No.265 January-March 2016 - ABU- Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union

No.265 January-March 2016

PP 2412/11/2012 (031331) • ISSN 0126-6209

Contents 2

Networking of Doordarshan Installation for Contribution & Distribution of Content

6

HD Broadcast Upgrade Project for Phoenix TV

12

ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium 2016

27

AIR’s Experience with ‘DRM Dual Channel Transmission on Single Frequency’ through Shortwave Transmitter

31

BES Expo and Conference 2016

32

Workshop on Hybrid Media Delivery for Prasar Bharati

33

Digital Radio, Smart Radio and Hybrid Radio

35

EBU News

37

Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union

TECHNICAL REVIEW From the Editor’s Desk This year’s Digital Broadcasting Symposium, (DBS) 2016, implemented a new structure, reducing the number of days from five to four. The first day was dedicated to workshops, followed by three days of conference presentations and an exhibition. The symposium commenced with large audiences for the DVB, DAB+ and archiving workshops. Three eminent speakers from NHK, all experts in the area of archiving, talked about needs, processes, challenges and issues related to archiving. The DVB workshop discussed immersive viewing and audio in future broadcasting. Presenters highlighted the importance of value addition to the viewing experience, preferably with the creation of a ‘wow factor’. The concept of HDR or high dynamic range in television was explained, together with its implications for the end to end value of the media chain. WorldDAB addressed issues and challenges in migrating to digital radio during their workshop. A number of presenters discussed deployments in other regions. The workshop was concluded with discussion sessions in three groups, addressing the impact of Technology, Content and Regulation in planning a digital radio service. This edition of Technical Review contains detailed reports on DBS-2016 with a page dedicated to expressing the ABU’s appreciation to exhibitors and sponsors with a display of their logos. This issue also carries four technical articles, news from the EBU and APAC regions plus updates on digital broadcasting and equipment trends.

News from the ABU Region

39

Digital Broadcasting Update

41

Equipment Trends

The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) is a professional union of broadcasting organisations in the Asia-Pacific area which aims to co-ordinate and promote the development of radio, television and allied services in the region. It is nongovernmental, non-political and non-commercial. The ABU Technical Review is published in March, June, September and December of each year. The reproduction of articles published in this Review is not permitted, except with the prior consent of the Editor. News items may be reproduced provided that the source is acknowledged.

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Personalities & Posts New Members

Responsibility for contributed articles published rests solely with the authors and the views expressed are not necessarily those of the ABU. Subscription rates (annual, 4 issues): Asia-Pacific US$40.00; the rest of the world US$45.00. Advertising and Editorial offices at Kuala Lumpur. Published by Dr. Amal Punchihewa ABU Technology The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union 2nd Floor, IPPTAR Building, Angkasapuri, 50614 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Telephone: (60-3) 2282 3108 Fax: (60-3) 2282 5292

Cover:

ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium 2016: Full Report Inside

For advertising inquiries, contact Hamidah Rani email: [email protected] Design, layout & printed by: SP-Muda Printing Sdn Bhd No. 83, Japan KIP 9, Taman Perindustrian KIP Kepong, 52200 Kuala Lumpur. Tel: (60-3) 6274 2463 Fax: (60-3) 6277 2863

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Technical Review | January-March 2016

Networking of Doordarshan Installation for Contribution & Distribution of Content 1. Introduction Television started in India in September 1959 on an experimental basis with one make-shift studio and a low power transmitter installed in the Akashwani Bhawan, All India Radio, New-Delhi. In 1965 a regular service was started with a 10kW transmitter and a bigger studio. The entire service was in a standalone mode, originating from Akashvani Bhawan (AVB). There was no need for networking as the transmitter was co-located. In 1982, the national service of Doordarshan commenced. Networking was implemented through the earth station of Department of Telecom at Sikandrabad, Uttar Pradesh. A second programme channel, DD Metro was commissioned in 1988 at the four networked Metro centres, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai & Kolkata. In 1989 two high power transmitters at Pitampura Delhi came into existence and signals from the Doordarshan studio at Akashvani Bhawan were fed to these transmitters. Interlinking between Doordarshan at Akashvani Bhawan and HPT Pitampura was via microwave links.

2. Need for Networking in Delhi The following TV installations and important locations from where programmes were either originated or received frequently were required to be linked with each other: (i) Doordarshan Kendra, Delhi (ii) Central Production Centre, Delhi (iii) High Power Transmitter Complex, Pitampura (iv) Satellite Earth Station, DTH (Direct to Home), Todapur, Delhi (v) Parliament House, Delhi

by Mr S.B. Mukesh Deputy Director General (Engineering) Directorate General, Doordarshan, New Delhi

both OFC and microwave links. • Direct To Home (DTH) satellite uplink terminal at Todapur is exclusively dependent on satellite links for down linking of various national & regional channels.

by Mr Harshit Kumar

4. Expansion of Doordarshan Activities in Delhi

Deputy Director (Engineering) Directorate General, Doordarshan, New Delhi

• In the 1990s, News was a part of the DD National channel with limited bulletins. • The number of news bulletins gradually increased over the succeeding years. • Later on, production and transmission was shifted to CPC as infrastructure at Doordarshan Kendra in Akashvani Bhawan could not meet the growing demands of News. • News operation at CPC called for more dependable and adequate redundancy links. • Parliament proceedings were introduced on the national network and also DD Rajya Sabha & DD Lok -Sabha were brought to air in 1997. • The Parliament (Rajya Sabha & Lok Sabha) set-ups were networked to Akashvani Bhawan through M/W links. • In the year 1999, an MCPC earth station (5+0) mode was installed in addition to the microwave links at CPC.

To achieve this inter-connectivity, the following modes of networking were adopted atvarious installations: • Microwave links • Satellite links • Optical fibre connections

3. Utilisation of the Three Linking Modes • CPC Delhi, DDK Delhi and HPT Pitampura are networked using all the three modes. • Parliament House is networked with DDK Delhi through Figure 1: Schematic of Networking of Doordarshan Centres in Delhi

Networking of Doordarshan Installation for Contribution & Distribution of Content

5. DD Channels Originating from Delhi & their Production & Uplink Location S.No. Channels Production Play-back Uplinking from booth from

Transmission link used

1. DD- DDK Delhi DDK Delhi DDK Delhi National INSAT 4B CPC Delhi INSAT 3C 2. DD News DD Bhawan DD Bhawan DD Bhawan PH-II PH-II PH-II 3. DD CPC Delhi CPC Delhi DDK Delhi Sports 4. DD DDK Delhi DDK Delhi DDK Delhi Bharati 5. DD Urdu CPC Delhi CPC Delhi DDK Delhi 6. DD India DDK Delhi DDK Delhi DDK Delhi 7. DD CPC Delhi CPC Delhi DDK Delhi Kissan Earth station & their channels uplink status

OFC link from DDK Delhi to CPC DD National

S.No. Location

Satellite

1.

CPC Delhi INSAT 3C

2.

CPC Delhi Asia-sat 5

OFC – OFC – OFC

Channels being uplinked DD National

with 75 workstations, 8 online craft editing and 8 online ingest ports • 3 studios and 2 PCR’s cater for the 24X7 DD News channel, in which 16 hrs of live news bulletins are taken on air. • There are 4 studios for DD National, DD Bharati & DD India production and transmission. • DDK Delhi is ready with the HD uplink chain on its (8+1) MSPS bouquet. As of now the HD service is undergoing testing of DVB-T2 transmitters. • MSR and Feed room at DDK Delhi is the hub for DD News, DD National, DD Bharati & DD India channels. • Feeds from 35 earth stations, 16 hired news (C- Band) DSNG, 32 in-house DSNG (C + Ku) vans are received at DDK Delhi MSR. • Reuters live input as well as news clips for the previous 10 days are recorded in a server based WNE service. Facility for online FTP news clips and FTP news recording from other places in the country are available. • A recently inducted Cellular Mobile News Gathering (CMNG) back pack system is being extensively used by DD News for live transmission of VVIP events and coverage abroad as well as within the country. This is being used with multiple 3G SIM cards to achieve the maximum bandwidth of signal transmission via the broadband network.

AVN feeds

3. DDK Delhi INSAT 4B (8+1)

DD News, DD National, DD Bharati,DD India, DD Urdu,DD Kisan, HD channel, Rajyasabha TV & DD feeds

4. Pitampura INSAT 4B (10+1)

DD DD DD DD DD

5. Todapur

DTH service comprising 64 channels

INSAT 4B KU Band

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News, DD National, Bharati, DD Urdu, Sports, DD Bangla, Podhigai, DD Saptgiri, Malyalam & DD Portblair

6. Activities at Central Production Centre, New Delhi • DD Kisan 24x7 hours channel, the first of its kind, was recently launched by Prasar Bharati in June 2015 from CPC, Delhi. • DD Urdu is packaged and playout is implemented through an automated (1+1) server (Omnibus based). • DD Sports is produced at CPC utilising one studio and playback arrangements. • There are 2 uplink setups at CPC: a. INSAT- 3C uplink for DD National b. Asiavision News (AVN) earth station (AS5) for AVN and international feeds.

8. Earth stations & DSNGs used for Networking by Doordarshan • DD network has 23 MCPC earth stations, including one at Pitampura, DDK Delhi and CPC (5+0) • 15 SCPC earth stations are in operation • The DTH service of DD, operational at Todapur is networked exclusively through satellite • Overall 32 in-house DSNG (Vans + through Fly Away unit) are in operation • DD News has 12 C band hired DSNG vans

9. OFC Connectivity in DD Network • In November, 2003, DD News channel came into operations on 24x7 hours basis. • There was a need to have an uninterrupted smooth signal flow from Parliament, especially during sessions. • OFC links were hired for the first time in 2003, between Parliament-DDK Delhi-CPC. • These OFC links are capable of carrying embedded SDI signals at 270 Mbps uncompressed as per DD specifications. • After the shifting of DD News to DD Bhawan phase II from CPC, some modifications were done in OFC connectivity. • At present there are 4 links comprising a total of 18 channels including Transmit and Receive.

7. Technical set up for DD News, 10. Significance of Asiavision News DD National and DD Bharati (AVN) Uplink Channels at Doordarshan Kendra • AVN E/S was installed in collaboration with ABU for AVN countries as a news sharing platform. Delhi • There are 18 Asian member countries receiving and • DDK Delhi has a state-of-the-art newsroom AP-ENPS

sharing news feeds in the Asia Pacific Region.

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authors Mr S.B. Mukesh

Deputy Director General (Engineering.) Directorate General, Doordarshan, New Delhi Email: [email protected]

Mr S.B. Mukesh is a 1985 Batch officer of Indian Broadcasting (Engineering) Services. He has gained vast experience over more than 28 years in the operation & maintenance of various AIR & TV Studios, high power AIR & TV transmitters and earth stations. Currently the author is serving as Deputy Director General (Engineering) at Doordarshan headquarters, New Delhi where he is responsible for the maintenance of 67 TV Studios and transmission of various national, regional and local channels in the entire Doordarshan network of India. Figure 2: Block schematic of OFC facility utilised by Doordarshan

• Uplinking is done on Asiasat5 for news feed sharing twice a day between 2:30-3:30pm and 4:30-6:00pm. • International feeds are also booked for foreign broadcasters as per the DD rate card. Legends:

Mr Harshit Kumar

Deputy Director (Engineering) Directorate General, Doordarshan, New Delhi Email: [email protected]

Mr Harshit Kumar is a 1993 Batch officer of Indian Broadcasting (Engineering) Services. He has gained vast experience over more than 20 years in News channel, TV studios, OBs, and earth stations responsible for their operations & maintenance. He earlier worked as Technical In charge of the DD News channel, New Delhi from 2004 to 2010. Currently the author is serving as Deputy Director (Engineering) at Doordarshan headquarters, New Delhi looking after the operations & maintenance of TV studios, OBs and the production,/ post-production activities of the entire DD network.

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by Terence Yiu

Phoenix Satellite Television Co. Ltd.

executive summary Phoenix Satellite Television Co. Ltd (Phoenix TV), with its headquarters in Hong Kong, is a Chinese Language broadcaster, committed to provide Chinese-speaking audiences with real-time world news and information. The Group’s Chinese Channel, InfoNews Channel, European Channel, American Channel, Movie Channel and Hong Kong Channel are carried on AsiaSat 7, China Sat-6B, EUROBIRD, Telsat-12, Directv, Echostar, G3-C, SATMEX-6, Bell ExpressVU and other broadcasting platforms, covering over 180 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. In the middle of year 2012, Phoenix TV started an in-house HD upgrade project, which included the enhancement of facilities and equipment related to acquisition, production, transmission and distribution. The whole project was completed by the beginning of 2014. Owing to the complexity of the project components and the requirement to maintain daily operation, the whole project was divided into three major phases – (1) News Channel and Studios HD Upgrade; (2) Phase 2 – MAM,graphic, OAP and NLE HD upgrade and (3) Transmission and Uplink HD Upgrade. Over time a number of difficulties were met and needed to be solved. These included budget control, time constraints, continuity of daily broadcast, production format change, SD aspect ratio change, etc. With cooperation from different internal departments and external parties, the overall HD project was completed seamlessly and successfully against a very tight project timeline. This document is intended to summarise all relevant technical and workflow experiences encountered by Phoenix TV to complete a successful HD upgrade project. We hope this document can serve as a guideline for ABU members who require to implement similar HD upgrade jobs in the future. It is also hoped that the document may help members to save upgrade costs and shorten the overall HD upgrade time. The conclusion of this article incudes a summary in which major technical key points are highlighted and discussed.

Background Phoenix TV moved into its Tai Po Headquarters in Hong Kong at the beginning of 2009. During the design stage of the original facilities it was foreseen that High Definition (HD) operations would be required in the near future. Even though all services of Phoenix TV at that time were in Standard Definition (SD) format, all wiring and core components of the broadcast system were designed to be HD-ready or to be upgradable to HD operation. That enabled a smooth and un-interrupted migration from SD to HD during the HD upgrade project. The whole HD upgrade project kicked off in the middle of 2012 and was completed by early 2014. Before the HD upgrade project, Phoenix TV mainly distributed three SD channels (Phoenix InfoNews Channel SD, Phoenix Chinese Channel SD and Phoenix Movies Channel SD) on AsiaSat7 (10H) platform (together with channels from other company in the same 10H transponder). After completing the HD upgrade project, Phoenix TV was able to provide three HD

channels (Phoenix Chinese Channel HD, Phoenix InfoNews Channel HD and Phoenix Hong Kong Channel HD) and three SD channels (Phoenix Chinese Channel SD, Phoenix InfoNews Channel SD, Phoenix Movies Channel SD) on the AsiaSat 7 (13H) platform. Phoenix TV was also able to occupy the whole 13H transponder for its own distribution. In addition to the four channels (6 services) distributed via the AsiaSat7 (13H) platform, Phoenix TV also distributed two additional channels (Phoenix UK and Phoenix US) to London and US through undersea fibre links.

