Motorola and NDS. Digital TV in Europe.........
NDS helps craft front-end device for expanding
terrestrial-broadcast market -- Motorola attacks
over-the-air DTV in Europe
August 4, 1998
ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING TIMES via NewsEdge
Corporation : Munich, Germany - Motorola Inc. and
U.K-based NDS Corp. have co-developed a
single-chip front-end device for the European digital
terrestrial television market, which analysts believe
is set to take off.
NDS, an 1,100-employee affiliate of Rupert
Murdoch's News Corp., has become a world leader
in video-compression and conditional-access
technology. NDS first brought its experience with
Europe's digital video broadcast (DVB) standard to a
tuner-demodulator implemented in an FPGA.
Later, working with Motorola's digital-video-design
team here, NDS crafted a three-piece chip set that
went on the market early this year, gaining design
wins at eight of the largest players in the TV and
set-top box field. The three-chip set has been rolled
into a single IC, which Motorola plans to sell for
about $20 in volume quantities.
Dataquest analyst Jon Cassell said that by 2002 the
digital terrestrial set-top box market in Europe will
nearly equal the satellite set-top market, at 5.75
million units for digital terrestrial set-tops and 5.87
million for set-top boxes bringing in a satellite signal.
Based on a form of spread-spectrum technology not
unlike CDMA, Europe's DVB standard carves 8-MHz
of bandwidth into a 2K version, with 2,048
sub-carriers, to support domestic fixed-receiver TV
services, and an 8K version to support not only the
fixed-receiver services but also the broadcasting of
traffic and other information to mobile terminals.
Peter Hartig, strategic business manager for DVB
front-end products at Motorola's Munich operation,
said the 2K version being introduced now is capable
of decoding the DVB-T (terrestrial) 2K carrier, which
will be used in the United Kingdom starting this
autumn. Germany and other markets-eyeing mobile
delivery of digital video to motorists as well as
domestic services-will use an 8K signal. Motorola
will begin selling a more-complex-and
more-expensive-2K/8K receiver by the middle of next
year, using a 0.25-micron process.
While most equipment vendors currently use a
daughter-card to house the front-end components,
some vendors may use the single-chip IC directly
inside the tuner "can," further cutting costs, Hartig
said.
NDS engineers have worked on both the
transmission and reception portions of the digital
terrestrial equation. Alps Electric Corp. (Tokyo),
which produces television-tuner sub-assemblies,
also worked with NDS to prepare digital terrestrial
TV (DTTV) tuners. Europe's DVB standard is a
comprehensive set of specifications that cover
satellite, cable and terrestrial broadcasting of digital
signals.
In the terrestrial form, DVB-T, it is a well-detailed
implementation of coded orthogonal frequency
division multiplex (COFDM) demodulation. The
partners had to deal with details of the specification
during the actual implementation of the front-end
solution. The noisy environment of terrestrial
broadcasting-compared with cable or satellite-was a
major technical challenge, Hartig said.
LSI Logic, working with the British Broadcasting
Corp., and Siemens, working with Nokia,
STMicroelectronics and others, are developing
integrated front-end solutions as well, and may be
ready by the time the market hits large volumes.
Jerry Kaufhold, principal analyst for multimedia and
digital-TV applications at In-Stat Inc. (Scottsdale,
Ariz.) said a consortium of British broadcasters have
joined to form British Digital Broadcasting, which will
field several digital channels this autumn.
That group recently changed its name to On Digital
as a marketing move prior to launching its
15-channel pay-to-view service in November. On
Digital will face heavy competition from British Sky
Broadcasting (BSkyB), which plans to offer 200
digital channels via satellite. BSkyB, which is linked
through a minority stake to Rupert Murdoch's
broadcasting empire, has already started to offer
conversion deals from analog to digital to its analog
satellite-service customers and is preparing for an
advertising blitz in the autumn.
Kaufhold at In-Stat and Cassell at Dataquest said
the European television market is primed for DTTV.
Cable is not as ubiquitous in Europe as it is in the
United States, and it is less expensive to build
digital-transmission towers than to deploy a cable
network.
DTTV faces its biggest challenge from the transition
to digital of analog satellite broadcasts, which are
already widely received in Europe.
Kaufhold said the COFDM approach is "a very
robust way to send data in a potentially noisy
environment."
Hartig said the possibility of using DTTV for Internet
access, or for interactive applications, remains
"nebulous." Though there is "a lot of discussion
about how much interactivity consumers will need, it
is up to the service providers to become more
aggressive" in coming up with services for which
customers will pay.
Nevertheless, Kaufhold noted, the DVB standard
allows service providers to write applications that
adhere to the standard. The potential inherent in the
huge television market will ensure that new ideas
will be forthcoming, he said.
Cassell noted that Europe's emphasis has been to
get a digital signal out to standard-definition TVs,
rather than linking DTV to the high-definition
displays as in the United States. That will help keep
the costs down on DTVs and digital set-top boxes, a
major reason why DTTV (and digital satellite
broadcasting) could penetrate the market fairly
quickly, he said.
However, the initial degree of penetration is
expected to be a function of broadcasters'
willingness to compete in subsidizing set-top-box
prices and the attractiveness of their programming
and additional interactive services. The generally
touted entry point for set-top purchase prices is
about $325, close to the cost of manufacture in
initial runs.
