statement of the methodolo-gy, and status today. Future articleswill cover some of the key pieces ofthe document, obstacles overcome,the challenges faced in scripting thedocument, dialogue with other broad-cast industry companies and individu-als, and measurements in the field.Contributions in these areas will become from other committee memberswith key roles.

ENGAGING THE MISSIONAt the beginning of the original StarTrek, a 5 year mission is announcedso at least they knew what they werein for. When the official IEEE G2.2 RFstandards committee meetings beganin 2002, we did not know ours wouldalso be a 5 year mission. As withmost volunteer organizations, thingstake longer than expected. As withmost tasks, the devil is in the details.And so it was with our group.

Two projects were authorized with-in the IEEE standards organizationstructure, and the one designated toprovide measurement methods forDTV spectrum was tackled first sinceit was apparent that it was going to bethe most challenging. The objective ofthe committee became very clearwhen we first took the opportunity tomeet at Iowa Public TV’s flagship sta-tion in Des Moines (KDIN) to interpretthe FCC rules and try to measure DTVtransmitter for compliance with theemission mask. Like every other trans-

mitter engineer, we hooked up theDTV analyzers of different manufac-turers and used the default settings tosee what we got. We did expect toget slightly different answers but notonly were they significantly differentbut one piece of equipment said wemet the “close-in” FCC mask and theother didn’t and neither one couldmeasure to the 110 dB limit defined inthe rules. So obviously, we needed athird piece of equipment to providesome arbitration. Thus we brought inthe trusty spectrum analyzer whichresulted in both more questions andanswers. So again it was back to thedrawing board to resolve the answers.As a committee, we learned a lotabout spectrum analyzers and also thevarious DTV signal analyzers.

In 2003, Bil l Hayes asked if Iwould be willing to take over theresponsibility of leading the G2.2committee. I agreed because thework was very interesting to me andI could devote what time was neces-sary. At that time other people alsocame on board. Our committeeincluded consultants, representativesfrom transmitter manufacturers, testequipment manufacturers, and realstation engineers. Over the 5 yearperiod to the present, the DTV tran-sition required more of both thetransmitter and test equipment manu-facturers’ time so their participationwas limited to key items and invitedopinions. The committee has stayedpretty constant over the past 3 yearsand has resulted in consistency,which has benefited the committee.


OBJECTIVES AND TASKSThe main objective of the committeewas to define a measurement processsuch that a station engineer at any sta-tion could use modest test equipmentand achieve accurate measurementswithout having to be a PHD or anexpert in DTV test and measurement.Therefore, the body of evidence thecommittee produced had to be ade-quate to describe why certain parame-ters were required for the spectrumanalyzer set-up and a simple enoughstep-by-step procedure that someonecould follow it without needing to becompetent in brain surgery.

One of the major tasks was to havea clear interpretation of the FCC rules.Among the committee, there were dif-ferent viewpoints of how to interpretthe FCC rules. No guidance was givenby the FCC on how to measure emis-sions although we knew there wassome rationale to the emission maskdefinition. After reviewing the subjectwith the FCC, they recognized the factrules were indeed vague. After delib-eration with many key industry con-tributors, the FCC issued a PublicNotice on May 10, 2005, which clari-fied the acceptable approaches in theoverall measurement procedure.

Two major items drove the commit-tee to base its measurement procedureon the use of the spectrum analyzer.One was the discovery that the mostadvanced DTV signal analyzers couldnot measure the DTV spectrum to theletter of the FCC rules and the otherwas the fact that the use of a spectrumanalyzer was better understood andthe stations were more likely toacquire a spectrum analyzer for gener-al purpose use instead of purchasingexpensive DTV analyzers. DTV signalanalyzers have their place but meas-urement of adjacent channel spectrumover 110 dB dynamic range is nottheir forte.