Project Schedule and Timelines Due to complexity of the project, it was divided into three (3) major phases: 1. Phase 1 – News Channel and Studio(s) Upgrade 2. Phase 2 – MAM, Graphic, OAP and NLE HD Upgrade 3. Phase 3 – Transmission and Uplink Upgrade


Below is the project timelines for the three phases:

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consideration included DVCPro HD, AVC Intra, ProRes 422 and XDCAM HD422, etc. Selection criteria for Phoenix were based on the codecs’ performance on three (3) major areas: 1. EFP Compatibility; 2. NLE Compatibility, both our new systems and general production; 3. Playout and MAM compatibility, supported Studio Playout Video Server, Transmission Playout Video Server and MAM Storage

Figure 1: Phase 1 – News Channel and Studio(s) Upgrade

After numerous tests had been done, we made the following recommendation and suggestions internally: 1. For news production and news playout – DVCPro HD and XDCAM HD format were recommended. DVCPro HD has advantage for quick NLE processing for news editing but XDCAM HD has advantage in Video Server Playout and Storage.

Figure 2: Phase 2 - MAM, Graphic, OAP and NLE HD Upgrade

2. For general purpose NLE Editing – ProRes422 was recommended as it was more compatible with our existing Video and Audio Editing infrastructure. 3. For MAM, Transmission and Broadcast, XDCAM HD served as a good choice as the storage size was approximately the same as our existing SD format (IMX50) and therefore no significant increment in both Video Server and MAM Storage was required. Three major formats were therefore selected. All of them had their own unique advantages,. To cater the future transcoding requirement, Phoenix had setup transcoding farms in both the News Production and NLE areas internally to cater for the requirement of future HD production.

Figure 3: Phase 3 - Transmission and Uplink Upgrade

Phase 1 included the upgrade of our 24-hour News Channel Studio (Phoenix InfoNews Channel) and all general purpose Studios to HD ready. It also included the HD upgrade of all acquisition, production and newsroom computer systems for our News Production. Phase 2 included the upgrade of in-house MAM and general purpose NLE production system. In addition, all workstations in Graphic and OAP departments were also upgraded because old workstations were not fast enough to handle the generation and editing of HD video clips and HD Graphic materials.

Phase 1 – News Channel and Studio(s) HD Upgrade (Phoenix InfoNews Channel) Phoenix InfoNews Channel is one of the six channels that Phoenix Television operates. It was the first channel to report News across the Greater China region, which includes Mainland China, Macau, Taiwan and Hong Kong. This channel was established on January 1, 2001, as a 24-hour channel for news updates and financial highlights worldwide.

Phase 3 included the upgrade for existing playout facilities and headend distribution equipment. The tasks included upgrading Video Playout Server, Down Stream Keyers, adding up-converters/down-converters and cross-converter, etc. Finally, our headend system was also upgraded to HD so that all new HD programmes could be distributed to our current customers via the new AsiaSat7 (10H) platform.

HD Production Format Selection Before the HD upgrade project started, we first went through an evaluation of different HD production formats for the future HD daily workflow. The codecs and formats under

Figure 4: View of Phoenix InfoNews Channel Studio Floor

The upgrade of our News Channel can be sub-divided into: 1. 2. 3. 4.

EFP Equipment HD Upgrade Newsroom Computer System HD Upgrade News Studio HD Upgrade General Studio(s) HD Upgrade

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1. EFP Equipment Upgrade It was required to upgrade existing acquisition equipment to HD capability. That included the camera system, media players system and flyaway/link transmission system, etc. As we decided to go for XDCAM HD as the major acquisition format, we selected new camcorders mainly based on this format and tried to minimise the effort for transcoding and format changing. For link transmission system, Phoenix TV selected 3.5G/4G link systems to replace traditional microwave systems to reduce the cost and setup time.

2. Newsroom Computer System Upgrade Major components requiring HD upgrade included News Ingest Workstation (14), News NLE Workstations (12), News Transcoder Server (6), News Journalist Workstation (80). Since DVCPRO HD was chosen as a major news production format a new transcoding farm was setup so that DVCPRO HD clips are transcoded into playout format XDCAM HD before sending to the Studio Playout Video Server. File size for XDCAM HD was approximately the same size in comparison to our original SD format (IMX50). The advantage was that there was no significant requirement to expand the Playout Video Server’s storage. On the other hand, we did need to upgrade all the Ingest ports and Playout ports of the Studio Playout Video Server to allow full HD ingest/playout capacities.

3. News Studio Upgrade The news studio upgrade involved the upgrade of the vision mixer, SD to HD Camera, CG system, Virtual Graphic System, Studio Playout Video Server and Studio Recording Server. Since our news studio served a 24-hour News Channel, we had to setup a large Chroma Key set in another studio during the HD upgrade so that the New Studio could be released temporary for the wiring and new equipment installation jobs. In addition, we had to squeeze the whole two-week timeline into one week as the chroma key set in the substitute studio was not able to take care of all News Programme’s requirement.

4. General Purpose Studios Upgrade In total Phoenix TV had four general purpose studios which required HD upgrades. The equipment and systems requiring HD upgrades included the common Studio Playout Video Server, Studio Recording Server, vision mixer, camera system and CG/Virtual graphic system. Since all studios were fully booked almost every day, the upgrade timelines for all the studios needed to be planned very carefully and precisely. Many discussions and meetings were held between different parties such as the studio operation team, production team, graphic team and engineering team before the final upgrade schedule and timeline could be fixed. The main goal was to minimise the upgrade period (down time) for each studio. Moreover, there was a lot of swapping of programmes to different studios and compromises between using chroma key instead of actual scenes during the HD upgrade. After completing all the four upgrades above, all the news Studio and general purpose studios became capable of HD production. At the same time, we also kept the SD downconversion path for PGM feed and CLEAN feed for all those Studios so that the SD output could be sent directly to our transmission and broadcast systems before the remaining phases of the project were carried out.

Phase 2 – MAM, Graphic, OAP and NLE HD Upgrade The MAM upgrade included all MAM ingest workstations, MAM NLE workstation upgrade, MAM transcode server upgrade, near-line storage upgrade and LTO tape library upgrade. Since in the original 2009 design the MAM used by Phoenix already supported HD format and cataloguing, the major tasks were on hardware side to improve the machine performance and increased the storage space. The major difficulties met during the MAM upgrade was the change to HD workflow and handling of HD materials. Handling HD materials often required more time (e.g. importing, transcoding and file transfer). The original programme preparation time needed to be well-adjusted when we moved from SD to HD production. On the graphic and OAP side, the major HD upgrade tasks were related to upgrading their Mac platform and storage to have more powerful machines and more bandwidth for the HD production. Existing workstations and graphic servers were mainly for SD production and therefore hardware upgrades needed to be carried out. Since the daily operation of the Graphic and OAP departments were mainly based on standalone machines, the upgrade tasks were relatively simple and could be carried out gradually with the cooperation of Graphic and OAP team. At the same time, upgraded machines were still able to produce the SD material which were required to produce both HD and SD material during the parallel run periods.

Phase 3 – Transmission and Uplink Upgrade After the in-house production facilities completed the HD upgrade, the next stage was to arrange the upgrade for the Phoenix TV transmission platform. Phoenix TV is running Automation System (with Automation Controllers) and Transmission Video Playout Server. There are five presentation rooms (4+1) with one of them used as a spare presentation room for emergency use. The goal of the presentation room upgrade was to achieve the goals shown in the following table: Area Channel(s)

Broadcast Broadcast Format Format Before After Upgrade Upgrade

Presentation Phoenix InfoNews Room 1 Channel

SD4:3 Broadcast

HD / SD16:9 Simulcast

Presentation Phoenix Chinese Room 2 Channel

SD4:3 Broadcast

HD / SD16:9 Simulcast

Presentation Phoenix Room 3 US Phoenix UK Phoenix Movies Channel

SD4:3 SD16:9 Broadcast Broadcast SD4:3 SD16:9 Broadcast Broadcast SD4:3 SD4:3 Broadcast Broadcast

Presentation Phoenix Room 4 Hong Kong Channel

SD4:3 Broadcast

HD Broadcast

Presentation Spare Room for SD Only Support Room 5 Backup Purpose HD/SD Simulcast


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Transmission System HD upgrades included upgrading all the playout and ingest ports of existing Transmission Playout Video Server. Since the Playout Video Servers were designed to separate into main and backup clusters, the whole playout server upgrade was done seamlessly by switching between the main and backup clusters. On the operation side, after detailed internal discussion, Phoenix TV decided to go for HD/SD simulcast for most of its SD channels. The advantage of using HD/SD simulcast was that automation channels and playlists did not need to increase as both HD channel and SD channels would be sharing the same playlist. From the Playout Video Server point of view, only HD materials (preferable) would be kept at the Video Server and there was no need to duplicate same HD and SD materials in the playout server storage. The Playout Server was setup to playout HD 16:9 in default (SD material will be up-converted). For the design of a baseband playout path for our transmission system, HD and SD signals would be separated so that the HD and SD paths will have their own branding equipment to allow precise control of the down-stream elements of the HD and SD channels.

Figure 6: Swapping and Modification of Presentation Rooms

Figure 5: HD/SD Simulcast Block Diagram

During the upgrade job, in order to guarantee the continuity for existing SD broadcast, we first carried out the upgrade of the spare presentation room (Present 5). After completing the upgrade and conducting full functional tests of the spare presentation room, each channel was switched to the spare presentation room so that the original room could be freed up for upgrade purposes. Below is an illustrated outline example of the room swapping and upgrade process: On the uplink side, Phoenix TV decided to acquire a whole new transponder on AsiaSat7 (13H) due to the additional bandwidth requirement for new HD channels. An internal discussion raised whether we should use the latest DVB-S2 technology as we were using DVB-S for our legacy SD service. The advantage of using DVB-S2 is that we could put more channels through the single transponders and the quality of the HD and SD signal could be improved due to higher bitrate. Most of the Phoenix TV services are free-to-air and there were difficulties in keep track of all existing customers. Therefore, a change to DVB-S2 meant most of the current legacy customers needed to replace their existing Set Top Boxes in order to continue receiving our existing SD services.

On the other hand, if we continued to use DVB-S, our legacy customers would not be affected. Since we remained on the same AsiaSat7 platform (before is AS7-10H), our legacy customers needed to simply using their existing Set Top Boxes with new downlink parameters. That potentially saved a lot of promotion works and Setup Top Box replacement jobs. One major thing we needed to do was to prepare a promotion clip to demonstrate to our customers how to change the parameters in the HD upgrade month. Thus Phoenix TV decided to go DVB-S option.

Figure 7: Phoenix Uplink Block Diagram

At the same time, considering the fact that 16:9 LCD TV sets dominate our major markets, Phoenix TV also decided to go for SD16:9 broadcast instead of SD4:3 broadcast for most of our channels. In that case, the safe area of our broadcast can be kept at 16:9 to fully utilise the big screen. For re-use of headend equipment, SD signals are transmitted as SD anamorphic signals using our existing transmission and compression equipment.

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were also changed from 4:3 broadcast to 16:9 aspect on the same day. In the first week of January 2014, we were expecting to receive a lot of technical queries about the change. To our surprise, our MCR actually received only a few calls from mainland and Singapore operators about the format change. In that sense, we were quite happy with our HD upgrade project which shows that our change was in fact very smooth and most of the customers and cable operators did not encounter any problems or difficulties, by following our promotion video clips (replaced with new downlink parameters). Internally, though different departments still encountered minor issues related to the new HD workflow, but overall, all of them could adapt to the new HD workflow smoothly in short period of time. The whole project involved a lot people, including broadcast engineers, IT experts, EFP & Production staff, Studio Operation staff, Library Operation staff, and Transmission Operation department, etc. At the final stage of the project, we also had to work together with the uplink company to make sure the switching would be smooth and seamless. Everyone had to contribute a lot during the HD upgrade and their efforts were highly appreciated.

Figure 8: Phoenix TV SD 16:9 Playback Illustration

Summary and Discussion The above project was completed successfully on 1st January 2014 when all our HD channels and SD channels launched on AsiaSat7 (13H). In addition, most of the SD channels

We hope this document can provide a guideline for ABU members deciding to carry out a similar project in the near future. In summary, the HD upgrade project should involve all the different parties in the TV stations and should be co-ordinated very carefully to achieve a balance between operation, continuity of the broadcasts and the upgrade timeline. The project should be carefully divided into different phases during the planning stage. That can help to ensure that a smooth and seamless workflow has been established before moving on to the next stage.

author Terence Yiu

Phoenix Satellite Television Co. Ltd.

Mr Terence Yiu received his BEng in Electronic Engineering from Hong Kong University of Science & Technology in 1994. He also received his MSc in Electronic Engineering (Distinction) from City University of Hong Kong in 2000. He is currently the Engineering Manager of Phoenix Satellite Television Co. Ltd. Terence has more than 20 years experience in broadcast engineering. He is a member of ABU Technical Bureau; Radio Spectrum & Technical Standard Advisory Committee of Hong Kong (SSAC) and Institution of Engineering & Technology (MIET).

ABU TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

CALENDAR OF EVENTS Date Event 12-13 April ABU Technical Bureau Mid-Year Meeting 19-22 April ABU-SLRC In-country Workshop & Training 12-14 May Media Summit on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction 23-26 May Asia Media Summit – Pre-summit workshop on Enabling & Enhancing the DTT Broadcasting Experience with ITU & AIBD 31 May-3 June BroadcastAsia 2016 7 June WBU Technical Committee Meeting 9-10 June EBU Technical Assembly 2016

Venue Kuala Lumpur Colombo Krabi, Thailand Incheon, Korea Singapore Geneva Geneva

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DIGITAL BROADCAST SYMPOSIUM 2016:

INNOVATING DIGITAL CONNECTIONS The 2016 ABU DIGITAL BROADCASTING SYMPOSIUM was held from 29 February - 3 March at Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur. This symposium is held annually by the ABU and this was the twelfth, with the appropriate theme ‘Innovating Digital Connections’. Prior to the conference proper, three workshops were held at the same hotel. On 29 February, a half day DVB workshop focusing on the latest developments in DTT and progress of UHD was conducted in the morning. In the afternoon, another half day workshop was conducted by the principal sponsor WorldDAB. In order to meet to the diverse needs of the participants, a full day parallel workshop on archiving was also conducted on the same day. The three-day conference, a total of ten workshops and an exhibition, provided the rare opportunity for attendees to have interaction with broadcast experts who had gathered here from all around the world. The symposium attracted many participants representing public and private broadcasters, telcos, regulators, manufacturers and other industry players.

Opening Session The Industry Keynote address entitled ‘How the Powerful Mix of Talent and Technology can Future Proof Broadcasting’ was delivered by Joan Warner, Vice President Asia Pacific WorldDAB as well as CEO Commercial Radio Australia. She related, from her experience, that radio is the most versatile of Ms Joan Warner, Vice President, Asia all media as it serves a diverse audience. It is a one to many form Pacific WorldDAB and of technology that spreads and CEO Commercial Radio Australia reaches out to audiences everywhere. It forms a unique bond between the celebrities and the listeners. Radio generates closer social media engagement as the fans do not have to wait until the next show to contact the celebrity. Content is shared across all platforms enabling closer interaction between the radio station and audience. The mobility of Radio is a crucial factor that must be taken into account because travelling time taken for motorists to reach their destinations can be considerable. Radio has been and always will be a reliable form of technology during times of emergencies. This has been proven time and time again when natural disasters, such as earthquakes or floods have struck a country.

