ISDB-T International


ISDB-T International, also known in Brazil as Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão Digital, is a technical standard for digital television broadcast used in Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Botswana, Chile, Honduras, Venezuela, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Philippines, Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Uruguay, based on the Japanese ISDB-T standard. ISDB-T International launched into commercial operation on 2 December 2007, in São Paulo, Brazil.
It is similar to ISDB-T, except it utilizes the H.264 video codec rather than MPEG-2, and replaces BML with Ginga, a middleware supporting Nested Context Language and Java-based interactive TV applications.
The ISDB-T International standard was developed as SBTVD by a study group coordinated by the Brazilian Ministry of Communications and was led by the Brazilian Telecommunications Agency with support from the Telecommunication's Research and Development Centre. The study group was composed of members of ten other Brazilian ministries, the National Institute for Information Technology, several Brazilian universities, broadcast professional organizations, and manufacturers of broadcast/reception devices. The objective of the group was to develop and implement a digital terrestrial television standard in Brazil, addressing not only technical and economical issues, but also and mainly mitigating the digital divide, that is, to promote inclusion of those living apart from today's information society. Another goal was to enable access to e-government, i.e. to make government closer to the population, since in Brazil 95.1% of households have at least one TV set.
In January 2009, the Brazilian-Japanese study group for digital TV finished and published a specification document joining the Japanese ISDB-T with Brazilian SBTVD, resulting in a specification now called "ISDB-T International". ISDB-T International is the system that is proposed by Japan and Brazil for use in other countries in South America and around the world.

History

The history of SBTVD development can be divided in two major periods: a) Initial Studies and Tests; b) Implementation of Digital TV Work Group and final definition of SBTVD standard.

Initial studies

Since 1994 a group composed of technicians from Brazilian Society for Television Engineering and Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters has been analyzing existing digital TV standards and its technical aspects but the discussion become a robust study only in 1998.
From 1998 to 2000, the ABERT and SET group, supported by Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie developed a very complete study based on several tests considering not only technical characteristics of each standard but also signal quality, both indoor and outdoor. That was the first complete study comparing all three major DTV standards in the world by an independent entity and it was considered a very rigorous and robust study by the DTV technical world community.
The results of the "Brazilian digital television tests" showed the insufficient quality for indoor reception presented by ATSC and, between DVB-T and ISDB-T, the last one presented superior performance in indoor reception and flexibility to access digital services and TV programs through non-mobile, mobile or portable receivers with impressive quality.
In parallel in 1998, the Brazilian Ministry of Communication ordered the National Telecommunication Agency to carry on studies to select and implement a DTV standard in Brazil. Due to the completeness and quality of the ABERT/SET/Mackenzie study, ANATEL considered that as the official result and supported it considering ISDB-T the better standard to be implemented in Brazil.
However the final decision about the standard selected wasn't announced at that moment because of three main points:
  • Some groups of society wanted to be more involved in that decision;
  • The ATSC Committee and DVB Group wanted to review the ABERT/SET/Mackenzie report and ANATEL decision;
  • Political discussions brought new requirements for the standard to be implemented in Brazil, such as digital inclusion and e-gov dissemination.
In the light of those points, the Brazilian Government, created a more structured discussion group, to review the first studies and to address these new points.