The two main areas of emissions tobe measured were the adjacent chan-nels to the DTV signal and other emis-sions which typically are either

spurious emissions or harmonics. Thecommittee’s first goal was to addressthe adjacent channel measurementbecause it was more of a day-to-dayproblem for broadcasters. The meas-urement of harmonics/spurious emis-sions was a special segment of thespectrum that was thought to be easilyunderstood and to be less of a practi-cal problem in the overall scheme ofthings. I would say that was one ofthe committee’s biggest understate-ments of all. More information on thissubject will be presented in subse-quent articles.

THE RESULTS—WHAT’SREALLY BEHIND DOOR #3The result of this hard work is a docu-ment called a Recommended Practicerather than a Standard. The use of aRecommended Practice allows othermethods to be used to determinecompliance. In other words, the meas-urement procedure says that this is theeasiest and recommended way tomeasure DTV emission mask compli-ance but not necessarily the only wayto measure it.

To summarize the end result, thedocument describes the use of a medi-um-level-performance spectrum ana-lyzer and a breadbasket-sizedbandstop filter that will allow aneveryday station engineer to verifywhether the DTV transmitter is incompliance with emissions in the adja-cent channel by measuring the energyin twelve 500 kHz wide sub-bands oneither side of the desired channel. Innearly all situations, the measurementcan be accomplished without eventaking the transmitter off the air andwithout having to know any detailsabout the emission mask filter. Thenext article will describe the key partsof the procedure.

While the committee initiallyfocused on the measurement of fullservice transmitters, it also includedthe measurement of LPTV transmittersin the scope of the work becauseLPTV digital service was just coming

on board (FCC adopted DTV LPTVrules in 2004). The RecommendedPractice document has a section ofdefinitions, some references to FCCrules, the main body of the measure-ment procedure including illustrativeexamples for major steps of the proce-dure, and a body of background infor-mation that helps to explain what isneeded in certain steps and why it isnecessary, as well as avoiding pitfallsin spectrum analyzers usage.

STAY TUNED FOR WHAT’S NEXTAs the conclusion of this standardsprocess draws near, it has been a trueprivilege serving with the past andpresent members of the committee.Their commitment and interest in thesubject has made it possible for anaverage station engineer to make thesemeasurements with modest test equip-ment. The participation and support ofthe FCC during the entire process hasbeen great. The next step is the ballot-ing process for the RecommendedPractice by the IEEE standards organi-zation. By the time this article reachesyou, it is hoped the RecommendedPractice will have been adopted.

If you have questions or commentsto the IEEE BTS RF and Video/AudioStandards Committees or this particu-lar recommended practice you cancontact Greg Best at 816-792-2913 orat [email protected].

About the AuthorGreg Best is President of Greg BestConsulting, Inc. His firm performsbroadcast engineering consultingservices and serves the RF communi-cations industry in general. Gregearned his BSEE and MSEE degreefrom the University of Missouri-Rollaand MSEE degree from Illinois Insti-tute of Technology. He has publishedmany papers on TV Transmitter Sys-tems and Design. Greg is a registeredProfessional Engineer, member ofAFCCE, IEEE, SBE, as well as servingas an associate editor for the IEEETransactions on Broadcasting.



0.0 ABSTRACTMPEG transport streams are makingtheir way into broadcast and cableplants. A transport stream is a differ-ent vehicle that can carry multipleprograms in a single cable or carrier.This represents a new highway forprogramming material, and this newhighway opens new possibilities;however, it has its own set of laws, itsown enforcement tools, and its veryown issues. This paper will providethe reader with enough information toget up to speed in the MPEG transporthighway.

1.0 INTRODUCTIONBroadcasters are not at their first tran-sition of contents transport highway.

Composite video was their veryfirst one. Component analog videowas introduced in the 80’s with limit-ed success. Components Digital (SDI)was massively adopted by the broad-cast community. All these un-com-pressed video transport vehicles hadtheir own sets of rules. (One videoper stream, Video equalization, Maxi-mum distance, Minimum return lossrequirement, support of embeddedaudio, etc)

The MPEG transport stream is thehighway of compressed television sig-nals. It opens new opportunities:Reduced bandwidth, Multiple services,Drop & insert, etc. It also comes withnew rules: (MPEG compliance, 2 dif-ferent syntaxes, etc).