Report on DBS by Jeewa Vengadasalam

Specialist II, Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Lee Kok Chiang, Faculty of Engineering & Sciences, University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia

Towards Enhancing Experience The first session was chaired by Mr Masakazu Iwaki, NHKJapan and the panelists were Yoshitoshi Konda, NHK-Japan; Dr Peter Siebert, DVB Project Office; Lindsay Cornell, BBC UK and Graham Dixon, EBU. They examined the various broadcast technologies which, evolving over the years, are now entering the stage of maturity. According to EBU, Radio should incorporate six core values namely Universality, Independence, Excellence, Diversity, Accountability and Innovation. Universality signifies a very wide audience reach, because only a minimal cost of US$15 may be incurred when purchasing a digital radio set and there is no monthly subscription cost involved. Diversity relates to the need to meet the demands of an ever changing demographic structure of society and response to niche markets. Innovation implies the necessity to have hybrid services, data/slide shows and contemporary look. DAB+ chips are to be incorporated into the new generation of smartphones in order to reach a wider audience and of course the younger generation of listeners. Therefore, the future of

Evolving Technologies:

Mr Yoshitoshi Konda of NHK-Japan; Mr Graham Dixon of the EBU; Session Chairman Mr Masakazu Iwaki of NHK-Japan; Dr Peter Siebert of DVB and Mr Lindsay Cornell of BBC-UK

Digital Broadcast Symposium 2016

radio lies in using Hybrid Radio which is a combination of broadband and broadcast. Another innovation is the portrayal of new characters in LCD/LED displays and thus solving the technical issue of letters having accents occurring with the different spoken languages around the world. Many South East Asian countries which have non Latin based scripts are interested in this new improvement of DAB+. Technical discussions are being held within the DVB to set new standards for the enhancement of UHDTV. UHDTV offers a wider field of view (FOV) from 30° to 100°, with more pixels. Now there is to be further improvement with High Dynamic Range (HDR) which does not lose detail in the dark areas and reduces highlight compression. Two solutions have been proposed by either using the “absolute” luminance approach or “relative” luminance approach for HDR. The former approach specifies a larger absolute luminance range that requires the Electro Optical Transfer Function (EOTF) to be included as part of the specification, but without the need to include the Optical Electro Transfer Function (OETF). The latter approach specifies the signal range for highlights that requires the OETF to be part of the specification as consistency of programme quality is necessary. DVB is also specifying standards for High Frame Rate, Wide Colour Gamut and Next Generation audio. The HFR portrays better and smoother motion while the wider colour gamut allows almost all surface colours to be reproducible. The audio has been improved with an immersive sound system that complements the visual sensation of reality. 8K-UHDTV or Super High Vision conveys to the viewer the sense of ‘being there’ at the scene and a sense of reality close to watching a real event. 8K has 16 times the resolution of present HDTV or 2K. There are more pixels as the 8K mode has 7,680 x 4,320 pixels. These pixels are better, providing a wider colour gamut by use of 12 bits/pixel and faster pixels at 120 frames/sec. The strong sensation of reality is produced by the increase in the Field of View (FOV) to 100° and higher pixel density of 8K which results in a pixel structure that is imperceptible, even at close viewing. The high frame rate portrays better and smoother motion while the wider colour gamut allows almost all surface colours to be reproducible. The sound system has been improved with a 22.2 multi-channel 3D surround sound system that complements the visual sensation of reality. In 2016, NHK will be transporting specialised OB vans to Rio de Janeiro to undertake 8 K live action coverage of the Olympics. NHK is also in the process of preparing for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

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Beyond HD: What Changes can Broadcasters Expect The Chairman was Magli Alias, Radio Television Malaysia with the panel comprising Craig Todd, Dolby Laboratories; SeoJaehyun, Electronics & Telecommunication Research Institute, Korea; Dennis Breckenbridge, Advanced Broadcast Solutions; Alexander Zink, Fraunhofer; Johnny Ng, AsiaSat and Khush Kundi, Ericsson APAC. DRM, announced Mr SeoJaehyun of ETRI that there has been considerable Korea achievement in the implementation of its standards around the world notably in Russia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, UAE and Indonesia. A DRM+ trial using two 200 W transmitters was initiated in St Petersburg, Russia. One transmitter was operating at 67.46 MHz with horizontal polarization whereas the other was operating at 94.5 MHz with vertical polarization. Plans for complete coverage of the Russian Federation with DRM have already been worked out. A key finding was that a single AM DRM transmitter can provide the equivalent coverage of 167 analogue FM transmitters. Another country which has one of world’s largest digital radio deployments is India. At the moment, there are 35 MW DRM and 2 SW DRM transmitters representing an investment of 3 billion Indian rupees and reaching 0.6 billion people. The next generation video would be progressing from the standard specified by Recommendation ITU-R BT 2020 towards ITU-R HDR. The earlier document specified Higher Resolution, Higher Frame Rate (HFR) and Wide Colour Gamut (WCG). The new document extends these specifications by improving the High Dynamic Range (HDR) with brighter and darker pixels. These better pixels mimic real viewing experiences to excite the senses and physical and emotional responses. Audio standards would also be improved in tandem with the improved video. Work has already been undertaken to provide immersive audio with standards such as Dolby AC-4 and MPEG-H. Both ATSC 3.0 and DVB are expected to include immersive audio in their system. The end result will be a more realistic and moving content. On 22 October 2015, AsiaSat officially launched 4K-SAT using AsiaSat4 for the transmission of UHDTV over the Asia Pacific region. DVB-S2 with configuration mode of 8PSK, 5/6 code rate and symbol rate of 30 Mbps was utilised. The maximum throughput is 72 Mb/s, sufficient for 3-5

Mr Johnny Ng of AsiaSat, Mr Alexander Zink of Fraunhofer, Mr Craig Todd of Dolby Laboratories, Chairman Mr Magli Alias of Radio Television Malaysia, Mr Khush Kundi of Ericsson and Mr Dennis Breckenbridge of Advanced Broadcast Solutions

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UHD channels with HEVC. The transponder is limited by bandwidth which has to be overcome by a more efficient transmission technology. The improved DVB- S2X uses 16 APSK and a 5% roll off factor resulting in a payload increase by almost 40% when compared to DVB-S2 which utilises 8PSK and 20% roll off factor. The combination of DVB-S2X with HEVC source coding would allow even more UHD channels to be transmitted.

The Changing Media Business and Opportunities Chaired by Dr Fintan McKiernan, Ideal Systems Singapore, the panelists were Charles Sevior, EMC; Jørn Jensen, NRK Norway; Poonam Sharma, MediaGuru; Vidar Sandvik, CryptoGuard; Dave Ulmer, SeaChange and Stephen Lee, Conax. Viewer consumption has been shifting over the past decade. They are increasingly adopting multiple access methods to watch high demand content. This in turn compels the traditional broadcasters to enable additional platforms at low incremental cost. Well-managed content can be easily repurposed across multiple delivery systems. The key enabling technology is file and stream-based content on an all-IP infrastructure. The broadcast company value to viewers is the content that it produces or to which it acquires exclusive rights. Viewers will expect to access that content at their convenience, on a big screen or an app. The delivery channel may not belong to the company, but that is not the issue. Advertisers value ‘eyeballs’ with viewer attention & engagement above everything. Crude mass-market audience ratings across linear channels are becoming outdated and untrustworthy. Digital delivery of content and related viewer engagement generates valuable measurement data. Setting a Digital Switch Over date is important for mainly 3 reasons. The prohibitive cost of operation plus maintenance of both analogue and digital networks during the period of simulcast. There is also no encouragement and motive for investment in new content. Lastly, the radio set retailers cannot focus on the sale of DAB receivers to the public who may not be well informed on future direction of radio broadcasting. The Norwegian government has set conditions for DSO by specifying the necessity to have 99.5% DAB coverage of the country. FM will be shut off by 2017 if this condition is met. The cost of operating a FM channel is equivalent to the cost of running 8 DAB+ channel. This can be deduced from the fact that a DAB+ mux can have 20 channels.

For broadcasters, social media sentiment analysis can open many new doors. The number of followers or viewers does not provide much value. It only signifies reach, not user experience or sentiment. The real essence of social media is how to slice and dice the analytics and extract actionable insights which are accurate and logical. Consumers express their opinion through tweets, posts, blogs, forums etc. Data should be collated and then categorised as positive (happy), negative (unhappy/angry) or neutral. Categories are quantified and the popularity/ unpopularity quotient is determined. Sentiment analysis is an authentic & clinically accurate measure of public opinion. With sentiment analysis, the broadcaster can now find out, not just who is watching what, but also who is appreciating or disliking which programme and the reasons. The benefits are a better content strategy and consequently better audience ratings. Thus higher Return on Investment (ROI) is possible for advertisers due to better targeting of advertisements.

Cloud Technologies in Media The chairperson was Sharad Sadhu, Media Specialist. The panelists were Jew Kok Lim, Aspera; Taehyun Ihm, Korean Broadcasting System; Oliver Linow, Deutsche Welle and Peter Bruce, IABM. Next-generation transport technologies are needed to move the world’s digital assets at maximum speed, regardless of file size, transfer distance and network conditions. Existing TCP is unsuitable to satisfy the demands of today’s big-data applications. Long distance degrades conditions on all networks due to latency, packet losses and traffic bottleneck. TCP is designed for low bandwidth and adding more bandwidth does not improve throughput. Fast networks have been proposed but they are inefficient, waste bandwidth and are not practical for large file transfer. A unique solution is provided by FASP, a universal high-speed data transport system which is file size independent with maximum transfer speed, optimal bandwidth utilisation and maximum I/O throughput on any storage platform. Traditional broadcaster, Deutsche Welle was transmitting on satellite but has now ventured into sending programmes via the Internet. DW had two options of interconnection with the Internet namely In house playout or External playout by a provider. External playout offers advantages including high performance upstream capacity, no necessity for a data centre and no firewall issues. The disadvantages are that a dedicated contribution path is needed, the requirement to have facilities

Mr Stephen Lee of Conax, Mr Vidar Sandvik of CryptoGuard, Mr Jørn Jensen of NRK Norway, Chairman Dr Fintan McKiernan of Ideal Systems Singapore, Mr Charles Sevior of EMC, Ms Poonam Sharma of MediaGuru and Mr Dave Ulmer of SeaChange


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Mr Oliver Linow of DW-Germany, Mr Jew Kok Lim of Aspera, Mr Taehyun Ihm, of KBS-Korea, Session Chairman Mr Sharad Sadhu, Media Expert and Mr Peter Bruce of IABM

for satellite reception and the effect of inflexible manufacturing of the stream. Therefore DW opted for In-house playout as it is more convenient to process the streams. There is more flexibility in the creation of programme streams and these can be tailor made for the different regions. DW can also encode formats for its own needs and undertake better testing of future formats. A Content Delivery Network is needed because of the delivery of multiple streams to thousands of users. CDN provides suitable infrastructure with streaming servers in the various ISP networks. It is also robust against virus attacks and has better backup capacity.

Creative Content for Enhanced Experiences The session was chaired by Abdul Hakim Amir Bin Nazri, ASTRO and the panelists were Jaya Mahajan, Factual for Asia; Jaeheon Song, Korea Broadcasting System and Tuan Haji Burhanuddin Md Radzi, Les’ Copaque Production. The broadcast station has almost lost control over its viewers as there has been a key shift in consumer habits. The viewers control the time they want to watch a show but the media company cannot do so. They choose a show depending on recommendations of friends or rating in social media. The emergence of portable devices are like extensions of one’s self because a show can be watched anytime and anywhere without restrictions. The old world consisted of audience watching a fixed TV set at home. The world of digital media has changed all that by making

Mr Jaeheon Song, KBS-Korea, Session Chairman Mr Abdul Hakim Amir Bin Nazri, ASTRO-Malaysia, Ms Jaya Mahajan, Factual for Asia and Haji Burhanuddin Md Radzi of Les’ Copaque Production

content available on smartphones which are accessible at any place or time. Viewers also control what they consume as can be observed with interactive content. Interactive content can be likened to Virtual Reality, which in this case does not only happen in a specially equipped studio but occurs in the news, documentaries and dramas. One can not only see an event but also feel as if he is part of the scene. It is moving from the virtual world to the real world. Interactivity is not a genre, as it has become an essential ingredient to attract viewers. Time must be equally spent on user experience as has been done on the laying out the concept of the show. Simplicity and interface design are as important as storytelling. Content is still the King no matter what level of technology is used for creating the show.

Challenges in Media Delivery The session was chaired by Charles Sevior, EMC and the presenters were Simon Fell, EBU; Colin Prior, Enensys Technologies; Nils Ahren, Rohde & Schwarz; Shunichi Sakai, NHK and Luc Haeberlé, LS Telcom. The DTT platform is capable of offering local content due to its infrastructure and it is estimated that 50% of content originate from the region. The challenge is to avoid creation and distribution of a multiplex for each region when 99% of the content is identical. This problem can be overcome by operating the DTT networks in SFN but there is need to handle advertisement requests. Centralised Ad insertion requires delivery of as many multiplexes as regions and requires a huge capacity to distribute data to transmission sites. The result is that national content distribution is duplicated many times. An alternative is regional advertisement insertion to a regional head-end which requires a secondary distribution network and must be implemented at the transmission site. A better method is to incorporate deterministic ad insertion designed to target certain regions. It is SFN capable with no modification of A/V content and without service loss. The tendency or argument of “More Programs/Data in Less Spectrum“ will not be valid any longer if very high quality UHD is to be offered. Only one UHD programme may be

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Simon Fell of the EBU, Luc Haeberlé of LS Telcom, Charles Sevior of EMC, Colin Prior of Enensys, Nils Ahren of Rohde & Schwarz and Shunichi Sakai of NHK-Japan

possible, as present day field trials indicate that at least 27 Mb/s is necessary for fixed rooftop reception using DVB-T2 with 256 QAM and 20 Mb/s for DVB-T2 with 64QAM for indoor reception. Tomorrow’s receivers will incorporate the H265/HEVC chip capable of decoding HDTV formats up to 1080P, 60Hz and during Phase 1, the UHDTV formats up 2160P, 60 Hz. Phase 2 will have more features including a higher frame rate of 120 Hz, higher dynamic range and immersive sound system. Higher Frame Rates will definitely improve the picture quality especially in sport events but production and infrastructure cost would increase.

Innovating Digital Connections

as it provides interactivity. Content for Hybrid radio can be delivered by broadcast or IP more efficiently compared to streaming which costs both broadcasters and listeners. Streaming one-to-one costs more than broadcasting content one-to-many besides the fact that streaming on mobile is not robust. Hybrid Radio utilises logos that adds visual branding and enabling easier selection of service. There is faster access to online content associated with the broadcast delivered mode. Advertisement value is enhanced because of the potential for click through sales model. Hybrid Radio brings in more revenue as it adds links to specific products and services offered by the sponsor. The key business drivers are improvement in branding, value added services, listener loyalty and interactive participation.

The session was chaired by Simon Fell of the EBU and the presenters were Dr Leon Mun, WY of Sony, Masaru Takechi of NHK-Japan, Dr Les Sabel, S-Comm Technologies, Aale Raza of Whiteways Systems and Thomas Humeau, Village Island. It would be misleading for broadcasters to regard the smartphones app as an opportunity to make profits. Although it adds value to content, complete IP delivery is expensive. Broadcasters have pay for Content Delivery Network (CDN) services to deliver extreme volumes of audio. As for the listeners, they must pay for mobile access while on the move. Hybrid Radio would be the better alternative

Social media platforms are witnessing a phenomenal rise fuelled by several factors. Social technologies can unlock markets worth billions of dollars to customers. This value can be in the form of unlocking customer insights about products feature, product design, buying behaviour etc. Media companies can collaborate with advertisers by listening, analysing and interpreting valuable customer habits. Media companies can also develop their own brands by having a powerful social media presence across the different platforms. They must plan long term strategy by building a strong presence across social media platforms.

