Digital Video Microwave Systems for STL and ENG Applications & Test Results

NAB97, the FCC ruling on deadlines for HDTV, and recent acts by Congress have signaled the dawn of a new era for digital video microwave for broadcast applications including Fixed Point-to-Point (i.e. STL, TSL, ICRS, etc.) and ENG in both the United States and worldwide. — The broadcast industry is being challenged to explore new technologies to enhance their existing systems and is subsequently turning to digital video technology. A wide array of digital products are currently being offered for many aspects of the production system, such as digital cameras, editors, storage devices, and encoders. However, there has been little discussion about converting the STL and ENG microwave links from analog to digital transmission, which are a critical part of the total production system. — This paper presents an overview of how the digital video microwave technology can be applied to STL and ENG systems and discusses the tradeoffs of digital vs. analog video microwave systems. It also presents actual laboratory and field results of digital microwave STL and ENG tests conducted by NUCOMM. — The results show that applying digital video to STL and ENG microwave systems can conserve frequency spectrum and yield superior quality and performance equal to or better than analog systems under both fading and multi-path environments.

Published

1997-11

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/M00257

ISBN

978-1-61482-928-7