This article will review a few MPEGtransport concepts then answer some fre-quently asked question on the subject.

2.0 THE ABC OF MPEGTRANSPORT2.1 System layersJust like The OSI model used in thecomputer networking industry, theMPEG compressed signal is carried

over several layers:• The Physical layer, (Cable & Modu-

lation & coding)• The transport layer• The application Layer (DVB, ATSC)Transport streams are mostly carriedon the following Physical layer:• SMPTE-310 o SMPTE-310 relies on a coax trans-

mission system based on a syn-chronous feed @ 19.39 Mb/s

• DVB-ASIo DVB-ASI relies on a coax transmis-

sion based on a subset of the SDIspecification. The signal is alwaystransmitted @ 270 Mb/s. Howevera clever stuffing protocol permitstransmission from 1 to 214 Mb/s.

• IPo IP mostly relies on Unshielded

Twisted Pair (UTP, or cat-5) cable,Transport streams are encapsulatedin 1388 bytes packets, carriedmostly as UDP traffic.

2.2 Transport streamTransport stream (TS or TP) is a for-mat specified in MPEG-2 Part 1, Sys-tems (ISO/IEC standard 13818-1). Itsdesign goal is to allow multiplexing ofdigital video and audio and to syn-chronize the output.

2.21 Serial FormatThe MPEG data has to be serialized inorder to be transmissible over cable orRF. The serialization process is madeaccording to a strict protocol based onPacket based multiplexing.

The encoder has to fit all programelements in the transport stream:• Audio• Video• Data

The MPEG transport stream relies,unlike IP, on fixed length packets. Thelength of a standard MPEG packet is188 bytes

The best human scale model for adata packet is a train wagon. Thewagon carries a certain payload. Indata terms it can be expressed in thenumber of bytes it carries. In the spe-cific case of MPEG it is 188 Bytes.Bytes look all the same so a headerhas to be added to the packet so thede-multiplexer can know what is thecontent or the destination of the datapacket.

2.22 Program Elementary streamA Packetized Elementary Stream (orPES) is so created

The Program elements are:• Video including caption & Program

clock reference• Audio• Data

The elements can be differentiatedin the stream, even if all packets lookthe same via a very flexible set ofindex tables called MPEG Tables:

2.23 MPEG TablesThe MPEG tables are:

The Program Association Table, orPAT, is the mother of all tables It tellsthe equipment that reads the transportstreams:• The Transport stream ID (A num-


THE DO’S & DON’TS OF TRANSPORT STREAM LEVELNETWORKINGBy Guy BouchardSenior Manager, Broadcast & Signal Transport, New Broadcast TechnologiesCBC Technology

Figure 1 Transport Packet

Figure 2 packetized elementary stream(PES)

Copyright 2007 © CBC/Radio-Canada. Reprinted with permission. This article was originally published January 2007 in Issue 3 of the CBC Technology

Review. For more information, you are invited to visit the CBC Technology Review web site at www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/technologyreview/


ber unique to each transport streamthat identifies the origin of thestream)

• How many services are present inthe stream

• Location (in PID #) of each servicesindex table (PMT’s)

The Program Map Table or PMT is anindex table that tells the equipmentthat reads the Transport stream thelocation (in PID numbers) of each ofcomponents of the service:• Video• Audio(‘s)• data

2.24 Definition of a PIDThe PID or Program Identifier is a num-ber (13 bit integer) located in the trans-port packet header. The latter is used toindex MPEG packets. Just like IP routers,the MPEG TS handling equipment does-n’t have to read all the 188 bytes packetsit relies solely on the PID number toelect if the packet is required, and whereit shall be routed to.

The PID number is located in thetransport stream header:

2.35 Handling of the MPEG TablesThe moment the MPEG handlingequipment is connected to a TS, theacquiring equipment is always lookingfor The Program Association Table(PAT). The latter has no problem find-ing it since the PAT has a fixed PIDassignment (PID # 0).

The PAT will provide the locationsof all the program services availableon this program stream by calling theirProgram Map Table or PMT’s

In this example the PAT points to 3PMT’s however only one is displayed.