Dr Leon Mun, WY of Sony, Mr Masaru Takechi of NHK-Japan, Dr Les Sabel of S-Comm Technologies, Session Chairman Mr Simon Fell of the EBU, Mr Aale Raza of Whiteways Systems and Mr Thomas Humeau of Village Island


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Mr Alexander Zink of Fraunhofer, Mr Naoki Kashimura of Ikegami Tsushinki, Session Chairman Dr Peter Siebert of DVB, Mr Peter Poers of Jünger Audio and Mr Femin John of ATEME

Relationship with the viewers must be built on social media. Media companies have to engage the viewers, touch their lives, bring them on board and keep enlarging the circles. They must enter into partnership with the advertisers in this endeavour, build a digital media revenue base and become part of the new, fast growing digital advertising landscape Broadcasters in the region lack a coherent strategy on social media. They lack the technology and resources to track and maintain the various social media platforms and are losing out in the war of the eyeballs. The only way to remain relevant, interesting, informed and connected is by embracing social media platforms.

Immersive Media Technologies Chaired by Dr Peter Siebert, DVB Project Office with panelist comprising of Femin John, ATEME; Peter Poers, Jünger Audio; Naoki Kashimura, Ikegami Tsushinki and Alexander Zink, Fraunhofer. The latest upgrade to the AAC family is the MPEG xHE-AAC which is a unified audio and speech coding standard adapted for Digital Radio and Mobile Streaming. When DRM was created in 2001, AAC with SBR was the best codec available, but needed more than 14 kbps to work. The most robust DRM modes could only provide around 10 kbps payload in a 10 kHz channel.The speech codecs allow DRM to carry audio in these robust modes and multiple services in less robust modes. The DRM core standard provides choice of three MPEG audio codecs: HE-AACv2 (general-purpose, i.e. all kinds of audio signals), CELP (speech content only), HVXC (speech content only). With advances in audio compression, the improved codec xHE-AAC is available and capable of replacing the speech-only codecs HVXC and CELP With Extended HE-AAC (xHE-AAC), there is no need to restrict content to only speech in very robust modes. Broadcasters can deliver their normal programming even when they are using NVIS or multi-hop around the world. Opportunities are available to provide multiple audio services in good audio quality even in standard 9 kHz MW channels. Broadcasters can provide alternate programming like news in different languages simultaneously but with all their usual jingles and sound beds.

As stated before, xHE-AAC Audio is not only suitable for Digital Radio but also for Mobile Streaming. It enables cost-efficient audio streaming on 3G/4G networks, and efficiency/robustness improvements on WiFi. It serves 2G users, saves Content Delivery Network (CDN) costs in any market and offers better service reliability together with shorter buffering times. There is better audio quality for any type of content, improving listener experience, especially on mobile. As a result listener loyalty base is increased and the brand name’s reach broadened considerably. Effortless upgrade can be undertaken as xHE-AAC encoders can easily be added to the existing infrastructure without changing existing encoders

Media Management and Workflow Enhancements The chairperson was Haji Zulkifli bin Abdul Rahim, Radio Television Malaysia. The panelists were Michel Beke, MediaGenix NG; Michel Merten, Memnon; MC Patel, Emotion Systems and Paul Jones, Oracle. Broadcasters have to carry out large scale projects to handle archive preservation. It is a great challenge to undertake Archive Digitisation which may initially be costly but ultimately leads to operational advantages and benefits. This initiative would avoid loss of content asset because according to recent reports from UNESCO and EU, most media is at the risk of oblivion. UNESCO reported that there is ten to fifteen years left to transfer available audio visual recordings to digital media in order to prevent their loss. The situation as portrayed by BBC is even more grim as a recent press message stated that 75% of the analogue video held in Europe in the year 2006, will be lost by 2023 when video digitisation will ceases to exist. The physical lifetime of tapes is limited and there are not enough analogue playback machines. Analogue know-how is fading and the number of experts is declining as they head towards retirement. Archive Digitisation has the potential to generate revenue and increase user engagement. It would leverage growing demand for content and new channels in Digital Transformation. The archive increases user value by the leverage of file based workflows and Big Data with better Meta-Data and indexations. Running operating costs are reduced as storage space is saved, physical infrastructure minimised and energy

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Mr MC Patel of Emotion Systems, Mr Michel Beke of MediaGenix NG, Session Chairman Haji Zulkifli bin Abdul Rahim of Radio Television Malaysia, Mr Michel Merten of Memnon and Mr Paul Jones of Oracle

optimised. Broadcasters are also obliged under national laws to preserve electronic media as part of a country’s heritage that can be passed on to the later generation of citizens. Expenditure must be properly managed as the cost of inaction can be prohibitive if the project is postponed. The delay would increase overall costs as spare parts and labour go up with inflation. Unless broadcasters archive and track the analogue media all down in the next 8-10 years, the means to play it back may become very costly. There is also loss of reputation as archives are considered as part and parcel of a broadcast station services to the public and government.

Advanced Solutions for Inclusive Broadcasting The session was chaired by Aqeel Qureshi of Techbility and the panelists were Makiko Azuma, NHK; Natalia Ilieva, ABU; Yunhyoung Kim, KBS and Shoei Sato NHK. Japan should be lauded for its efforts in aiding the disabled who in this case are deaf and mute. In this context, NHK has conducted research into tactile and haptic presentation methods, Japanese sign language computer graphics (CG)

system and speech recognition for closed captioning. It is vital to convey information in sign language to those who are born with hearing difficulties as it is their mother tongue. A closed caption service is not suitable for them and few TV programmes are produced with sign language. There are not enough sign language interpreters and it is not easy to have sign language interpreters on site any time. Weather information to the disadvantaged public is expanded by sign language Computer Graphic animation system. The fixed pattern CG animation system generates sign language animations directly from weather data. NHK has also ventured into Real-time Automatic Captioning System as existing Closed Caption using typewritten text from a keyboard is no longer adequate and too slow for live action or telecast. The new system utilises speech recognition technology which deciphers rephrased speech even with background noise. The recogniser is followed by manual correction of any recognition errors. It is also capable of direct speech recognition as it recognises programme speech. Briefly speaking, the new system reduces the burden and delay of manual error correction which was the basis of conventional system.

Mr Shoei Sato of NHK-Japan, Session Chairman Mr Aqeel Qureshi of Techbility, Ms Makiko Azuma of NHK-Japan, Ms Natalia Ilieva of the ABU and Mr Yunhyoung Kim of KBS-Korea


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The Ministerial Session The 2016 ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium was officially opened by the Malaysian Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, YB Dato’ Jailani Johari. He was joined by the Director-General of RTM, Dato’ Haji Abu Bakar Ab Rahim and the ABU Secretary-General Dr Javad Mottaghi in the designated ministerial session and the official opening of the exhibition. In his opening address the Deputy Minister said that during the last 12 years, the ABU Digital Broadcasting Symposium has offered a unique opportunity for broadcasters in the region to share expertise and experience. He underlined that today’s connected environment needs creativity and innovation in content and what is most important is to provide value-added services to the audience. He added that broadcasters should be aware that consumers’ needs and demands determine the market and shape the whole industry. This year a total of 46 exhibitors showcased their latest technologies and services within the 52 booth exhibition. Along with the 3-day international conference and workshops the event attracted participants from over 220 organisations from 52 countries.

Towards Digital and Alternate Delivery Platforms in Broadcast The final session was chaired by Aale Raza, Whiteways Systems and the panelists were Helmut Jung, Dimetis; Tatjana Medic, Funke Digital TV; Saifuzzaman Yusop, Radio TV Malaysia and Charles Disneur, Eutelstat.

the market must be tested so that they comply with the required specification. These devices can be stamped with certificates and quality labels. The ABU wishes to thank the team from Taylors’ University for their valuable role in making the symposium a success.

The horizontal device market choices has many different reception devices to be considered namely STB, iDTV and antennas. They deliver variable levels of quality and therefore a good specification plays a crucial role. Various models in this horizontal market have been ascertained not to fit to the network specifications. Testing and conformance avoidance of these devices is a mandatory in order to control the unregulated market. There are many reasons to test and certify reception devices. Each country’s requirements are different and that may lead to low cost STB software or antennas being imported from other markets. Frequently, these items are not optimised and do not follow the local specifications. Problems would arise for the viewer who would then call and complain to the authorities. The problem can be avoided by developing a specification suited to a country’s requirements. Reception devices available on

Mr Saifuzzaman Yusop of Radio TV Malaysia, Mr Helmut Jung of Dimetis, Session Chairman Mr Aale Raza of Whiteways Systems, Ms Tatjana Medic of Funke Digital TV and Mr Charles Disneur of Eutelsat

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Industry Debate:

“Digital Radio for the Future?”

Masakazu Iwaki of Japan reported that, although digital radio was started in 2003, there was not much interest generated from the public. Japan experienced a massive earthquake that shook the nation, but AM radio proved the most resilient. Hence, there seemed no reason to have a Digital-Switch-Over. Since then, this has been compounded by the emergence of smartphones which link to radio stations via the Internet.

The industry debate this year was moderated by Mr Lindsay Cornell, BBC-UK, which looked at the theme “Digital Radio for the Future”. The debate was initiated by posing the question of the progress of digital radio, which is slower than that of digital TV. Simon Fell, EBU responded that in the case of DTT, Digital-Switch-Over brings a windfall in terms of benefits including spectrum dividend. The wide spectrum that is freed is later auctioned to telcos, resulting in financial gain that can run to hundreds of million dollars. Thus, the vital factor here is the drive for spectrum, which is getting scarce and congested. Radio digitalisation is slower as the FM spectrum is narrower and spectrum dividend less. Kathryn Brown, WorldDAB opined that radio is not as glamourous as TV with its celebrities. Many countries too have not given any mandate to their regulatory bodies for the decision and roadmap towards a switchover to digital radio. Azlina Yusuf, MCMC Malaysia commented that broadcasters are reluctant to disrupt operations and moreover there is no business case to do so. The Malaysian regulatory body does receive applications to rollout new FM services but has not approved them as the FM spectrum is already too congested. Hence, MCMC will support any move towards digital radio and promote it by conducting seminars and workshops around the country. Sunarya Ruslan, RRI-Indonesia touched on the position of Indonesia in this matter. Indonesia consists of thousands of islands and radio coverage is a rather complex operation. In Java, FM spectrum is congested and quality unstable. However, more transmitters are needed to reach the population in this rugged island, with its mountains and valleys. It is neither efficient nor effective if analogue radio is to be used.

According to Alexander Zink, Fraufhofer, the initial launch of digital radio in Germany ended in failure. In order to avoid making the same mistakes again, several measures for proper management were taken. Relaunch was initiated by setting a new date with all stakeholders who were kept well informed about the new developments. The relevant ministries were consulted and the retailers gave their cooperation. These initiatives stimulated consumer interest, driven by the new technical features and content provided by digital radio. Dato’ Abu Bakar of RTM noted that they considered digital radio very early on initiating a trial on 2009 which is still running. The main advantage for us was reducing operational costs but one of the strongest stumbling blocks we had, like many others, was the cost and availability of receivers. The fact that the receiver availability and prices have comedown drastically and the digital radio technologies have matured to provide many other value added services in the recent years I think it is now an opportune moment to move ahead with our rollout both in terms of economics and the choices we can offer the target audience. Simon Fell felt that car radio would lend an impetus to the growth of digital radio. The biggest challenge would be to equip cars when AnalogueSwitch-Off takes place. This statement was echoed by Kathryn Brown who said that timing is now right for all cars to be equipped with digital radio sets. In Australia, the radio industry had worked closely with the car manufacturers by having face to face meetings. As a result 25% of cars in Australia have already been fitted with DAB+ receivers. The industry debate ended on the note that it would be the auto industry of a country which would play a major role in digital radio usage, provided the timing and conditions were right. New cars would roll out fully equipped with digital radio sets if the standard was widely used.

DBS Workshop

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DBS Workshops The fifteen workshops conducted at the Digital Broadcast Symposium 2016 provided indepth knowledge of the latest developments and opportunities in the broadcast industry

Mr Craig Todd, Dolby

Digital Broadcasting: Radio and Television for Future On 29th February 2016, a full day workshop was organised and presented in collaboration with DVB and WorldDAB. After having implemented the new structure of the DBS symposium that was announced last year, there was an audience of nearly 200 at this workshop. The morning session was dedicated to television broadcasting and the afternoon to digital radio.

DVB: The Future of TV Six eminent speakers from the industry, all experts in their respective fields, presented current developments of the television broadcasting technology. After a brief introduction, given by the Director of Technology & Innovation, ABU, Dr AMAL Punchihewa, the Executive Director of the DVB project, Dr Peter Siebert, DVB Dr Peter Siebert, presented DVB’s plans for the future of television broadcasting. Dr Siebert informed the audience that currently any capacity gains that have been achieved since DVB-T2 do not warrant announcing a new standard for next generation terrestrial broadcasting. DVB-T2 performance is very close to the Mr Kazuhiro Shimizu, theoretical channel limit proposed by SONY Shannon. Mr Kazuhiro Shimizu from SONY gave a presentation on readiness of Mobile device technologies for DVB-T2/Lite. He also mentioned the availability of chip sets for mobile broadcast reception. Mr Simon Fell, Director of Technology & Innovation, EBU, outlined the outcomes from the WRC-15 for broadcasters and how the Mr Simon Fell, EBU decisions will influence the future of DTT in various regions and worldwide. As DVB has already standardised number of augmentations related to UHD signal processing, two hours of presentations

Mr Khush Kundi, Ericsson

Mr Markus Fritz, Eutelsat

and discussions, relating to those topics, were well received by the audience of over 200 delegates. Mr Craig Todd, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Dolby Laboratories presented the topic of ‘The Brave New World of Immersive Radio’. He explained Object based audio processing, which allows the audience to render the multichannel sound to suite their environment and availability of resources. Mr Khush Kundi, Head of Compression Solutions, APAC, Ericsson presented on ‘What you always wanted to know about HDR’. He explained the ‘wow factor’ of high dynamic range (HDR) and various solutions to implement HDR. One of the key concerns for the future would be a shorter technology life cycle due to rapid advancements. Ending the morning session Mr Markus Fritz, Senior Vice President Commercial Development and Marketing of Eutelsat, explained the delivery of UHD signals via satellite.

Moving Forward with DAB+

Ms Joan Warner, CRA and WorldDAB

Ms Bernie O’Neill, WorldDAB

Mr Lindsay Cornell, BBC-UK

In the afternoon, WorldDAB presented the DAB+ Digital Workshop, which addressed the mechanisms for, ‘Moving Forward with DAB+’. A number of experts from various parts of the world discussed International developments, building blocks for success and regulatory, technical and content factors that contribute to break the stalemate, enabling APAC broadcasters move forward with digital radio. Ms Joan Warner, Vice President Asia-Pacific WorldDAB and CEO Commercial

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Radio Australia provided welcome and opening remarks. Ms Bernie O’Neill, Project Director of WorldDAB presented regional and country updates, followed by Mr Lindsay Cornell, Chair of Technical Committee, WorldDAB, who informed the audience on the integration of DAB+ with Mobile phones and broadband to provide hybrid features and functions.

recorded on data tapes. The data tapes would be supplied to the Huge File Storage facility. In order to realise the fast “File Delivery”, frequently-used files are kept in HDD cache and another file is kept on the data tape (Hierarchical Storage Management). By using multi-format transcoders, the delivery or entry in various formats is enabled.