Implementation of Digital TV Work Group and final definition of SBTVD standard

The SBTVD program was deployed on November 26, 2003, by Presidential Act # 4.901, focusing the creation of a reference model for national terrestrial digital TV in Brazil.
The National Telecommunications Agency was charged by the Brazilian Ministry of Communications to lead this work with the technical support of CPqD, and the contributions of 10 other Brazilian ministries, the National Institute for Information Technology, 25 organizations related to the matter, and 75 universities/R&D institutes and electro-electronic manufacturers. More than 1,200 researchers/professionals were mobilized.
The DTV Work Group was organized in a structure with 3 areas of development:
  • Development Committee : to define, develop and implement a political and regulatory basis;
  • Consultant Committee : to define and develop the technical aspects of digital TV, and to select the best technology to be used in Brazil ;
  • Management Group : to manage specialized research groups.
The objective of the DTV Work Group was not only to define the technical and economical aspects of the Digital TV system but also to address:
  • "Digital inclusion" for those living apart from today's "information society";
  • The implementation of "e-gov", i.e. to make government closer to the population, because more than 94% of Brazilian families have at least one TV set;
  • The provision of educational support via Digital TV through specialized content and interactive programs;
  • The provision of cultural dissemination;
  • The provision of social integration.
Besides, technical requirements are important and were also considered:
  • 3D
  • High definition;
  • Interactive TV;
  • Mobile and portable TV with quality;
  • Signal robustness indoor and outdoor;
  • Excellent data payload in the band.
Just for the Consultant Committee, 20 public RFP were published trying to cover all areas that compose digital TV: Modulation, Signal Processing/Compression, video systems, audio systems, data transport, middleware, etc. The RFPs strongly reinforced the creation of research networks where the studies could be carried in a decentralized manner by several institutes working together.
Some groups worked to present a totally new digital standard, some groups worked to analyze and select the most known digital TV standards, and other groups worked to implement new features/modules to these already known standards.
After 3 years of studies and developments, the SBTVD Forum announced the selection of Japanese ISDB-T system as a baseline for the SBTVD system, enhanced by some new technologies:
  • MPEG-4 AVC compression system for video — allows more data payload in the same band. Japan uses MPEG-2 video;
  • Middleware called "Ginga" more robust with declarative and procedural modules, to allow complex interactive applications. Japan uses BML middleware which is only declarative;
SBTVD system also presents some adaptations :
  • The emission masks of transmitters were specially adapted in order to comply with more adverse scenarios for interference from other stations — this is important for implementation purposes in many countries where the spectrum is congested;
  • Multiplexing and data structures and signaling were adapted to western standards, with the inclusion of character sets for Latin derived languages;
  • Presentation rate of 30 frame/s even for portable receivers more quality for portable TV;
  • Implementation of Open Reception instead of B-CAS DRM Copy protection present in Japanese standard.
Note: There are around 16 technical documents for the SBTVD system, with more than 3,000 pages published by the ABNT and the SBTVD Forum detailing the entire SBTVD system.
The selection of the Japanese ISDB-T system as the baseline for SBTVD was based on video/audio quality indoor and outdoor, signal robustness, excellent interference treatment, support for complex interactive TV programs, and quality mobile TV. Besides that, ISDB-T with the new features like MPEG-4 video compression and Ginga middleware become an excellent support for those social requirements intended by the Brazilian Government.
Economical points were analyzed too, such as the elimination of royalties by the Japanese Government on the use of ISDB-T, the transfer of technology from Japan to Brazil, the creation of a Japanese-Brazilian work group for ongoing developments, and financial help for the initial implementation from the Japanese Development Bank.
The final decision was announced on June 29, 2006, by Presidential Act # 5.820 officially stating that Brazil adopted the ISDB-T terrestrial digital transmission system as the baseline for ISDB-Tb. The Presidential Act also defines the implementation plan and rules for digital TV in Brazil stating that in seven years all Brazilian territory must be covered by the digital TV signal and in 10 years all TV broadcast must be digital, and that the band used by the broadcast companies for analog TV must be returned to the Brazilian Government. It is important to note that this Presidential Act states that ISDB-Tb must offer a "Multiprogram" feature. During the implementation in Brazil, however, the Ministry of Communication changed this requirement and blocked this feature at least till May 2009.
The decision for ISDB-T was contested by some sectors of society that complained it was a "political" decision where the Brazilian Government was influenced by the Broadcaster Association, especially TV Globo, since ISDB-T isolates TV business from telecommunication company business which will protect the already decreasing earnings of broadcasters in a world that is migrating from TV to Internet and cellular telephone services.
The SBTVD and the original ISDB-T are not compatible systems. That means a TV set or a set-top box bought in Japan will not work in Brazil and vice versa. However, the Japanese-Brazilian Working Group is working to join the two systems into only one to achieve the benefits of gains of scale.
On the other hand, Brazil is producing several types of TV sets and set-top boxes for the SBTVD system and in a good quantity and there is no problem meeting the consumer demand for TV sets, set-top boxes and also for transmitters and other components.
Peru, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Uruguay, Philippines and Nicaragua have recently adopted ISDB-T and will reinforce the gains of scale in the production of equipment, thus continuing to reduce the price, consolidating the use of the ISDB-T International standard not only in South America.