DVB-T and DVB-T2 Performance in Fixed
Terrestrial TV Channels
Ladislav Polak and Tomas Kratochvil
Abstract—This paper deals with the DVB-T (Digital Video
Broadcasting-Terrestrial) and DVB-T2 (DVB-2nd Generation
Terrestrial) standards and their transmission performance in
fixed TV channels. For the analysis and simulation of
performance of both standards, classical Ricean and Rayleigh
multipath fading channels with 20 independent paths were used.
Simulation results of the BER (Bit Error Ratio) before and after
FEC (Forward Error Correction) decoding were evaluated and
compared for DVB-T and DVB-T2 standards. Dependences of
MER (Modulation Error Ratio) on C/N (Carrier-to-Noise Ratio)
were also obtained for both standards. Moreover, optimal
configuration of the new DVB-T2 system for broadcasting of
HDTV (High Definition Television) services was explored.
Appropriate applications for these simulations were developed
in MATLAB. Finally, achieved results are evaluated and clearly
discussed.
Keywords—DVB-T, DVB-T2, channel coding, FEC, terrestrial
channel, fixed channel, fading profile, BER, MER.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE DVB-T (Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial) is a
DVB European-based consortium standard for the
broadcast and transmission of DTT (Digital Terrestrial
Television) that was published in 1997 as ETSI (European
Telecommunications Standards Institute) standard EN
300 744 [1]. This document specifies the framing structure,
channel coding and modulation for the DTT.
DVB-T is a very flexible system that allows networks to be
designed for the delivery of a wide range of services, from
SDTV (Standard Definition Television) to HDTV (High
DTV) [1]-[3]. Standard also allows mobile and fixed
reception. Nowadays, it is the most widely deployed digital
television system worldwide with services on air that is used
in many countries around the Europe.
DVB-T uses OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing) [1]-[3] modulation with effective FEC
(Forward Error Correction). This type of modulation uses a
large number of subcarriers and delivers a robust signal that
This paper was supported by the grant projects of the Czech Science
Foundation no. 102/10/1320 “Research and modeling of advanced methods
of image quality evaluation (DEIMOS)”, MEYS of the Czech Republic
national project no. LD12005 “Quality of Experience aspects of broadcast
and broadband multimedia services (QUALEXAM)”,
no. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0007 “Wireless Communication Team (WICOMT)”,
financed from the operational program Education for competitiveness and by
the internal grant of BUT project FEKT-S-11-12 (MOBYS). The described
research was also performed in laboratories supported by the SIX project;
no.CZ.1.05/2.1.00/03.0072, the operational program Research and
Development for Innovation.
L. Polák and T. Kratochvíl are with the Department of Radio Electronics,
Brno University of Technology, Purkynova 118, 612 00 Brno, Czech
Republic (e-mail: xpolak18@stud.feec.vutbr.cz; kratot@feec.vutbr.cz).
978-1-4673-1118-2/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE 725
has the ability to deal with various transmission channel
conditions. Thank to this technique the reception of
broadcasted TV signal is much easier in environment with
bad channel conditions (echoes, signal delays, etc.).
Based on recent research results and a set of commercial
requirements, the DVB consortium concluded that there are
suitable technologies, which could provide increase of
capacity and robustness in the terrestrial environment, mainly
for the HDTV broadcasting. Therefore, a new standard,
namely DVB-T2 (DVB-2nd Generation Terrestrial), has been
designed primarily for fixed transmissions with the same
spectrum characteristics, as are in the DVB-T [4]-[6]. The
latest DVB-T2 standard seems to be the world’s most
advanced DTT system, offering higher efficiency, robustness
and flexibility in comparison with DVB-T. The innovations
and new techniques in signal processing make DVB-T2 at
least 50 % more efficient than DVB-T.
The differences between the present (DVB-T) and
upcoming (DVB-T2) standards for terrestrial broadcasting are
significant. DVB-T2 uses an advanced and very flexible FEC
scheme coding, offers a very robust signal [4]. Several new
option parameters are available in DVB-T2 standard, in
contrast with DVB-T, such as the number of transmission
modes (1K, 4K, 16K and 32K), and GI (Guard Interval) sizes
(19/256, 18/128, and 1/128) [5].
In this paper, the investigation is focused on the
comparison of the DVB-T and DVB-T2 standards from the
perspective of transmission distortions in the classical, fixed
fading channels and their models. These channel models and
their profiles, so called Ricean (RC20) and Rayleigh (RL20),
are theoretical channel profiles for simulation, without
Doppler shift. For the transmission analysis, in case of fixed
reception scenarios, RC20 and RL20 channels with twenty
(20) paths are convenient and they are usually used for
C/N (Carrier-to-Noise Ratio) performance evaluation [4].
Moreover, the contribution contains the results of MATLAB
application, which allows DVB-T2 transmission for
requirements of HDTV broadcasting (256QAM, 32K mode,
3/5 code rate, 1/16 guard interval length) to be analyzed.