Dr Graham Dixon, Head of Radio, EBU explained the EBU tool kit for successful implementation of DAB+ service. Mr Jorn Jensen of NRK presented a Norway Case study on digital-switch-over, followed by Ms Joan Warners’ presentation on ‘Progress in Australia’. A video Dr Graham Dixon, EBU message from Mr Lynn Mansfield of SABC provided an update on South African deployments.

New Developments in Audio Content Production

The final session of the day ended with discussions in three groups, viz. Regulatory, Technical and Content. Each group discussed their respective barriers or challenges in planning digital radio migration. A detailed Mr Jorn Jensen, paper on this discussion will be NRK-Norway published in the next edition of the technical review and will provide information on how to plan digital radio migration.

Management and Digitisation of Audio-Video Archives for Broadcasters

Mr Aale Raza, Whiteways

Mr Charles Sevior, EMC

Mr Yasuhiko Iwasaki, NHK

Mr Nobu Yamashita, NHK

Mr Hiroshi Nimura, NHK

Mr Paul Jones, Oracle

Steve Ahern, Ahern Media and Toni Fiedler, Fraunhofer presented this workshop on audio production. MPEG-H 3D audio is an advanced standard for TV sound involving objects, 3D audio and metadata. An audio object is audio essence or piece of audio with metadata, providing Mr Steve Ahern, additional descriptive information Ahern Media about the content such as position in space. Audio objects are rendered on, the reproduction side and are flexible in regard to different reproduction systems. Rendering is conducted with the help of the metadata and other information that can be fed into the reproduction system such as number of available speakers (e.g. stereo Mr Toni Fiedler, or 7.1), position of speakers and Fraunhofer control data generated by the user. The producer can allow the listener to interact with audio objects within pre-defined limits by switching between different objects, turning an additional object on or off and adjusting the volume of certain objects. An object consists of essence plus metadata where the essence is an isolated signal such as clean commentary signal, ambience or car sound. Immersive 3D audio provides more detailed room information, higher spatial resolution, freedom to spread sounds all around the sonic space and more flexibility for panning/movement of sounds.

Korea’s UHD Broadcasting Service

Mr Supachai Chanyasawad, Panasonic

The workshop was presented by Aale Raza, Whiteways; Yasuhiko Iwasaki, NHK; Hiroshi Nimura, NHK; Charles Sevior, EMC; Nobu Yamashita, NHK; Paul Jones, Oracle and Supachai Chanyasawad, Panasonic. Although footages from old tapes can be retrieved, they are still not usable. The main reasons are colour degradations, stains, film grain, noise and vertical line scratches. However software is now available that provides cleaning and restoration for old and defective videos. NHK has a huge collection of video tapes numbering 600,000 and, even with constant maintenance, the VTR machines are reaching the end of their lives. Hence a file-based solution is the answer and can lead to efficient management and fast operation. The video tapes are played back, converted to files which are then

Korea Radio Promotion Association (RAPA) presented their workshop on recent UHD developments changing the broadcast landscape. Korea is a pioneer in UHD, having started the world’s first 4K UHD broadcast which was delivered via a paid TV channel. Paid UHD services started in April 2014 (cable TV), June 2014 (satellite TV), and October 2015 (IPTV). Terrestrial broadcasters are also entering the market by planning to start UHD broadcasts in February 2017. Terrestrial UHD broadcast will commence in Seoul followed by gradual expansion towards nationwide UHD by 2021. 5 RF channels have already been allocated and more channels from the DTV band will be reassigned if necessary. The Korean government has issued an official

DBS Workshop

statement that a 108 MHz band in the 700 MHz range will divided into a 40 MHz frequency band for mobile broadband, a 30 MHz frequency band for UHD broadcasting, a 20 MHz frequency band for the national disaster safety communications network, and 18 MHz for guard bands. At present, Korea is the process of determining the UHD terrestrial standard. A UHD standard committee has been set up to comparatively consider DVB-T2 and ATSC 3.0. Separate field trials using ATSC 3.0 and DVB-T2 are currently underway to determine final UHD terrestrial standard.

Designing a Cloud-enabled Infrastructure for your Media Digital Transformation Charles Sevior, EMC and Richard Jones, Grass Valley presented a workshop on cloud-enabled infrastructure. Viewers will increasingly adopt multiple access methods to watch high demand content, driving traditional broadcasters to create additional platforms at low incremental cost. Well-managed Mr Charles Sevior, EMC content can be easily repurposed across multiple delivery systems and the key enabling technology is file and stream-based content on an all-IP infrastructure. Viewers will expect to access that content at their convenience, either on a big screen or an app. Thus the broadcast industry is evolving with companies seeking Mr Richard Jones, a media cloud service which can be Grass Valley bought or built. Hence, the emergence of cloud enabling technology that gathers all components together into a single infrastructure solution which is faster and more efficient.

DRM – For Full and Efficient Country Coverage

Mr Alexander Zink, Fraunhofer

Mr John Abdnour, Nautel

Mr Gerhard Filip, Ampegnon

Mr Radu Obreja, DRM Consortium

The presenters were Alex Zink, Fraunhofer; John Abdnour, Nautel; Gerhard Filip, Ampegnon and Radu Obreja, DRM Consortium. DRM broadcast has already started in many countries including Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Algeria and South Africa. 600 million people in India can now receive DRM which is broadcast from 35 MW transmitters and 2 SW transmitters. The Indian government has ordered that all DRM transmitters must operate on simulcast modes and as such relevant technical parameters have been defined. DRM is eminently suited for countries like India which are trying to grapple with issues such as appropriate technologies and availability of affordable digital receiver for the rural masses. The Indian broadcast manufacturing industry has been handed an excellent opportunity to develop cost effective digital receivers which have now become a national priority. Car manufacturers have also started to line fit DRM receivers into new models.

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Broadcast Live Quality Monitoring and Control The presenters were Eric Li Bin and Simon Roehrs from Rohde & Schwarz. Both hardware and software solutions are available for broadcast monitoring. Monitoring of Ingest, Compression, Multiplex and Encoder Quality verification can be done at the headend. Monitoring of signal pre- and Mr Eric Li Bin, post transmission is conducted at the Rohde & Schwarz transmitter. Measurements are logged, metadata displayed and components decoded. Network failure analysis quickly identifies the cause of problems and pinpoints the area. It provides detection of hidden network problems without any direct service impact thus enabling network optimisation. Video Quality Monitoring is needed in broadcast networks for the detection of over compression, encoder failures and Statmux failures

Open Internet IP Delivery Make Possible for Live Video Transmission and Fast Files Transferring Wu YuTa from Caton Technology presented a workshop on IP delivery of video. Real time video streaming faces three most significant challenges in the form of bandwidth, jitter and packet loss. First mile uplink & last mile downlink traffic is not guaranteed Mr Wu YuTa, in open Internet scenario because and Caton Technology unconditioned IP network decreases the Bandwidth Utilisation Ratio (BUR). The lower bit rate means lower video quality. Jitter is a normal phenomenon in IP networks but is has significant impact that can cause impairment on decoded video in live from end to end transmission. Packet loss is data packet error that has direct impact on video QoS. UDP cannot handle well although it utilises the bandwidth effectively while TCP is only able to improve byte level correction but poor BUR and buffering cause higher latency thus higher jitter. Realtime Transport Protocol (R2TP) is an IP based transport protocol implementation, designed & developed to resolve the Quality of Service (QoS) & Quality of Experience (QoE) issues with live video transmission over the open Internet. The R2TP algorithm is a highly effective error recovery mechanism that makes use of a unique traffic congestion control technique. The algorithm improves BUR hence delivering higher quality of content in the given bandwidth.

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Dolby hosted a series of presentations and demos at ABU DBS 2016. Held across 2 days, 1 and 2 March 2016, High Dynamic Range Video Technology, object-based immersive audio for broadcast, enhanced audio for mobile OTT, Dolby 5.1 Content Production Case Studies and HbbTV- Interactive Digital TV feature were 5 next-generation Dolby Technologies presented and demonstrated at ABU DBS 2016.

High Dynamic Range Video Technology

Dolby Vision™ delivers a dramatically different visual experience – astonishing brightness, incomparable contrast, and captivating color – that brings entertainment to life before your eyes. It achieves this stunning image quality by leveraging breakthrough HDR and wide color gamut imaging technologies, both on-screen and in specially mastered content. As a result Dolby Vision enabled devices deliver images with much greater brightness, and provide much deeper, more nuanced and detailed darks, while rendering a fuller palette of rich new colors never before seen on screen. To deliver this experience, Dolby Vision augments the video fidelity of 2k and 4k content for cinema, and Ultra HD and HD video for over-the-top online streaming, broadcast, and gaming applications by maintaining and reproducing the high dynamic range and wide color gamut of the original signal as created during the artistic post production process. Key technology elements behind Dolby Vision- the technology elements span from content creation (production and postproduction), distribution (codec), and playback (decode and display, plus interfaces).

Object-based Immersive Audio for Broadcast

Dolby Atmos delivers moving audio – sound that can be precisely placed and moved anywhere in three-dimensional space, including overhead. It brings entertainment alive all around the audience in a powerfully immersive and emotive experience.

Enhanced Audio for Mobile OTT

Dolby Audio for Mobile Applications meets the needs of audiences around the world, by bringing: • Loud and clear sound: – Enhanced dialogue control and loudness management provides greater detail across a wide range of sounds, letting audiences discover pivotal dialogue in crystal clarity.

• Personalization Capabilities – A robust set of features allows viewers to personalize their listening experience. 1. Language selection in Dolby Audio quality 2. A choice between home/away commentators while watching live sports 3. Improved accessibility through descriptive video services • Immersive audio experiences – To let audiences feel like they are in the center of the scene or live event, viewers can now enjoy virtual Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and Dolby Atmos of the highest quality, when listening through headphones or built-in speakers. • Consistent Dolby Audio quality across platforms – Dolby Audio for Mobile Applications is compatible across device platforms, empowering all audiences, regardless of device OS, to fully immerse themselves in their stories.

HbbTV – Interactive Digital TV Feature

Transitioning from analog to digital terrestrial television comes with the opportunity for the broadcast industry to offer better picture and audioquality, and HbbTV can bring the TV experience for the user to a new level. HbbTV is a standard by which broadcasters can complement their services delivering additional content and features via broadband. Some newer DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) platforms are offering HbbTV. South East Asia has started adopting this technology, some of the early adopters are the DTT platforms in Malaysia and Vietnam. At Dolby, we are working with broadcasters in SEA ensuring that the audio quality for HbbTV continues to be “broadcast quality” thus helping a seamless transition between broadcast and online. Offering Dolby audio via HbbTV also helps meeting consumers’ expectations for online content where well stablished and very successful online video delivery services like Netflix, Amazon Video and iTunes offer Dolby audio.

DBS Exhibition

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Exhibition

An exhibition was also held in conjunction with the symposium showcasing the latest trends in technologies, applications and services provided by major manufacturers and other industry players. The products range from digital TV cameras, test & measurement equipment and audio mixers. Forty-six exhibitors from 14 countries exhibited at the DBS 2016 exhibition. For the first time a Best Booth award was presented based on design, presentation and value. The winning exhibitor was selected by the participants of the Lucky Draw and the prize is a complimentary booth at the 2017 DBS. The winner of the 2016 DBS Best Booth award was Sony. Mr Masakazu Iwaki of NHKJapan presented the award to Mr K C Wong of Sony.



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by Mr T. Rajendiran Dy. Director General (E) (SPT) AIR, Bangalore

abstract Shortwave transmissions, which are the only way to provide radio signals to the listeners all across the world free of charge, face problems of fading, interference and distortion. However with digital radio, there is no such problem. As a result, most international broadcasters, all over the world, are moving to DRM digital systems on shortwave. Apart from audio quality, digital radio has numerous other advantages. The biggest advantage is that transmitters in analogue can broadcast only one programme at one frequency, while in the digital format we can broadcast three to four programmes (channels) on a single frequency and ensure excellent quality of all the channels. This paper gives a brief account of the experiment conducted by All India Radio on Dual Channel transmission using single frequency through a DRM shortwave transmitter.

Introduction Traditional analogue shortwave broadcasting suffers from fading, atmospheric noise and interference from other shortwave stations. It is well known however that the digital signal of DRM shortwave transmission allows direct access to millions of listeners across international boundaries and continents with excellent signal quality. DRM also offers a spectrum efficient alternative, which can provide solution to problems arising from lack of spectrum space, which causes shortwave stations to be frequently packed close together. This crowding can result in mutual interference with other stations on adjacent frequencies, or even on the same frequency beamed to a different part of the world. DRM SW is capable of transmitting Dual Channels (two mono audio programmes) on a single frequency to a particular target area. All India Radio has conducted experimental DRM Dual Channel transmissions on shortwave and is now using it to provide a regular service.

Experiment on DRM Dual Channel Transmission on SW from Bengaluru During May-June 2015, AIR carried out its trial of DRM Dual Channel Transmission on 7550 kHz using 190 kW shortwave transmitter from Bengaluru, India, beaming

by Mr Sunil Bhatia Director (Spectrum Management & Synergy) AIR Headquarters, New Delhi

towards Europe as the target area. Availability of DRM receivers in good numbers was the main reason for selecting Europe as target area for the trial.

Figure 1: Transmitter Hall of Super Power Transmitter Complex, Bengaluru

Transmission was carried out between 1745-2230 hrs. (UTC) with two channels: one regular service having mixed contents of spoken word & music and the other a popular music based channel (Vividh Bharati).

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Dual Channel on single frequency transmission, allowing us to stabilise the technical settings of the transmitter. Later AIR also received feedback from RMS of IBB in this regard.

Figure 2: View of newly installed AM-DRM transmitter

A 190 kW DRM shortwave transmitter was operated with the following technical parameters set in the content server: 1. Robustness Mode 2. Bandwidth 3. Bit rate 4. Coding 5. SDC 6. MSC 7. Protection Level 8. Interleave depth

: : : : : : : :

B 10 KHz 8640 bps AAC 16 QAM 64 QAM, NO HIERACHIAL 0.6(A)/0.5(B) = 1/0 2 sec.

Figure 4: DRM dual channel configuration in the content server

Results & Outcome: • AIR received wonderful response from its listeners who provided audio files along with log plots to verify the reception quality. The maximum bit rate that could be achieved was 8.72 kbps. • Listeners were able to decode 98-99% of the signal thus receiving excellent audio. • Average SNR was reported to be more than 22 dB. • Audio files from listeners confirm near FM quality reception of DRM SW signal, and that too more than 5000 km away. • A listener from Stockholm, Sweden provided the following log plot of both the channels, i.e. Main Channel (mix of spoken word and music) & Second Channel (Test Music):

Figure 3: Monitoring of composite DRM parameters using Professional DRM Receiver at SPT, Bengaluru

Methodology for the Feedback on the Outcome of Trial Though the research department of AIR provided feedback on the reception quality of trial on DRM Dual Channel Transmission on 7550 kHz, it was important to have feedback from the target area itself. Accordingly, AIR approached various distant listeners, directly and indirectly, with a request to provide feedback on the technical quality of both channels. Listeners from various parts of Europe participated in this trial with a lot of enthusiasm. Listeners provided their feedback in the form of e-mails, recorded audio samples and plots through receiver etc. AIR issued special QSL card for this occasion. Technically, it was found to be an excellent learning experience. The most interesting aspect of the trial was to obtain desired results through great coordination among transmitting staff at Super Power Transmitters (SPT), Bengaluru. Above all, wonderful listeners, in various locations throughout Europe, gave regular feedback on the quality of

Figure 5: Log plot of Main Channel broadcast during the trial

Figure 6: Log plot of Second Channel broadcast during the trial


Conclusion The results from the trial were very encouraging, seeing that listeners were able to decode more than 97% of the DRM signal. It was observed that both channels could be received without any significant breaks. Accordingly, it was decided to utilise the DRM SW transmitter for the broadcast of Dual Channels on single frequency for a particular target area. With effect from 16th August 2015, AIR began broadcasting its external services from Bengaluru on DRM with Dual Channels. These transmissions being targeted towards countries such as Australia, New Zealand, West Asia & East Africa, China & Tibet, and Europe.