Figure 5 shows a typical tree diagramfor a multi-program transport stream.Once the MPEG handling has acquiredall these tables it is ready to route thepackets to the respective hardwareresponsible for decoding the signal.Depending on which services the userhas selected, different packets will berouted to the audio & video decoders.Most other packets will be discarded.

2.36 MPEG descriptorsService descriptor

Once the PES reaches the audio orvideo decoder, additional informationis required to instruct the decoder onthe scheme that was originally used toencode the signal:• Typical Coding standards:

o Video:(MPEG-1, MPEG-2, AVC,etc)

o Audio (MPEG layer 1, Dolby AC-3, etc)

This information is carried on a 8bit number called a service descriptor.Note that the values are expressed inhexadecimal format.


Figure 3 Typical MPEG Packet

Figure 4 typical MPEG tables

Figure 5 Typical MPEG Transport Stream Tree diagram

Figure 6 De-multiplexed MPEG Transport Stream


Service DescriptorMpeg-2 video 01hMpeg layer 2 audio 03hDolby AC-3 81hFigure 7 MPEG service descriptors

Language DescriptorFurthermore as several audio servicesof several languages may be presenton the PES, the decoder needs to beinstructed on the Language carried oneach video services. The Languagedescriptor was established to indexaudio services. The language selec-tion is made using a worldwide stan-dard called ISO-639 that defines mostcurrent languages, the latter defines a2 letter code for most known lan-guages. Figure 8 provides examplesof language descriptors:

Language ISO 639 DescriptorEnglish enFrench FrGerman deFinnish fiPolish PlPortuguese PtRussian ru

Figure 8 MPEG Language descriptors

2.37 Stream capacityAny MPEG transport stream has agiven data rate allocation that is nor-mally based on hardware limitation,ex: an ATSC transmitter is limited to19.392658 Mb/s. Most terrestrial net-works are sold in increments of 20Mb/s: 20, 40 or 60 Mb/s. However ifwe add all the elements of the streamaudio + video + data and the nominaldata rate of the stream is not quitemet, the leftover payload will be filledwith packets packed with zeros calledNull packets. In order to be recog-nized as such by any equipment inthe chain. All null packets must becarried on PID # 1FFFh.

The difference between the TSnominal rate and its useful payload iscalled the headroom. Ex: a 50 Mb/sstream on which 45 Mb/s is occupiedwith audio + video + data, is referredas a TS with 5 Mb/s or 10 % head-room.

2.38 Stream syntaxAt the application layer, the sets ofrules that applies to a transport streamand its components is called a Syntax,there are 3 main syntaxes in use:• MPEG, Basic level (PAT, PMT, etc)• ATSC For terrestrial transmission in

north America (All MPEG syntax +navigational info based at PID 1ffB(PSIP))

• DVB For satellite & terrestrial net-working (All MPEG syntax + naviga-tional info based at PID 16h(DVB-SI))

3.0 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:Can unwanted programs be fil-tered out from a multiple pro-grams transport stream?

In order to filter unwanted pro-

grams, the stream grooming equip-ment has to:• Modify the PAT so the unwanted

elements are not referred to in theTable

• Discard the unwanted PID’s (allservice elements + PMT)


Figure 9 Modified MPEG stream, referred from figure 5 example

Figure 10 single program Transportstream to add

Figure 11 augmented Multi program transport stream


Can services incoming from 2 dif-ferent TS be merged together in asingle transport stream?Merging operations are possible. AnMPEG multiplexer has to be used, andthe following tasks have to be per-formed:• Ensure sure that there are no service

and PID’s allocations are identical (i.e. 2 service #2 or 2 PID’s # 44). Ifthis is the case the multiplexer willrename one of them.

• Verify that the total payload of thenew expanded stream doesn’texceed the maximum permitted out-put rate.

• Modify the PAT so all the servicesare represented.

• Pass all the required PID’s.

Could service 1 be re-named toanother number (5 for example)?Service re-mapping (in MPEG Jargon)is a common feature of most MPEGmultiplexers. The latter just re-formatsthe PAT and PMT’s accordingly.