Most Europeans are used to free terrestrial TV
services, while some pay for special channels on
satellite and cable. It is generally acknowledged that
the way to get people to subscribe to television
services is by carefully managing the resentment
caused by gaining exclusive rights to broadcast
"must-view " programming. In Europe, soccer is a
key to this, and while technology, such as
Motorola's, is the enabler, it is likely to be content
that determines the success of digital TV.
-With additional reporting by Peter Clarke.
Copyright - 1998 CMP Media Inc.
<<ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING TIMES -- 08-03-98,
p. PG10>>
===========================
Another release on the same subject
===========================
Motorola Delivers First True Single-Chip Front-end
Solution for Digital Terrestrial TV
August 4, 1998
MUNICH, GERMANY--(BUSINESS WIRE) via
NewsEdge Corporation -- What is believed to be the
world's first Single-Chip Front-end Solution for the
Digital Terrestrial Television (DTTV) market has been
introduced by Motorola's Semiconductor Products
Sector.
The device is a result of the long term development
partnership between the two companies NDS and
Motorola.
With this chip, digital set-top box and TV
manufacturers have a cost-effective solution to bring
Terrestrial TV products to market quickly. The UK
will launch DTTV by the end of 1998 and many
European broadcasters and Japan plan to deploy
digital terrestrial programs over the next few years.
NDS is a recognized leader in digital video
compression and conditional access.
The new DTTV chip, MC92314DH, provides the
necessary functionality to demodulate and decode
DVB-T 2K carrier compliant broadcast signals. The
device includes three major blocks: a 2K Coded
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (COFDM)
Demodulation, a 2K-mode Fast Fourier Transform
(2K-FFT) processing and Forward Error Correction
(FEC).
The digital terrestrial broadcast signals will be
received and demodulated using the DVB-T
specification. The output is an MPEG-2 stream for
use in digital TV sets or set-top boxes. The device is
manufactured by Motorola.
"The single-chip receiver is based on our three-chip
terrestrial solution OFDM demodulator, FFT
processor and FEC device which was introduced
beginning this year," says John Round, Motorola's
director of consumer broadcast Europe. "We have
won major design-ins in set-top boxes at leading
suppliers. Now we can offer a more cost effective
implementation with better performance."
Motorola plans to have the 2K/8K Single-Chip
Receiver ready for the European market by the end
of the year. This device will be pin-compatible with
the MC92314DH. Motorola's customers can then
select between the two chips, a 2K and a 2K/8K
receiver. If the application does not need the 8K
implementation, the lower cost 2K device with a
reduced die size can be implemented.
First samples of the MC92314 device together with
its evaluation board are being supplied to beta site
customers now. Volume production for the 2K
one-chip solution is planned for December 1998.
Motorola plans to price the chip at sub $20 for
volume purchase. The 2K/8K demodulator chip will
be demonstrated before the end of this year for the
wider European Digital Terrestrial TV roll out.
About Motorola
As the world's No. 1 producer of embedded
processors, Motorola's Semiconductor Products
Sector offers multiple DigitalDNA(TM) solutions
which enable its customers in the consumer,
networking and computing, transportation, and
wireless communications markets, to create new
business opportunities. Motorola's semiconductor
sales were US$8.0 billion in l997.
In the global marketplace, Motorola also is one of
the leading providers of wireless communications,
advanced electronic systems, components, and
services. Major equipment businesses include
cellular telephone, two-way radio, paging and data
communications, personal communications,
automotive, defense and space electronics and
computers. Corporate sales in 1997 were $29.8
billion.
For additional information, please visit Motorola's
Website at: mot.com
About NDS
NDS, headquartered in the UK, with operations
worldwide, provides end-to-end solutions for digital
broadcasting through the company's research,
development and manufacturing activities. NDS is a
recognized leader in digital video compression and
conditional access, and has proven systems
integration and global support capabilities.
NDS is providing its advanced technologies,
products and services to many of the current and
planned satellite and terrestrial broadcasting
systems around the world. In addition, over 9 million
subscribers around the globe use NDS conditional
access systems to receive pay TV satellite and
cable services.
NDS plays a major part in developing open systems
and the international standards for the digital
broadcasting arena, providing the technology and
market know-how to implement standards such as
MPEG-2 DVB, ATSC, SMPTE and DTTV. The
company continues to make a major commitment to
R&D, with over 700 of its 1,350 employees
dedicated to its pioneering development work at
research centres in Israel and the UK.
NDS is a subsidiary of News Corporation (NWS) a
leading global media company. NDS has won many
awards for technology including an Emmy from the
National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
and three Queen's Awards, one for Technology and
one for Export in 1996 and the award for Export in
1998.
NDS is on the World-Wide-Web at:
ndsworld.com
DigitalDNA is a trademark of Motorola Inc.
CONTACT: USA | Jeff Gorin/Angela Hatfield
(Editorial Contact) | 602-952-3854/3856 (Phone) |
602-952-3392 (Fax) | rfjn30@email.sps.mot.com | or
| ASIA/PACIFIC | Lulu Wong, 8-522-6668755 |
8-522-6666123 (Fax) | r41242@email.sps.mot.com |
or | EUROPE | Rosemarie Krause, 49-89-92103-442
(Phone) | 49-89-92103 695 (Fax) |
ttg330@email.sps.mot.com | or | USA | James
Stansberry (Reader Contact), | 602-755-2782
(Phone) | 602-755-255 (Fax) |
rrsd20@email.sps.mot.com |