Acknowledgement We are thankful to IBB, USA for providing inputs from its RMS. We are extremely grateful to our various listeners, who participated in this trial on DRM Dual Channel on single frequency Transmission on SW by providing their valuable feedback on the reception quality. No amount of gratitude is enough to Mr. Terje Isberg, our esteemed listener from Sweden, who is just amazing and made fantastic efforts in helping us to achieve the desired results. Lastly, we would be failing in our duty, if we did not express our heartfelt thanks to colleagues in SMS Division, Senior Officers for their guidance & support, Research Department & SPT Bengaluru, who made stupendous efforts to make this trial a great success.

authors T. Rajendiran Mr. Rajendiran, who possesses a BE in Electronics & Telecommunication from Bharathiyar University, started his professional career with the Broadcast Engineering service in 1989 at the Chief Engineer (SZ) office, Chennai. After working 2 years as Scientist “B” in CEERI Lab, CSIR, Chennai. Since then, he has worked at multiple offices of All India Radio encompassing core functions such as, installation of Radio Studio’s & Transmitter’s, Research department of AIR & TV and operation & Maintenance in various capacities. At present Mr.Rajendiran is working as Dy.Director General (E) at SPT, AIR, Bangalore, which is the prestigious installation of AIR network, operating 6 x 500 KW SW transmitters, 36 Multiband Curtain Aerials, 20MVA, 66/11 KVA Substation capacity & other auxiliary systems. He is a recipient of Akashvani Awards on several occasions for his outstanding contribution in the fields of, best installation, best import substitution, best innovative work & best maintenance of stations. He is a life fellow and active member of the BES (I), Bangalore chapter.

Sunil Bhatia Mr. Sunil Bhatia received his Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from NIT Allahabad and a Master degree from IT-BHU, Varanasi. He joined the Frequency Assignment (later rechristened as Spectrum Management & Synergy) division of AIR headquarters in New Delhi in January 1994 and continued till 2007. During that period, he was associated with various aspects of Frequency Planning & also with technical liaison activities of AIR with ABU, ITU, and AIBD etc. He attended the ABU Preparatory Seminar on WRC-03 in KL and also ABU-HFC Coordination Meeting in KL. He worked very closely with ABU Technology Department during the “ABU-AIR Symposium on Digital Broadcasting” in New Delhi (November 2003) & “DRM-ABU-AIR field trial & Measurements” in New Delhi (May 2007). Between 2007 and February 2014, he headed AIR stations at Jhansi & Shimla. Since March 2014 he re-joined AIR Headquarters in New Delhi as Director (Spectrum Management & Synergy). He represented AIR in the 5th APT Conference Preparatory Group Meeting held in Seoul, South Korea in 2015. He is also the ABU Technical Liaison Officer for AIR.

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BES Report

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Digital Broadcasting –

Moving Towards Multiple Platforms: BES Expo and Conference 2016 by Mr I. I. George

Chairman, Conference Committee and Vice President, BES

Dr Amal Punchihewa

Director of Technology & Innovation, ABU

What is BES? Broadcast Engineering Society is a professional body of broadcast Engineers in India which has more than 3000 members and various broadcast equipment manufacturers in its roll. It has the recognition of the Broadcast Engineering Society (USA). The primary aim of the society is to promote broadcast engineering technology in India and to educate broadcasting engineers about the latest developments in the field of broadcasting. It conducts seminars, workshops and exhibitions in a routine manner at various cities in the country. It has number of chapters and centres across the country to disseminate knowledge in the field of broadcasting. The biggest show of BES is its annual Expo and Conference held in Delhi. It is the largest and exclusive broadcast technology exhibition and Conference in this part of the globe.

BES EXPO 2016 The 23rd edition of BES Expo 2016 was held from 4th to 6th February 2016 at the Leela Convention Ambiance Hotel in Delhi. The exhibition was held in the Grand Sapphire hall of the hotel and the conference in the adjoining convention hall. The conference was inaugurated by the Hon. Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Sri. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore on 4th February. at 11.00a.m. The Hon. Minister highly appreciated the BES for its activities in promoting the broadcast technology and bridging the gap between the students and the industry. He highlighted the necessity of bringing the latest technology in the field of broadcasting into India. The inaugural function was also graced by the presence of the Additional Secretary, government of India, Ministry of I&B, the Chairman of Prasar Bharati and the CEO of Prasar Bharati together with senior officials of Prasar Bharati, All India Radio and Doordarsan and also some from

private industry. The president of the society, Sri. OK Sharma, in his welcoming address, illustrated the role of BES in bridging the gap between the broadcasters and the industry. Dr Peter Siebert, Executive Director of the DVB project, delivered the keynote address on the theme of the conference. He elaborated on the statistics of viewership in the current scenario of multiple delivery of broadcasting content, especially on mobile devices. He also gave a summary of various technologies available to the broadcasters, other than conventional broadcasting and concluded that conventional broadcasting will continue its role along with the Internet based technologies. More than 800 delegates and broadcasters, from India and abroad, attended the inaugural function. As an international event, the expo was endorsed by DRM and supported by Prasar Bharati; ABU; The Society of Broadcast Engineers; U.S.A.; The Ministry of Communications & IT and IETE. The Hon. Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Sri. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore presented prestigious awards to outstanding broadcasting engineers in the conference.

Conference The theme of the conference for the 22nd BES Expo was, digital broadcasting moving towards multiple platforms. The conference had six major sessions and one tutorial session. The first session on 4th February 2016 comprised tutorials, with four eminent speakers deliberating on advanced technologies. It included special tutorials on V-Band for fast data rate and planar transmission line for satellite communications. These topics were dealt in great detail by two eminent Professors. Over 900 delegates from India and abroad attended the BES conference, having eight sessions and one session dedicated for tutorial. Delegates were from broadcasting industry, including private and public broadcasters, academia, students from media institutes and free lancers. 44 speakers presented their topics at the conference, including 24 from overseas. There were six sessions in the main conference as follows: • • • • • •

Broadcasting – moving towards multiple platforms Digital Television – Broadcasting to Mobiles Advances in Production & Presentation Radio Broadcasting – the road ahead Advances in Technology – New Disruptions Content – Archives – Revenue, ‘The challenge’

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Each session, having five speakers on various topics provided variety and interactivity. Conference proceedings, issued in hard copy as well as on CD, were made available to the delegates during the conference. Mr I.I.George, Chairman of the Conference Committee, also the Vice President of the Broadcast Engineering Society (India) and Additional Director General of Training at Prasar Bharati, who was commended for his leadership in the BES conference, expressed his pleasure with the outcomes. The following topics were deliberated in the conference • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Hybrid TV Technology OTT delivery IBB and OTT; Development and case studies in APAC Multi-screen video delivery TV Everywhere & OTT in India Future of DTT – The developments Cost efficient systems design for DVBT2 lite Emergency warning with DTT Efficiency and Performance of Digital TV Transmitters The Future of Broadcast Television Real time web audio to replace telephone call Audio Sports Production Digital radio – the key to maximising content Immersive viewing experience by IMF z Lense Which? DRM or FM Digital Radio – Keys for successful implementation Smart AM Receivers Solid state SW – Status and challenges Extending Broadcast Transmitter Life

• Redefining TV Viewing Experience: High Dynamic Range(HDR) and Wide Colour Gamut( WCG) • SDI Baseband to IP Routing: An Essential migration • Tryst with DTT signals • Digital Radio Success strategies • Advanced content work flow • Converting – Old Cinema content for HD TV • MAM: New applications for metadata and cloud technologies. • Object of archives • Monetising Archives

Exhibition The exhibition was inaugurated by the Hon. Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, Sri. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore after the inaugural function. Over 1100 square metres of exhibition area was occupied by more than 60 exhibitors from across the globe, showcasing their products. The exhibition was visited by over 3000 broadcast professionals, engineers, media personnel, engineering students and media students. There were over 60 companies from 20 countries displaying the latest broadcast products and technologies from across the world, either directly or through their dealers in India. The media industry in India is a multi-million dollar market and this type of product exhibition has the clear potential to create awareness and develop business in the field of broadcasting in the years to come.

Hybrid Media Delivery of our ABU Member – Prasar Bharati Dr Amal Punchihewa

Director of Technology & Innovation, ABU

A workshop, that was aimed to highlight some of the changes that are taking place in the media industry, was conducted on 8th February in Delhi. It was held at the Doordarshan Directorate, Mandi house. The workshop, which imparted knowledge of technologies capable of offering Integrated Broadcast Broadband (IBB) Technologies & Services, was attended by over 40 senior engineers and officials from Prasar Bharati (DDI & AIR). The workshop discussed global and regional trends in media delivery, technologies available for hybrid delivery, possible services for PB using such technologies and questioned whether DDI & AIR needed

hybrid services by analysing the opportunities and challenges. It also highlighted that on-demand and catch-up services can effectively be integrated to IBB services including OTT services. Among key discussion points, the most important was the right mix of delivery and when to adopt hybrid broadcasting. Having understood the potential and limitations of over the top services which are delivered via Internet as an un-managed service, the value of broadcasting over the air was emphasised. In India, Direct To Home services via satellite are dominant, followed by cable services. At the end of the workshop, attendees commended the event.

Digital-Smart-Internet-Radio

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Digital Radio, Smart Radio and Hybrid Radio The following paper is based on the WorldDAB+ workshop titled “Moving Forward with DAB+” held in Kuala Lumpur on 29th February 2016. The author presents his views on digital radio, smart radio and hybrid radio, augmented by the presentations and discussions he had with digital radio experts such as Mr Simon Fell, Director of Technology & Innovation, EBU, Dr Graham Dixon, Head of Radio EBU, Mr. Lindsay Cornell, Technical Committee Chair WorldDAB & Principal Systems Architect BBC(UK) and experts from WorldDAB. Also referred to are related documents including R138 [1] & the web document, “Digital Radio Toolkit: Key Factors in the Deployment of Digital Radio”, a report published on 19 December 2014 by EBU [2].

Digital Radio in APAC and Beyond

In every region of the world the digital radio take up is not on a par with other media such as television and other Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs). Analogue radio broadcasting is the dominant form of radio broadcasting especially for Free-to-Air (FTA) operations. There are number of terrestrial digital radio transmission technologies available; DAB/DAB+, DRM/DRM30/DRM+ and ISDB-Tsb. Digital radio broadcasting started around middle of 1990s. However, over two decades digital distribution of radio content has been slow to emerge in the radio broadcasting industry. With a slow take up of digital television, especially in Asia-Pacific region, other digital delivery services and technologies, such as Internet, mobile devices/services and television have gained market acceptance while, for radio broadcasting analogue has remained the most cost-effective and primary distribution mechanism for terrestrial broadcasting.

Technology Position in APAC

In Asia-Pacific, ABU holds the position of technology neutrality. What does technology neutrality mean to ABU family? It is the principle that the ABU leaves the choice to its members to select the digital radio standard they want. However, in the European region, the EBU, through its R138 gives the preference to DAB/DAB+. As per the 3rd page of the R138 document, it recommends that immediate deployment of digital radio to be done using DAB transmission as defined in ETSI EN 300 401 with DAB+ services as defined in ETSI TS 102 563 for digital radio broadcasting in VHF Band III. It also recommends the use of DRM as defined in ETSI ES 201 980 for digital radio broadcasting in the frequency bands currently used for analogue radio broadcasting, when DAB coverage is not possible [R138, p3]. The project Digital Radio Toolkit built on the EBU’s Recommendation on Digital Radio Distribution in Europe (EBU R 138), which primarily suggested the deployment of DAB+ services and, only if DAB coverage is not possible, the use of DRM as a broadcasting alternative. As a further step, the Digital Radio Toolkit report offers guidelines on how to launch digital terrestrial radio, based on the

by Dr Amal Punchihewa

Director Technology & Innovation, ABU

experiences at the three countries leading this process in Europe: Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The report Digital Radio Toolkit proposes good practices for introducing digital radio, though one needs to assess the local context in their respective country. It also describes 30 key success factors to positive acceptance of digital radio by addressing the main digitisation issues. For examples of each of those success factors, please read the report by accessing it at [2]. As presented by ABU in various recent fora, national contexts are significant in the radio market. General social and economic conditions such as each country’s wealth, radio listening pattern or its citizens’ ICT awareness, affect the uptake of digital radio. Other specific issues play an important role, such as the level and nature of competition, the relative strength of public service media organisations, the co-existence and share of national, regional or local networks and stations, the size of the advertising market, or policies and regulations.

Key Success Factors for Radio Digitisation

Research and a study, conducted by Media Intelligence Service of EBU, as commissioned by the EBU’s Radio Unit, examined the key success factors for radio digitisation. Findings of the research, which was carried out with the collaboration of various radio industry stakeholders, were published in the report entitled the ‘Digital Radio Toolkit’ [2]. There are eight key elements for the digitisation of radio, as per the report; viz. institutional structure, policy and regulation, content and offer, technology, switchover process, public communications, consumer electronics and the car industry. Terrestrial radio is the only radio which is distributed universally and free at the point of consumption. At the same time, it is also the only platform that guarantees the delivery of public service content and its associated democratic values. In its current analogue form (mainly and dominantly FM), there seems to be no more room for development in most European countries and in a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region and rest of the world. It is required that WBU does what is possible within its power to guarantee the future of broadcasting (for both radio and television).