Furthermore, could PID numbersbe re-named?Yes. Any of the PIDs may be renamedas long as no conflicts is created.However some PID numbers are to beavoided because they may be use inthe next service layer (ATSC, DVB).PID # 1FFB, 16 is reserved for naviga-tional information. 1FFF is reserved fornull packets and will be discarded byany equipment no matter what it maycarry.

Can MPEG descriptors be altered?Changing service or language descrip-tors is not advisable, ex: an audioservice running with Dolby AC-3 com-pression is normally carried on a PIDholding the service descriptor 81h. Ifthe latter is changed to 3h whichmeans MPEG layer 2 audio it willbecome un-decodable.

Can PID’s that are not defined inany of the MPEG tables be trans-ported in an MPEG TS ?The carriage of Ghost PID’s (anotherpiece of MPEG jargon used to describe

orphan PID’s) remains a delicate oper-ation. A multiplexer can pass anyGhost PID’s as long as:• They are declared in the mux Ghost

PID windows• They do not represent any conflict

with any of the PID’s present in theTS.Caution: When a Ghost PID is

allowed to pass, the MUX looses con-trol over its size, the user must beabsolutely sure that no excessiveamount of data will flow trough thesea PID’s unless sufficient headroom ispresent in the TS.

Ghost PID’s may be re-incarnateddownstream in the broadcast chain, tobe used at the application layer.

Can a TS be carried over differentphysical layer?Transport stream translation are possi-ble, as long as you respect the physi-cal layer intrinsic bandwidthlimitations are respected:

SMPTE-310 physical layer is limitedto 19.392658 Mb/s. Obviously, a 30Mb/s DVB-ASI stream can not be trans-lated into SMPTE-310 unless servicesare dropped until the limitation is met.

ASI has a Bandwidth limitation ofabout 214 Mb/s.

The Ethernet physical layer has lim-itation of its own. It is based on MPEGtolerance to packet jitter. This limita-tion varies depending on link design.

Can DVB-ASI be distributed in abroadcast plant using the existingSDI routing infrastructure?The DVB-ASI and SDI share the sameelectrical layer (270 Mb/s coax, NRZcoding); however their coding layersare different, so DVB-ASI is polaritysensitive where SDI is not. Somevideo distribution amplifiers areknown to feature 4 non-inverting out-puts + 4 inverting ones. The non-inverting outputs shall be chosen tocarry DVB-ASI.

Could a TS carried over an Ether-net electrical layer be carried alongwith other IT traffic ?This is possible, however appropriate

care shall be applied as the MPEGtransport stream carried on Ethernethas no management layer, no QualityOf Service or QOS is applied on it.

Successful implementation has usedsome of the existing IT managementtools such as VLAN. Although it hasworked reliably over under-subscribedlinks, The MPEG performance is verylikely to degrade in the presence ofpacket jitter typical of busy IT trans-port infrastructure.

How can a transport stream com-pliance of any given Syntax beassessed?A Stream analyzer will give you streamconformity information based on 2 ref-erence document:• ETR 290 for DVB Based stream• ATSC A78 for the ATSC based

streamBoth documents will dictate the

alarm that you have to handle imme-diately, the one you will have to han-dle soon, and the one that doesn’treally matter in the short term.

Can a TS be transferred from agiven syntax to another?Syntax transfers are possible, howeverthey remain a delicate intervention aseach syntax (ATSC or DVB) is usingfixed PID numbers for the carriage ofits navigational information indextable. In the syntax translationprocess, navigational information mayget lost in the process. Ghost PID’swill unavoidably be created. SpecialMPEG set-up may have to be done topreserve this information. If the signalhas to be re-incarnated into the origi-nal syntax, this becomes a job for anMPEG expert.

Can broadcasters interconnectwith a BDU (cable-casters & Satel-lite operators) via a transportstream?In fact, that is the preferred format formost BDU’s, however; there are a fewoperational rules to follow:• Changes in program numbers, PID’s

numbers, etc requires advancednotice with the BDU.



