Abstract:
There has been a clear prospect internationally for some years that existing analogue
television broadcasting will be replaced by digital transmissions. Terrestrial digital
broadcasting offers a range of benefits in comparison to terrestrial analogue
broadcasting such as efficient spectrum utilization, improved audio & video quality,
portable & mobile reception capability etc. Sri Lanka being a developing country it is
high time to make timely entry to digital broadcast era, through establishment of
requisite infrastructure with a view to future dividends derivable from an advanced
digital infrastructure.Therefore the first section of this research discuss the inherent technical strengths of
digital terrestrial broadcasting and analyse candidate technology standards in digital
video broadcasting. further it propose the most suitable technology standard for DTT
rollout in Sri Lanka by analysing technical capabilities as well as degree of
compatibility with existing analog broadcast technology deployed in Sri LankaThe second section discuss the methodology for network planning, by proposing a set
of guidelines for efficient planning of digital video broadcast networks to achieve
nationwide coverage & thereby full access to viewers without any interruption during
DVB-T rollout by specifically analysing Sri Lankan deployment scenarios. Further it
has discussed various propagation models suitable for DVB-T network planning &
step by step guidelines for in-depth coverage estimations & network simulations by
optimizing DVB-T system parameters.
The final section of this research has in detail discussed DVB-T network
implementation issues in practical point of view by critically analysing factors such as
co-location of analog & digital transmission infrastructures, interference issues &
primary distribution architectures. Finally it provides set of recommendations, wherebroadcast network operators can follow when deploying DVB-T networks in SriLanka.