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The report summarises five requirements for digital radio to succeed. They are coverage, cost, content, collaboration and communication. At the end of the digitalisation process, digital radio coverage must be at least the same as that of analogue radio, including coverage along major roads. Listeners will not accept losing coverage which existed with analogue services. The content needs to be strong, with clear added value when comparing the digital and analogue portfolio of services. This means not only more services, but also more diversity, targeting unattended audiences. The launch of digital radio has associated costs, mainly distribution costs and production costs for new content. Carefully planning and building economies of scale will help broadcasters deal with these additional costs. Returns are not immediate. If the process is managed successfully, these costs are outweighed by long-term benefits. Led by broadcasters, all the stakeholders must work together in the technological and communications sectors. Their involvement may vary according to the stage of the process but all of them are necessary. This relationship must be built on trust and confidence. Public communication is essential to make citizens aware of the new platform and its associated services. It is also a central tool in involving the related industries. The message must be consistent and avoid confusion in the market. The above five requirements lead to a commitment from all stakeholders. This commitment clearly shows the goals and ambitions of the industry and sends the strongest possible signal, helping to generate momentum among listeners. For them, digital radio represents an expanded offer of services, not just limited to traditional programming but as a driver of other audio innovations in broadcasting and on IP platforms. In the television industry, we have observed this in Europe as well as in the APAC region. In the Freeview model broadcasters form a consortium to build a common digital terrestrial and satellite delivery platform. Freeview especially promised an over-the-air (OTA) as a free-to-air (FTA) service. The competition will be on content rather than the technology of the delivery platform. It is time for the industry now that broadcasters, especially public and private broadcasters, to compete on content but cooperate in technology. It is essential to find the right regulatory incentives to foster the involvement of broadcasters. A balance is needed between an attractive content proposition and its associated costs. Hybrid radio brings together the efficiency and sophistication of broadcasting. In the switchover process, stakeholders must reduce uncertainty about the future by setting guidelines. Raising awareness among the public and persuading them to switch to digital radio are key communication goals. Working with manufacturers, importers and retailers fosters

their involvement and the take-up of digital radio. In-car safety and road information provided by digital radio is added value for the car industry. The key successes factors that are described in the report are: 1. Involve all stakeholders 2. Set up an industry body 3. Send a unified message to the authorities 4. Provide regulatory incentives 5. Rethink your licensing system 6. Implement correct regulation 7. Add value to your offer 8. Find unattended audiences 9. Rely on familiar and well positioned brands 10. Exploit economies of scale 11. Design a product strategy, not a platform strategy 12. Drive people to digital listenership 13. Ensure good coverage 14. Reduce transmission costs 15. Extend collaboration to all technical platforms 16. Make the case for local radio 17. Be flexible with the quality 18. Use digital technologies in a digital way 19. Plan the process 20. Fix a clear calendar 21. Set realistic criteria for the switch-off 22. Communicate a single, clear and accurate message 23. Plan promotion 24. Target the related industries 25. Make affordable devices available on the market 26. Offer future-proof devices 27. Ensure a good buying experience 28. Target the car industry early 29. Attend to the aftermarket 30. Ensure a seamless in-car radio experience

Future Work

The final session of the DAB+ workshop help in Kuala Lumpur on 29th February 2016 ended with group discussions in three groups, viz. Regulatory, Technical and Content. Each group discussed respectively, the barriers or challenges faced in planning digital radio migration. A detailed paper on this discussion will be published in the next edition of the technical review TR 266. This document will provide information on how to plan digital radio migration.

References

1. R 138, DIGITAL RADIO DISTRIBUTION IN EUROPE, EBU, Geneva, February 2013. 2. EBU-MIS Digital Radio Tool kit, EBU, Geneva, December 2014

author Dr Amal Punchihewa

Director Technology & Innovation, Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union Dr Punchihewa has thirty years of experience as a professional engineer in ICT, broadcast industries and academia. Having started his career as a computer engineer, he worked in the broadcasting industry as a research engineer before taking the Head of Engineering position (aka Engineer in Chief or CTO/COO) at the national television broadcaster in Sri Lanka. Dr Punchihewa gained MEng & PhD in Digital Audio & Video Signal Processing. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE-Broadcast Technology Society in USA. More than hundred and fifty scholarly articles authored can be accessed in IEEE, IET and ResearchGate digital libraries. Dr Punchihewa is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CEng) of UK, Fellow of the IET-UK, Senior Member of IEEE-USA and a Fellow of Institution of Professional Engineers in New Zealand (IPENZ), New Zealand. Dr Punchihewa authored the chapter on Technology for Interactive Multimedia Services, published by ITU in December 2015. It addresses hybrid television broadcasting, presenting available technologies and potential services in early part of this decade. An updated version will be published in late 2018. Dr Punchihewa is also the Vice-Chair of Technical Committee of World Broadcasting Unions (WBU-TC)

EBU News

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THE LATEST NEWS FROM

EBU TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION The room was packed as we kicked off our annual Production Technology Seminar this January. With more than 130 delegates and 16 technology demonstrations from EBU Members and industry, it was hard to take in all the buzz and new projects at the same time. But we managed – and we learned a lot along the way. How will the production studio look in the future and how will we produce more cross-media? Our keynote speaker, Charles Berbert from Kane, spoke about integration, using matrix models and the future “multi-skilling” journalist (capable of carrying out technical and editorial tasks with ease). But will this be enough? Production studios now have to cater to an audience who wants content on several different platforms while maintaining the high quality they are used to. It’s not easy to produce for different channels, but it is the future and I don’t think we’ll see a retraction anytime soon. Another topic of discussion that has come out in recent weeks is whether or not virtual reality will be the next big thing for broadcasters. The opportunity for creating compelling and immersive content is huge, but will viewers pick it up? Several EBU Members and industry showcased their latest virtual reality content including ZDF, ARTE, Fraunhofer, and Sky – so perhaps 2016 is the year we’ll see gains in this area.

by Shannon Frame

Technical Editions Manager (EBU)

Our Members have also been busy. The second of a twopart series, focusing on the Dutch Public Broadcaster NPO’s signing avatar is featured in the latest tech-i magazine. Dagmar Driesnack from IRT also gives us the inside scoop on UHD today and tomorrow. And more! To find out more, visit our website at tech.ebu.ch or follow us on social media: Twitter – @EBU_TECH, Facebook – EBU Technology & Innovation or Linkedin – EBU Technology & Innovation.

Join us at our next event! Network Technology Seminar 2016

21 – 22 June, EBU, Geneva The annual rendezvous for broadcast experts dealing with IT infrastructure, as well as for IT network and storage specialists that deals with broadcast media content. http://tech.ebu.ch/events/nts2016

News from the ABU Region

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News

from the ABU Region ABC KIDS iview App Celebrates a Million Downloads A record number of Australian children are engaging with the ABC’s digital offerings, with the network’s flagship children’s apps, ABC KIDS iview and ABC KIDS Play, achieving over a million downloads since their launch in 2015. Online viewing of ABC KIDS programmes have tripled since the launch of the dedicated ABC KIDS iview app in March 2015. ABC KIDS iview enables preschoolers to independently access ABC KIDS programmes on mobile and tablet devices in an app tailored to them, while ABC KIDS Play offers a range of creative play activities for young children at different development stages. ABC KIDS Play, which launched in July 2015, now averages over six million game plays per month. Both apps are now a part of life for many Australian families and have remained in the top 10 Kids and Family apps since launch. ABC KIDS Play was also named as one of Apple’s Best Apps of 2015. The ABC KIDS iview and ABC KIDS Play apps are free to download for iOS and Android devices, and are free of advertising. (abc.net.au)

Media Prima Launches Kool FM, Partners with Spotify Malaysia’s Media Prima Radio Network (MPRN) has launched its newest radio station, Kool FM which is being broadcast via 101.3FM within the Klang Valley and 90.2FM in Penang. Launched on 3rd of March 2016, the new station brings the total number of stations under MPRN to four. Targeting the 25-44 years old Malay segment, Kool FM offers both local and foreign hit songs from the 80s, 90s as well the latest hits. The targeted demographic is observed to be active in social media, and Kool FM, together with other radio stations under the MPRN umbrella, will maximise its use to attract more listeners. Kool FM’s radio application was also be introduced to allow listeners to listen to the station at any time and anywhere. Among programmes which will be featured prominently on Kool FM include those focusing on lifestyles based on the profession and social status of listeners. The launch of Kool FM is expected to strengthen MPRN’s position in the highly competitive local radio broadcasting industry. All existing MPRN radio stations target the Gen Y demographics

beginning with Fly FM fulfilling the urban English-speaking market in 2005, as well as Hot FM and One FM, launched in 2006 and 2009 respectively for the Malay and Chinesespeaking markets. Kool FM will provide an alternative value proposition not only to listeners but also to existing business partners and record companies. In a related development, MPRN has partnered with the world’s largest music streaming service, Spotify. A first of its kind radio partnership in Asia, MPRN will use Spotify’s insights on local and global listening habits and trends. The collaboration will provide a hub for MPRN’s radio stations that fans can follow on Spotify, while bringing new music lists, charts and special content to key radio shows, making programming more insightful and fan-driven. (mediaprima.com.my)

4K Broadcast Successfully Demonstrated in South Korea Korean broadcasters, Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS) and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) form part of a broadcast technology consortium which has successfully tested and demonstrated the world’s first end-to-end 4K broadcast using the next-generation ATSC 3.0 standard. The group also comprises LG Electronics and Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) of Korea. The success of this trial highlights the potential for Korea’s launch of terrestrial UHD TV commercial services using ATSC 3.0 in February 2017. And the fact that Korean companies are playing such an important role in ATSC 3.0 provides a good opportunity for Korean equipment manufacturers to advance in the US market. The test broadcast featured a live camera feed with real-time IP transmissions from the SBS network studio in Mokdong to the broadcaster’s Gwanak Mountain transmitter. The IP signals transmitted over the air on Channel 53 were then received using a simple antenna and decoded by a 4K Ultra HDTV ATSC 3.0 receiver developed by LG Electronics. (tvtechnology.com)

Digital Switch Over in India is Progressing Well Phase III cable TV analogue-to-digital conversion process is going well. According to the Indian Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB), 90.44 per cent of homes are now converted. The Ministry says up to now cable MSOs and local distributors have supplied more than 20 million addressable set-top

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boxes. However, there are some regions having obtained local government permissions to delay the switchover. Some 685 such areas are involved in delays although 450 of these are villages with fewer than 1000 homes. 226 areas are, in essence, small towns and have between 1000-5000 homes. The Ministry is also getting tough with the local and some regional governments and is applying for High Court and Supreme Court action to transfer all these local permissions to the higher Court for hearing, and to cancel the delaying permissions. (ABU News)

AsiaSat and Love Nature Bring 4K Content to Asia AsiaSat recently announced that through a partnership facilitated by Multi Channels Asia, Love Nature’s exclusive 4K original content will launch on ‘4K-SAT’, its new UltraHD (UHD) channel, on AsiaSat 4. Through this free-to-air UHD channel, audiences in Asia will have access to Love Nature’s 4K wildlife and nature footage from its robust library of nature documentaries, series, featured themes and exclusive natural history. Love Nature’s 4K content is distributed on ‘4K-SAT’, a freeto-air channel on the AsiaSat 4 UHD broadcast platform. Operated at 122°E, the platform reaches more than 50 countries in the Asia- Pacific region. ‘4K-SAT’ is currently broadcasting full UHD-produced videos featuring fashion, lifestyle and documentaries. (rapidtvnews)

ABC iview Now on Apple TV ABC recently announced that iview is now available on the recently released 4th generation Apple TV. iview’s fast and simple interface, which has been designed especially for the 4th generation Apple TV, makes programme discovery easy and a new ‘continue watching’ option on the home screen allows viewers to easily pick up where they left off. To access ABC iview on 4th generation Apple TV, simply download the app from App Store through the device. (mediaweek)

Freeview Kicks Off Innovation Program and Mobile-first Product Freeview has announced it will be launching a new programme of innovation and products including a new FreeviewPlus mobile application for access to all of the free-to-air networks’ live streaming and catch up content. The programme will include investment in upgrading FreeviewPlus which will allow viewers access to a wider range of features and functionality, the details of which will be announced later this year. The Australian industry will also create a world first with all the FTA networks working together on the new FreeviewPlus mobile live streaming product. (C+T)

Mongolia Says Goodbye to Analogue Mongolia recently completed its transition of terrestrial television broadcasting from analogue to digital. In June 2006, an agreement was reached at the ITU Regional Radio Communication Conference (RRC-06) for countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East to migrate their broadcasting services from analogue to all-digital terrestrial broadcast services by June 2015. The Conference observed that the digital switchover would leapfrog existing technologies to connect the unconnected in underserved and remote communities and close the digital divide. It would further increase opportunities for the provision of ICT applications and multimedia services including high quality video and interactivity. In Mongolia, the government approved the national programme for the transition of radio and television broadcasting to the digital technology back in 2010. The country completed the transition in October 2015. (C+T)

Panasonic Broadcasts Total Eclipse Live Using Solar Energy As Sumatra, Borneo and Sulawesi plunge into darkness during a rare total solar eclipse on the morning of the 9th of March, 2016, Panasonic delivered a live broadcast of the approximately 4-minute-long phenomenon from Ternate, an island in eastern Indonesia, using its Power Supply Container, a stand-alone photovoltaic power package. Panasonic Eclipse Live by Solar Power 2016 Special Page: http://news.panasonic.com/global/eclipselive2016.html To enable live filming and broadcast from the island, the Power Supply Container was transported from Jakarta to Dodoku Ali of Ternate. Panasonic HIT solar modules with high conversion efficiency generate approximately 3kW of electricity by tapping renewable energy from the top of the container, and store the power in 24 built-in lead-acid storage batteries. The stored energy will be supplied to a Panasonic LUMIX GH4 camera attached to a telescope which captured the spectacular moment. Mobile computers, production and editing equipment, internet connection and other supporting technology were also powered by solar energy. The live broadcast of the solar eclipse was available on platforms including Ustream, YouTube Live and Periscope. Prior to this live broadcast project in Ternate, Panasonic has developed and introduced the Power Supply Container to other parts of Indonesia. The first container was installed in July 2014 at the National Elementary School Karimunjawa 01 located on a remote island of Indonesia to improve the educational environment for students and teachers. Following its success, a second container was introduced in July 2015 at another elementary school in the mountainous region of West Java Province to enhance both study and water supply conditions. (C+T)

Digital Broadcasting Update

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Digital Broadcasting Update 1. Update on Digital Radio roll-out in Europe

The EBU’s Media Intelligence Service has published the first edition of a yearly report on Digital Radio, in support of the EBU’s Digital Radio Initiative. The Digital Radio report highlights the main achievements of the past year for digital radio, pointing out both its strengths and areas that require action. It also includes a specific study on the role of public service media in the roll-out process, as well as some prospects for the year ahead. As a whole, it offers a progress report of the roll-out of digital terrestrial radio in European markets and, when relevant, other digital platforms, helping EBU Members and other stakeholders to plan their digital radio strategies and supporting their advocacy initiatives. The study is all the more timely as exciting new developments are taking place in the Digital Radio market. These include the launch of digital radio in three new countries in Europe in the past year, with a fourth in the pipeline, as well as the announcement of FM switch-off in Norway in 2017. (EBU)

2. GatesAir Delivers its First China-Standard Digital Radio Systems GatesAir has delivered turnkey China Digital Radio (CDR) systems to the Guangdong Broadcast Bureau technical centre in Guangzhou city, based in the Guangdong province. The initial deployments include four GatesAir Flexiva™ highefficiency transmitters to support the national roll-out of digital radio in China. The GatesAir solution will support both IP and ASI transport to move audio and data to transmitter sites across the Internet and satellite networks, leveraging CDR versions of its Flexiva software-defined exciter and exclusive RTAC™ real-time adaptive correction system to optimise digital signal performance. The GatesAir solution additionally integrates the company’s innovative hybrid crest factor reduction technology to increase power output, optimising signal coverage in the Guangdong province.