• Stream compliance has to be main-tained at all times

• The Nominal rate of the transportstream has to remain constant at alltimes.

About the AuthorGuy Bouchard is senior manager for

New Broadcast Technologies (NBT)at CBC/Radio_Canada. He is respon-sible for digital delivery technologiesstudies and projects within CBCTechnology. During his 22 yearswith the CBC, Guy has worked inanalog and digital television trans-mission and production systems, as

wel l as sate l l i te and terr es tr ialmicrowave communication systems.He holds a degree in telecommunica-tions from the Université du Québecand is an AdCom member of theInstitute of Electrical and ElectronicsEngineers (IEEE) Broadcast Technol-ogy Society.


CALL FOR PAPERSSubmission Deadline: September 3rd, 2007

Quality Issues in Multimedia Broadcasting Special Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting

Multimedia is increasingly being delivered via different types of networks to viewers in a variety of locations and contextsand using a variety of devices. Due to dynamically changing requirements and networking conditions, the delivery of multi-media content has traditionally adopted a best effort approach. However this has often led to the end-user perceived qualityof multimedia-based services being affected, in spite of it being a vital issue for the continued acceptance and proliferationof these services. At the same time, end-users are becoming increasingly quality-aware in their expectations and demand anever-widening spectrum of rich multimedia-based services. As a consequence, extensive efforts are put into proposing solu-tions for improving the quality of streamed multimedia.

This special issue solicits innovative papers on all quality aspects of multimedia streaming, from coding to end-userassessment. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:• Advanced audio-video coding and transcoding in relation to user-perceived quality• Quality issues in admission, congestion and error control• Algorithms for quality-oriented multimedia pre- and post-processing• Quality of Service, Quality of Experience and Quality of Perception management• Quality-based multimedia streaming in an ubiquitous context• Adaptive solutions for unicasting, multicasting and broadcasting• Quality-oriented multimedia content delivery architectures• Quality issues in hand-held and mobile wireless broadcast systems• Small screen mobile device quality provision and assessment• Human-technical factors in ubiquitous multimedia communications• Profiling and personalization of broadcasted rich media content• End-user quality assessment of streamed multimedia

All submissions will be peer-reviewed. Contributors should submit mature, unpublished work in camera-ready version fol-lowing the journal’s instructions for authors, which are available at http://www.ieee.org/organizations/society/bt/public.html.

Important datesDeadline for authors to submit papers: September 3rd, 2007Notification of review results: February 4th, 2008Deadline for final version of papers: March 31st, 2008Possible publication: autumn 2008.

Submission guidelinesAuthors should follow the IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting format described in the Information for Authors athttp://www.ieee.org/organizations/society/bt/authorinfo.htm. Please indicate that the submission is for the special issue on“Quality Issues in Multimedia Broadcasting”

Prospective authors should submit a PDF version of their paper to Kathy Colabaugh at [email protected]


George Ghinea (M’02) received theB.Sc. and B.Sc. (Hons.) degrees incomputer science and mathematics in1993 and 1994, respectively, and theM.Sc. degree in computer science in1996, from the University of the Wit-watersrand, Johannesburg, SouthAfrica. He received the Ph.D. degreein computer science from the Univer-sity of Reading, Reading, U.K., in2000. He is a Senior Lecturer at theSchool of Information Systems, Com-puting and Mathematics at Brunel Uni-versity, United Kingdom. Dr. Ghineahas over 60 international refereedpublications and regularly consults forpublic and private organizations in hisarea of expertise. His research inter-ests span perceptual quality aspects ofmultimedia, quality of service, andmultimedia resource allocation, as wellas computer networking and securityissues.

