Rohde To Support MediaFLO in Test, Transmitter Products

by Mary C. Gruszka~ April 25, 2006

TV TECHNOLOGY

Continuing its tradition of supporting industry standards and enhancing its test and measurement products, Rohde & Schwarz announced that its SFU Broadcast Test System is now MediaFLO-enabled.

"MediaFLO is QUALCOMM's system for high-quality audio and video for wireless subscribers," said Christopher Petrole, Rohde & Schwarz media relations manager at a press conference Monday morning. "The MediaFLO enabled SFU will very soon allow handset manufacturers to develop, design and test MediaFLO enabled receivers. It's not commercially available yet, but we are demonstrating it at our booth, and are in the process of making in commercially available soon."

NEW CAPABILITIES

As part of the new test capabilities, SFU provides adjacent channel or interferer signals that can be added to the output as analog TV signals, or from an integrated arbitrary waveform generator.

Introduced in 2005, SFU is a platform for developing and testing new digital transmission methods in TV. In a single box SFU contains a signal generator, RF modulators for the various transmission standards, the analyzer, stream recorder and player, and it is upgradeable for future standards.

"It's a very versatile box," said Eddy Vanderkerken, director of sales and marketing, Rohde & Schwarz. "It contains everything you need to test and stress receivers."

Rohde & Schwarz is an active member of the FLO Forum, and is working in close cooperation with QUALCOMM on not only the test and measurement side, but the transmitter side as well.

While Petrole couldn't divulge more than that regarding MediaFLO, Rohde & Schwarz did announce that, for the terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting (T-DMB) system launched in Korea last year, the company was selected to supply transmitter and testing systems for that project.

Rohde & Schwarz is well-situated to provide the technologies necessary for the convergence of mobile phone technology and TV, said Michael Vohrer, president and CEO, Rohde & Schwarz.

"We are happy that we have both in our basket," he said.

T-DMB is used to transmit radio, TV, and data to mobile receivers. The video information is MPEG-4 AVC coded and transmitted by means of digital audio broadcasting (DAB) modified signals.

For the Korean system, SFU serves as a real-time coder for generating T-DMB and DAB signals. The transmitters for T-DMB include the air-cooled R&S NA/NL6000 for medium power, and the liquid-cooled R&S NA7000 for high output power.

OTHER PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENTS

In other NAB2006 announcements, Rohde & Schwarz is partnering with Samsung to conduct the first public demonstrations of the emerging ATSC technology A-VSB at the ATSC/NAB DTV Hot Spot in the South Hall Upper Lobby. Advanced-VSB (A-VSB) was submitted by the proponents to the ATSC in 2005, approved, and is currently in the standardization process for consideration as an amendment to A/53, according to Petrole.

In other product news, Rohde & Schwarz revealed two key improvements for its DVM400 digital video measurement system. The unit now employs a faster computer platform for improved specs, faster processing, and increased memory. The DVM400, as well as all other instruments in the R&S DVM family, can now be enhanced by the new R&S DVM-K12 template monitoring function which allows automatic monitoring of deviations of the measured transport stream from the previously defined template.

Rohde & Schwarz introduced the R&S XV703 transposer system for signal processing and converting incoming signals to the desired output frequency. This provides a cost-effective method to efficiently expand DVB-T and DVB-H networks coverage, Petrole said.

On the TV broadcast side, Rohde & Schwarz rolled out the R&S SV8000 low power UHF family of transmitters designed to meet ATSC requirements. The transmitter platform also supports DVB-T/-H and accommodates TV power up to 500 watts.

For radio, Rohde & Schwarz is showing the new air-cooled SR8000 FM transmitter family which includes the previously proven digital R&S SU800 exciter, as well as a built-in AES/EBU interface. The compact (2 RU to 4 RU) 100 W to 1 kW transmitters are remote-monitored and remote-controlled via SNMP, web interface, and parallel remote-control interface.

© 2006 NAB