B-MAC: A Transmission Standard for Pay DBS

Keith Lucas

The introduction of direct TV broadcast by satellite (DBS) offers a unique opportunity to provide vast improvement in the quality and range of services provided and to pave the way to higher definition transmissions in the future. This may be achieved by employing a transmission standard which is optimized for the DBS medium, thereby providing high-quality services appropriate to the video, audio, and data equipment available to the consumer now and in the foreseeable future. Compatibility with conventional TV receivers can be provided in the decoder by transcoding to the current transmission standards using large-scale integration (LSI) techniques. This article describes a DBS transmission format which has been designed to satisfy these criteria, the range of services provided, and the specific signal format.

Print ISSN
Published
1985-11
Content type
Original Research
DOI
10.5594/J03345