Gabriel-Miro Muntean (M’03) is aLecturer with the School of ElectronicEngineering, Dublin City University,Ireland, where he obtained his Ph.D.degree in 2003 for research on quality-oriented adaptation schemes for multi-media streaming. He was awarded theB.Eng. and M.Sc. degrees in SoftwareEngineering from the Computer Sci-

ence Department, "Politehnica" Uni-versity of Timisoara, Romania in 1996and 1997 respectively. Dr. Muntean’sresearch interests include quality ofservice, quality of experience and per-formance-related issues of adaptivesolutions for multimedia delivery overwired and wireless networks. He isalso interested in performance-awareadaptive hypermedia systems. Dr.Muntean has published a book, abook chapter and over 50 papers inhighly ranked peer-reviewed interna-tional journals and conferences. He isa member of the IEEE Broadcast Tech-nology Society.

Pascal Frossard (S'96-M'01-SM'04)received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees,both in electrical engineering, fromthe Swiss Federal Institute of Technol-ogy (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, in1997 and 2000, respectively. From1998 to 2000, he worked with the Sig-nal Processing Laboratory, EPFL, as aresearch and teaching assistant undera grant from Hewlett-Packard.Between 2001 and 2003, he was amember of the research staff at theIBM T. J. Watson Research Center,Yorktown Heights, NY, where heworked on media compression andstreaming technologies. Since 2003, he

has been an assistant professor atEPFL, supported by the Swiss NationalScience Foundation. His researchinterests include image representationand coding, nonlinear representations,visual information analysis, jointsource and channel coding, multime-dia communications, and multimediacontent distribution.

Dr. Frossard has been the GeneralChair of IEEE ICME 2002 (Lausanne,Switzerland), and member of theorganizing or technical program com-mittees of numerous conferences. Hehas served as Guest Editor of specialissues on Streaming Media (IEEETRANSACTIONS ON MULTIMEDIA),on Media and Communication Appli-cations on General Purpose Proces-sors: Hardware and Software Issues(Journal of VLSI SPSS), and on Imageand Video Coding Beyond Standards(Journal of Signal Processing). He isan Associate Editor of the IEEETRANSACTIONS ON MULTIMEDIA(2004-) and of the IEEE TRANSAC-TIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMSFOR VIDEO TECHNOLOGY (2006-)and he served as a member of the Edi-torial Board of the EURASIP Journal ofSignal Processing (2003-2005). He hasbeen serving as Vice-Chair of the IEEEMultimedia Communications Technical


Special issue editors

Dr. George GhineaSchool of Information Systems, Computing and MathematicsBrunel University, Uxbridge UKEmail: [email protected]

Prof . Pascal Frossard Signal Processing Institute Ecole Polytechnique Federale de LausanneLausanne, SwitzerlandE-mail: [email protected]

Dr. Filippo SperanzaCommunications Research CenterCanadaE-mail: [email protected]

Dr. Gabriel-Miro MunteanSchool of Electronic Engineering Dublin City University, DublinRepublic of IrelandEmail: [email protected]

Dr. Minoru EtohResearch Laboratories, NTT DoCoMoYokosuka, JapanE-mail: [email protected]

Prof. Henry R. WuSchool of Electrical & Computer Engineering,Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,Melbourne, Victoria AustraliaEmail: [email protected]


Committee, as a member of the IEEEMultimedia Signal Processing Techni-cal Committee (2004-), of the IEEEMultimedia Systems and ApplicationsTechnical Committee (2005-) and ofthe IEEE Image and MultidimensionalSignal Processing Technical Commit-tee (2007-). He received the Swiss NSFProfessorship Award in 2003, and theIBM Faculty Award in 2005.

Minoru Etoh is Deputy ManagingDirector of Research Laboratories atNTT DoCoMo, Japan. In 90's, he wasleading an image communicationresearch team in Matsushita Electricand participated in MPEG-4 standardi-zation as one of major video CODECarchitects. He joined Multimedia Lab-oratories of NTT DoCoMo in 2000,where he contributed to launchingDoCoMo’s 3G mobile multimediaservices. He was also appointed atManaging Director of DoCoMo USALabs in 2002 and Multimedia Labs in2005 respectively.

His expertise covers a wide rangeof mobile multimedia: network archi-tecture, terminal software, codingtechnologies, and media delivery overmobile networks. Minoru Etoh

received his B.E. and M.S.E.E. fromHiroshima University, Ph.D. degreefrom Osaka University, in 1983, 1985and 1993 respectively.

