Microwave Journal
www.microwavejournal.com/articles/13174-rohde-schwarz-at-ibc-full-transmission-power-for-mobile-tv-standards

Rohde & Schwarz at IBC: Full transmission power for mobile TV standards

July 26, 2007
Munich, 26 July 2007 — At this year's International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) to be held from September 7 to 11, 2007, in Amsterdam, Rohde & Schwarz will showcase various innovations in hall 8, booth 250. Visitors can take a closer look at the completely new and extremely cost-efficient R&S Nx8600 family of high-power transmitters. For closing small coverage gaps, Rohde & Schwarz has added the favorably priced R&S SLx8000 low-power transmitters as well as the R&S XLx8000 transposers and gap fillers to its product portfolio. This range of equipment is suitable for DAB/T-DMB and TV. In addition, the compact R&S SFE broadcast tester will make its first appearance. It can handle all analog and digital TV standards as well as a wide variety of sound broadcast standards. Plus, the company will present enhancements of the R&S ETL TV analyzer, which has already been successfully launched on the market, and the R&S DVM MPEG-2 measurement platform. Rohde & Schwarz will present the new liquid-cooled R&S Nx8600 high-power transmitters in Europe for the first time. This transmitter family supports analog and digital TV standards (ATSC, DVB-T/H) and outputs up to 6 kW digital power or 16 kW analog power in a single rack. The objective of developing this new family was to achieve considerably lower operating costs than possible with the products currently available on the market. New transmitter technology plus optimized cooling reduce energy consumption by as much as 25 percent. Moreover, the compact design of the transmitters requires less space, which also cuts costs. The new transmitter family can be equipped with all essential functions such as the tried-and-tested standby configurations, remote interfaces, and automatic digital equalization (ADE). The transmitter portfolio of Rohde & Schwarz now also includes the two compact R&S SLx8000 and R&S XLx8000 low-power families. These transmitters are an optimized solution for very low power requirements. Since the components used feature an extremely high level of integration, Rohde & Schwarz can now offer very favorably-priced equipment for the expansion of existing networks. This is essential since this application calls for a large number of units. The R&S SLx8000 transmitters support the DAB/T-DMB, DVB-T/-H, and ATSC standards as well as practically all analog TV standards. The R&S XLx8000 transposers can also handle the MediaFLOTM and DTMB standards. The highly compact 19" instruments for the UHF and VHF frequency ranges cover the power range up to 100 W DVB-T/-H, 160 W ATSC, 250 W ATV, or 300 W DAB. They can – even remotely – be switched from analog to digital standards. This makes it easy to switch over entire regions to digital operation at a fixed date. The following options will be available: an integrated GPS module, an internal DVB-T receiver for retransmitter or monitoring applications, an SNMP agent, or a parallel interface as a remote interface. The instruments are either locally operated via a display and keyboard or remotely via a web browser and laptop. They support the N+1 (including 1+1) standby configuration, which is especially beneficial for digital networks. At IBC, Rohde & Schwarz will also premiere the R&S SFE broadcast tester, a multistandard signal generator for all analog and digital TV standards as well as various sound broadcasting standards. The R&S SFE combines an RF modulator, a universal realtime coder, and baseband signal sources in one instrument. It can thus generate broadcast signals in the frequency range from 100 kHz to 2.5 GHz in realtime. Due to its modular design, the broadcast tester is able to ideally match any customer requirements. If required, for example, it can be equipped with a noise generator or a BER tester. The R&S SFE can be expanded by software options at any time. All this makes the R&S SFE a flexible and versatile instrument for lab applications, where it ideally complements the successful R&S SFU high-end broadcast test system. Its optimal price/performance ratio also makes the R&S SFE suitable for use in quality assurance and service. Its optional ARB generator function and its compact design allow the R&S SFE moreover to be used in production. In addition, the R&S SFE has been prepared for the future development of new standards. Users can easily and quickly incorporate any new standard by means of software without having to change the instrument's hardware. The press conference at IBC followed by a brunch will take place on Friday, September 7, 2007, at 11:00 a.m. at the Rohde & Schwarz booth.