Sensor Newsletter January 2011

Ensuring signal quality and content integrity are operators’ primary concerns. Pixelmetrix ushers in the DVStation-Mini² VSB, an end-to-end preventive monitoring solution specifically for ATSC DTV terrestrial broadcast networks.

This solution encompasses both 8VSB modulation quality monitoring as well as transport stream analysis. Between the two input ports it hosts, the RF input is where the signal demodulation can be performed. As for transport stream analysis, it can be carried out on RF and ASI/SMPTE-310 input ports simultaneously.

What essentially make the DVStation-Mini² VSB the ideal system for operational monitoring and troubleshooting are the RF measurements and rich graphical displays. 8VSB analysis includes RF level, signal quality, symbol rate accuracy and frequency, and BER. A graphical display shows actual constellation points in the I/Q plane, with RF measurements integrated into the DVStation-Mini² on-screen status-at-a-glance display.

Alarms and remote access are incorporated to offer operators more flexibility. User-definable alarms allow RF, modulation and transport stream parameters to be monitored unattended by triggering actions, while multi-user remote access is available for all configuration parameters and SNMP NMS.

Another highlight is the real-time transport stream monitoring. Tests include:

- Transport stream health check
- Bandwidth of service and individual PIDs
- PCR jitter
- Automatic On-Air Content Validation
- EIT display monitoring
- Stream capture

Along with RF and TS monitoring, EIT completes this solution for terrestrial broadcasters. As DVStation-Mini² VSB checks for the specific minimum repetition rate and the structural integrity of each EIT table, it analyzes tables for overlaps or gaps between the program entries as well as stale program entries.

To sum it up, the DVStation-Mini² VSB is simple, reliable and affordable. Be the first to spot errors and resolve them.