Filippo Speranza received his Ph.D.in Experimental Psychology from theUniversity of Toronto (Canada) in1999. In 2001, he joined the Commu-nications Research Centre Canadawhere he serves as research scientistin the Advanced Television EvaluationLaboratory (ATEL). Dr. Speranza hasover 30 international publications andhe actively participates in the work ofinternational organizations concernedwith picture quality assessment. He iscurrently the co-Chair of Video Quali-ty Expert Group (VQEG) and vice-Chairman of the SG6-Working Party6Q, a group of the InternationalTelecommunication Union (ITU) con-cerned with performance assessmentand quality control. Dr. Speranzaresearch interests are human visualperception, stereoscopic imaging, andsubjective picture quality assessmenttechniques and methods.

Hong Ren Wu received his BEng.and MEng. from the University of Sci-

ence and Technology, Beijing (for-merly Beijing University of Iron andSteel Technology), P.R. China, in 1982and 1985, respectively. He receivedhis PhD in Electrical and ComputerEngineering from the University ofWollongong, N.S.W. Australia, in1990. Dr. Wu worked as academicstaff in Chisholm Institute of Technol-ogy and then Monash University,Melbourne, Australia from April 1990to January 2005; last as an AssociateProfessor in Digital Systems. Dr. Wuhas been with Royal Melbourne Insti-tute of Technology, Australia, sinceFebruary 2005, as Professor of VisualCommunications Engineering andDiscipline Head, Computer and Net-work Engineering in the School ofElectrical and Computer Engineering.His research interests include fastDSP algorithms, digital picture com-pression and quality assessment,video processing and enhancment,embedded DSP systems and theirindustrial applications. His mostrecent publications include a bookco-edited with Prof. K.R. Rao of Uni-versity of Texas at Arlington on Digi-tal Video Image Quality andPerceptual Coding.


ating officer of BarcoNet n.v., when itwas acquired by Scientific-Atlanta, Inc.in January 2002. Later, Scientific-Atlanta became a Cisco company in2006.

Dr. Shuji Hirakawa received Ph.D.degree from University of Tokyo in1978. As a Ph.D. student, he pio-neered research on “coded modula-tion”. His groundbreaking work ledhim to receive the IEEE GoldenJubilee Paper Award in 1998. Aftergraduation, Dr. Hirakawa joinedToshiba Corporation and now he is aSenior Manager of Corporate Stan-dardization Group, Technology Plan-ning Division of Toshiba. In the last30 years, Dr. Hirakawa was involvedand led the research and developmentof HD MUSE, digital satellite broad-

casting system and multimedia broad-casting systems. His works result inmany national and international stan-dards. Dr. Hirakawa is also a keymember in many international stan-dard organizations. Currently, he is avice-chairman of ITU-R WP 6M (Multi-media and Interactive broadcastingsystem) and the secretary of IEC TC100 (Audio, Video and MultimediaSystems and Equipment). He is anIEEE Fellow, an associate editor of theIEEE Transactions on Broadcasting,and he has been the Secretary of IEEEBroadcast Technology Society JapanChapter, since 2002.

Please check the IBC conferencesite for the latest information aboutthis tutorial at

http://ibc.org/cgi-bin/confprog_cms.cgi

About IBC

What started as an event in a Londonhotel has now grown into one of theleading international conventions forcontent creation, management anddelivery.

The IBC technology trade showwill mark four decades of exhibitions,technical conferences, creative work-shops, business discussions, and train-ing programs when it opens inSeptember 2007 in Amsterdam.

This year's conference themes are:Broadcasting by Broadband, DigitalLifestyles, Content Production and D-Cinema.

The organizers expect at least45,000 visitors to IBC2007. For infor-mation about IBC2007, visit its mainweb site at http://ibc.org

IBC 2007 continued from page 8


IEEE Broadcast Technology Society Newsletter 26 Spring 2007


Spring 2007 27 IEEE Broadcast Technology Society Newsletter


IEEE Broadcast Technology Society Newsletter 28 Spring 2007

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