The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has approved an amendment to the A/53C DTV standard that adds a new optional mode of transmission called Enhanced VSB (E-VSB). Services transmitted in the E-VSB mode have additional forward error correction coding layers that allow reception under weaker signal conditions.
Mark Richer, ATSC president, said E-VSB was developed in response to the desire of broadcasters to add more flexibility to the DTV Standard. According to Richer, the E-VSB was chosen from among multiple technologies after a rigorous evaluation process that included laboratory and field tests.
E-VSB provides optional modes of operation that allow broadcasters to trade-off data rate for a lower carrier-to-noise threshold for some services. Examples of potential applications for E-VSB include delivery of fall back audio, programming services targeted at small DTV receivers with indoor antennas, non-real time transmissions of file-based information to handheld and pedestrian receivers, and robust data broadcasting to devices such as desktop and laptop computers.
For more information, visit www.atsc.org/standards.html.