China Digital Radio is an FM in-band, on-channel (IBOC) digital radio system capable of delivering a large multiplex of audio (analogue FM and digital) and rich data services, including news, traffic and other local and national information. The Guangdong launch will initially support one channel of digital programme audio, though the bandwidth-rich architecture and waveform flexibility of China Digital Radio supports in-band multi-channel delivery – or multicasting – for as many as 12 channels. China Digital Radio transmitter networks will mainly deploy 5kW, 10kW and 20kW models based on regional coverage needs. GatesAir delivered Flexiva FAX20 (20kW) transmitters to support the first deployments, which are now on the air. GatesAir delivered and commissioned the systems along with Cimax, a regional partner of GatesAir. (GatesAir)

3. EBU Publishes New Network Planning Methods for DTT The new EBU Technical Report 035 ‘An introduction to Time-Frequency Slicing (TFS)’ has just been published. This report provides further details and results of a number of theoretical studies and takes a closer look at the deployment

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of TFS in practical scenarios, based upon the existing networks in France, Sweden and UK. Over the last few years, different research institutes and universities have been looking for new network planning methods to increase the efficiency of broadcast systems. Organizations like DVB and ATSC have also considered advanced methods when discussing new generation standards. The EBU Project Group, Broadcast Network Planning (BNP) has analysed how some of these new methods might be deployed in practical networks and the implications for broadcasters and viewers.

monitoring only; it does not define standards for streaming media transport. However, the Open Control Architecture (OCA) is intended to cooperate with various media transport architectures.

Time Frequency Slicing (TFS) is a technique that enables multiple frequency channels to be aggregated into a single wider frequency channel. The content of individual programmes is sliced into ‘blocks’ of information which are transmitted in different frequency channels within the TFS aggregation.

• Part 1: Framework describes the models and mechanisms of the AES70 Open Control Architecture. These models and mechanisms together form the AES70 Framework. This document should be read together with Part 2, Class Structure and Part 3, TCP/IP communications protocol.

The frequency diversity between channels (e.g. differences in antenna diagrams and receiving antenna gains) could extend the core coverage area of the multiplexes transmitted or, alternatively, increase the capacity of the multiplexes (by changing the system variant to take advantage of the improved robustness). Simulations, supported by field measurements, indicate that combining four to six RF channels may achieve, for standard fixed rooftop reception, a capacity gain of some 20 – 25%. Such additional capacity could facilitate the introduction of additional high- and ultra-high definition (HD and UHD) programmes which would allow viewers to watch the programmes they want in high quality. In addition, research shows there would be statistical multiplexing gains in the order of 15%. In terms of coverage gain, TFS has the effect of equalising the coverage of all multiplexes in a TFS-signal. This is particularly well-suited to applications where this is desirable, but might be a problem in cases where services have different target areas. In terms of practical effects, consumers would need to buy new TFS-compatible receivers but would not need to change their receiving aerials. Broadcasters and network operators would need to upgrade modulators and multiplexing systems and introduce more SFN-like timing. TFS has clear benefits for future DTT standards but to make the transition more attractive it would need to be introduced alongside other improvements such as HEVC or UHD Phase 2. (EBU)

4. AES Standard for Audio Applications of Networks – Open Control Architecture AES70 has been published in three parts. AES70 defines a scalable control-protocol architecture for professional media networks. AES70 addresses device control and

• Part 2: Class structure specifies the control class structure for AES70 that defines the AES70’s control and monitoring functional capabilities and should be read in conjunction with Part 1, Framework, and Part 3, TCP/IP communications protocol. • Part 3: Protocol for TCP/IP Networks specifies a protocol implementation for TCP/IP networks. It should be read in conjunction with Part 1, Framework, and Part 2, Class Tree. (AES)

5. Deliveries Completed for Official HbbTV 2.0 Receiver Test Suite

The HbbTV Association has announced that it has received all the test material for the first release of a test suite for HbbTV 2.0 implementations. The current HbbTV test suite (V8.1) is suitable for testing HbbTV 1 and 1.5 products. V9.0 is expected to be available before the end of the summer and will add over 500 new tests covering HbbTV 2.0 functionality. It will also improve coverage of HbbTV 1 and 1.5 functionality in some key areas. This release will be an important step towards enabling interoperability between HbbTV 2.0 services and HbbTV 2.0 devices, which are expected to be introduced in the market starting in 2017. The tests were obtained from two suppliers, Eurofins Digital Testing and RT-RK, and are now being reviewed by volunteers from the HbbTV membership before becoming approved parts of the Test Suite. The 500 test cases cover all mandatory and some optional features added by HbbTV 2.0 and were carefully selected by experts to test the key use cases for each feature. (HbbTV)

Equipment Trends

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Equipment

Trends

1. Multi-format Switcher

develop their own tailored apps in which internet-services complement broadcasted radio. Users will be able to access more radio channels with DAB+ than traditional FM. Unlike regular radio apps that stream large amounts of data, DAB+ radio provides excellent audio quality for free, as it uses no data.

SAM has announced the brand new Kula range of multiformat production switchers, combining SD, HD and 4K capabilities. Kula uses innovative FormatFusion3 technology to seamlessly mix any format, up to and including 4K, eliminating the need for external conversion equipment. Capable of handling 4K/1080p/HD and SD in 1M/E and 2M/E versions, Kula can handle multiple formats making it both future-proof and adaptable for today’s production environment. The 2M/E HD/SD version can be switched to 1M/E 4K mode, allowing users to benefit from higher production values. Kula provides a choice of three easy to operate control panels for maximum flexibility and these are in turn expandable with additional control modules from the Kahuna Range. Kula also delivers up to five key layers per M/E, 20 channels of DVE and floating/auxiliary keying resources and up to 36 inputs and 18 assignable outputs, plus an extensive internal clip and still store to guarantee high impact productions. Kula will ship in May 2016, priced from $17K USD. (s-a-m)

2. World’s First Smartphone with Digital Audio Broadcasting

LG Electronics (LG) unveiled the world’s first smartphone to feature DAB+, the de facto standard for digital radio broadcasting. As the world’s first smartphone with DAB+, the LG Stylus 2 features a DAB+ chipset and an exclusive app that allows customers to enjoy digital radio broadcasts out of the box. A technical interface also enables broadcasters to

DAB+ is expected to replace FM analogue radio and already reaches over 500 million people in 40 countries around the world. LG collaborated with the International DMB Advancement Group (IDAG) to include DAB+ technology in the new LG Stylus 2. (lgnewsroom)

3. High-definition On-camera Monitors

SmallHD adds two new high-definition on-camera monitors to its feature-rich 700 Series. The 701 Lite and 702 Lite offer 450-nit 720p displays and provide the unmatched durability and on-set versatility of SmallHD’s latest generation of monitors, at the most affordable price. These new monitors offer an intuitive operating system with built-in professional software tools like Focus Assist, Exposure Assist, Waveform, RGB Parade, Audio Meters and more. You can even apply 3D LUTs to the image in real time as post-production preview. With the Pagebuilder menu, presets can be configured to allow the shooter to quickly toggle between frequently used pages of in-monitor tools. In addition, multiple monitor users can design tool pages tailored for their specific shooting needs. A full-sized SD card slot allows users to conveniently transfer images and LUTs. Users can opt for SmallHD’s free 3D LUT collection, or custom LUTs that can be added and applied so crewmembers and clients can easily visualize what the scene will look like after post-production colorization. The SD card also allows the capture of a virtually unlimited number of onscreen images from the monitor, and overlay nearly any JPEG over live video – a real plus for continuity and post-production. Designed for the wear and tear of production, each HD

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screen is shock mounted and housed in a forged aluminum chassis. The 701 provides HDMI in and outputs, while the 702’s feature both HDMI and SDI inputs and outputs, with low latency cross conversion between HDMI to SDI, and vice versa. An exclusive feature of 700 Series monitors is that they accept either Canon LP-E6 or Sony L-Series battery packs in the same battery slot. With a low 10-Watt power draw, the monitors will run off a pair of Sony NPF-970 batteries for 9 hours straight. They can also be powered from an AC adapter or a P-Tap/D-Tap off a large camera battery. The new 701 Lite and 702 Lite start at $699 MSRP. They will join the 700 Series’ powerhouse 702 Bright, which provides 1080p resolution and 1000 nit brightness for viewing in extreme outdoor lighting. Deliveries for the 701 Lite and 702 Lite monitors begin immediately. (SmallHD)

4. Long-range Wireless Video Transmission Systems

VidOvation has announced the launch of two new products in its VidOlink family of long-range wireless video transmission systems: the VidOlink Ranger2 and the VidOlink Wireless Tally & Control. The VidOlink Ranger2 is a lower-cost long-range video transmission system that can transmit wireless HD video as far as two miles. The VidOlink Tally & Control is a complementary means of adding tally and camera control unit (CCU) functionality to new or existing wireless camera systems. In addition, VidOvation has expanded its lightweight and low-cost VidOlink Reacher family of zero latency wireless video transmitters with three new models: the VidOlink Reacher 400, VidOlink Reacher 1000, and VidOlink Reacher 2000. Spanning transmission distances of 400, 1,000, and 2,000 feet, respectively, the systems transmit HD-SDI and HDMI video with near-zero latency, making them ideal for action sports shots in which near-zero latency is important. The VidOlink Ranger2 uses coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing to transport video within line-of-sight on the 5.8 GHz band. The VidOlink Tally & Control offers an easy way to add tally and CCU functionality to existing HD-SDI or HDMI video signals. Using the 403-473 MHz band, the Tally & Control can transmit a wide range of tally and CCU functions. It can also send data via VidOlink’s RF-over-fibre SMPTE units, delivering RF, data, and power to the receive point with a single cable. (VidOvation)

5. Digital Routing Switcher Utah Scientific has announced its all-new UHD-12G digital

routing switcher, the industry’s first enterprise-class router to enable distribution of a full range of SDI video signals, from SD data rates up to 2160p60 data rates, in a singlelink interconnect. Ideal for live acquisition of UHDTV content, the UHD-12G simplifies installations, reduces the rack space and cables needed to process 4K signals, and lowers operating expense. Fully compliant with SMPTE ST 2081 and ST 2082 standards for SDI video, the UHD-12G is compatible with the full line of Utah Scientific products. The product can be controlled by any version of Utah Scientific’s current family of routing control systems, including the SC-4, SC40, and SC-400. The UHD-12G is now available and shipping in 32 x 32, 144 x 144, and 288 x 288 frame configurations. (Utahscientific)

6. New Test Solution for HDR-capable Consumer Electronics Products

High dynamic range (HDR) is a spectacular technological advancement that makes the home theater experience more intensive and more realistic. This technology matches the picture’s luminance dynamic range to the perception of the human eye. With its R&S VTx video tester family, Rohde & Schwarz now offers a solution for testing the interoperability of the latest generation of HDR-capable consumer electronics products with HDMI 2.0a. Rohde & Schwarz has developed a new module that transforms its R&S VTx video tester family into the market’s most comprehensive and flexible platform for HDMI 2.0a and HDR testing. The new module offers generator and analyzer characteristics for data rates of up to 18 Gbit/s as well as functions introduced with the new HDMI standard, such as scrambling. It is backward compatible with HDMI 1.4 and therefore replaces the existing HDMI modules in the product portfolio. It supports both HDCP 1.4 and HDCP 2.2 and covers real-time protocol testing and compliance testing in line with HDMI CTS 1.4/2.0. The new solution gives users a test tool that can be used in various applications throughout the consumer electronics value chain. All-important tests are covered. The generator function can be used to edit the Dynamic Range and Mastering InfoFrame specifically for HDR. It displays the enhanced extended display identification data (E-EDID) of the connected sink, including the HDR metadata block. It also permits the playback of customer-specific, uncompressed moving picture sequences. The analyzer unit provides suitable E-EDID and displays the Dynamic Range and Mastering InfoFrame. HDR-CTS tests are available for both the generator and the analyzer. (Rohde & Schwarz)

Personalities & Post / New Members

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Personalities & Post Mr Bassil Zoubi

New Director of ASBU Technical The Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) has appointed Mr Bassil Zoubi, after a vigorous selection process carried out by an ASBU member committee. Bassil obtained his BSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA. After serving in the Jordanian Army for two years, Bassil joined Jordan TV in 1989 as a transmission engineer. He commenced his Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) career in 1994 and, in 1998, he became the head of the Transmission Section of ASBU. Bassil has been involved in new technologies and the work of the ITU since 1994. He has also been involved in covering major news and sporting events. At ABU, we congratulate and wish Bassil all the best on his new appointment. We look forward to continued collaboration and to working closely with him and ASBU.

New Members Additional Full Members SULD TV – Mongolia

Suld TV, Noyon Suld Co Ltd of Mongolia joined ABU as an Additional Full Member in February 2016. It is a young player in the broadcasting landscape of the country, since it started operation in July 2014. Suld TV can reach an audience in nearly 300 sub-regions and 21 provinces (Aimag). Its signal is also received in more than 20 Asian countries through DiDish, a television satellite service. Audiences in big cities such as Ulaanbaatar, Darkhan and Erdenet are reached via IPTV operators like Univision, Skytell and MNBS. Viewers have also access via the OTT platform through the Internet and www.suld.tv.mn. This privately owned channel puts much emphasis on local and international sports broadcasts. Horse racing and wrestling attract the bigest audiences in the provinces and in the cities. The most popular programmes in SUld TV are the live broadcast of local sports events such as the national League of basketball and volleyball. Weightlifting and taekwondo are also becoming popular among the young generation. Suld TV produces 60 per cent of its broadcast content.

Associate Members BRTC – Belarus

of 63 cooperation agreements with foreign broadcasters. Since 1993 Belteleradiocompany has been an active member of the European Broadcasting Union.

BeFM – Korea

Since 2009 BeFM operates under the Busan English Broadcasting Foundation. It operates 24 hours a day and produces more than 50% of its own programmes. This Korean FM radio station is embracing digital media through the creation of smartphone apps so as to get closer to the community. It produces various special events and documentaries and its focus is also on news programmes. They have a project to ‘go international’ soon. Busan English Broadcasting Foundation strongly believes in the values of “Global Broadcasting”, “Open Broadcasting” and “Beneficial Broadcasting”.

Affiliate Members Advanced Broadcast Solutions – Singapore

Advanced Broadcast Solutions – Asia Pte Ltd (ABS), a new ABU Affiliate Member is a private owned company established on 12 June 2013 in Singapore. They operate as a solutions provider in the Broadcast, Corporate, Education, Entertainment and government segments.

The Belarusian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company – Belteleradiocompany (BTRC) joined the ABU in February 2016 as Associate Member. It is the largest media company in Belarus and one of the biggest state media holdings in Eastern Europe. Belarusian radio started broadcasting in November 1925, while the first TV programme was presented to the audience on January 1, 1956.

ABS works as a partner with the customer to provide business and technical consultation, project planning, and design services. They are a full service integration company that is able to go from project design through implementation, commissioning, and operation. They are also a turnkey organisation that distributes a wide range of brands able to meet any customer’s specific needs and budget.

Headquartered in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, BTRC runs 5 radio channels: Radio 1 – The main national Belarusian radio channel, Kultura Channel, Stalitsa Radio Station, Belarus Foreign Radio and Radius-FM. Its 6 TV channels are: Belarus 1, 2, 3, 4, NTV Belarus, Belarus 24.

ABS’s tagline is “Providing Solutions to tell Stories with Technology”.

Belteleradiocompany gives particular importance to the development of international cooperation and is partnered with broadcasting companies all over the world. The company has concluded a total

Younger Culture Co. Ltd – Hong Kong

Since March 2016, Younger Culture (Hong Kong) Co. Ltd-YCHK has joined ABU as an Affiliate Member. YCHK is a principally provider and producer of TV content for mainland China. In China, they produce and provide TV programmes for national and provincial TV stations including CCTV-China. Their Programme content focuses on TV drama, entertainment shows, awards ceremony and singing competitions.