The structure of this paper is organized as follows.
After the introduction, brief descriptions of the general,
functional block diagrams of both standards are clearly
presented in Section II. The parameters and typical scenarios
for the analysis and simulation are presented in Section III.
Section IV contains the graphical dependences of the BER
(Bit Error Ratio) before and after Viterbi decoding (DVB-T)
and before and after LDPC decoding (DVB-T2) on C/N ratio.
This section also contains the dependences of MER
(Modulation Error Ratio) on C/N for both standards. Finally,
the results are evaluated and discussed in Section V.
TSP 2012
Fig. 1. Functional block diagram of the DVB-T transmitter.
II. OVERVIEW OT THE DVB-T AND DVB-T2 STANDARDS
A. DVB-T Standard
The structure of the transmitter follows common DVB-T
transmitter block diagram, as shown in Fig. 1. Details of the
following blocks are briefly described below.
At the input, the data are randomized to ensure adequate
binary transitions. To achieve energy dispersal, PRBS
(Pseudo Random Binary Sequence) [1] is first generated and
then mixed with the data stream by means of an XOR
(Exclusive OR) operation, which breaks up long sequence of
ones or zeros [2].
The next stage contains FEC encoder blocks and
puncturing. Firstly, the outer and so called, RS (Reed-
Solomon) encoder [1] is applied. This encoder RS (204,188)
adds 16 correction bytes to 188 input bytes and it is able to
correct up to 8 erroneous bytes. After that, the data are
interleaved. An outer interleaver is a convolutional [1], [2].
The outer interleaver is followed by the inner encoder, so
called, convolutional encoder. The generator polynomials are
G1=171OCT and G2=133OCT. If necessary, the error protection
can be controlled by puncturing, e.g. the data rate can be
lowered again by selectively omitting bits [1], [2]. The next
block, inner interleaving, is divided into two steps: bit and
symbol interleaving. The input stream is demultiplexed into ν
sub-streams, depending of the modulation used: ν = 2 for
QPSK, ν = 4 for 16QAM and ν = 6 for 64QAM. Symbol
interleaving is performed as bit-wise interleaved sub-stream.
The purpose of the symbol interleaver is to map ν bit words
onto the 1512 (2K mode) or 6048 (8K mode) active carriers
per OFDM symbol. After previously mentioned FEC blocks,
symbols from output inner interleaver are ready to modulate
into QPSK, 16QAM or 64QAM constellations.
Transmission frame adaptation block has to divide
modulated stream, carrying useful data, into OFDM symbols
and to add the pilots and signaling carriers. Once we have
OFDM symbols assembled and converted to the time domain
by IFFT (Inverse Fast Fourier Transformation) operation,
guard interval can be inserted. The end part of each symbol is
copied to the beginning of the present symbol.
Real and imaginary parts of the OFDM signal
are upsampled and filtered with RRC (Root Raised Cosine
filter with roll-off factor equal to 0.35. At this point we have
now prepared DVB-T signal, which can be transmitted.
726
Fig. 2. Functional block diagram of the DVB-T2 transmitter.
B. DVB-T2 Standard
The structure of the transmitter follows common DVB-T2
transmitter block diagram, as shown in Fig. 2. And again,
details of the following blocks are shortly described below.
As can be seen in Fig. 2, the first module of such a system
is the input processing module. This module converts the
input data stream into DVB-T2 baseband frames
(BBFRAMES). The baseband frames shall be processed by
the FEC coding subsystem [4]-[7].
The first remarkable novelty can be found in the advanced
error correction scheme. DVB-T2 uses LDPC (Low Density
Parity Check) coding, combined with BCH (Bose-
Chaudhuri-Hocquengham) coding, which offer excellent
performance resulting in a very robust signal reception [6].
The output of encoded data should be bit interleaved, which
consists of parity interleaving, followed by so called column
twist interleaving [4].
The bit interleaved data are then mapped to coded and
modulated FEC blocks by the map bits onto constellation
module. Of course, in DVB-T2 standard, how it is in DVB-T
too, Gray mapping is used. DVB-T2 system also allows an
optional module, so called constellation rotation with cyclic
Q-delay. This is a novel technique to resist the transmission
channel with deep fadings [4]-[7].
After the mapping, cell and time interleavers are the next
stage. Cell interleaver spreads the cell words of a FEC block.
In the block of time interleaver, cells of groups of FEC
blocks, making up T1-blocks [1], which turn make up
interleaving frames, are interleaved.
Cell-mapper assembles the modulated cells into arrays
corresponding to OFDM symbols. The next block is a
frequency interleaver. The purpose of the frequency
interleaver, operating on the data cells of one OFDM symbol,
is to map the data cells from the frame builder onto available
data carriers (depending on the OFDM modes – 1K, 2K, 4K,
8K, 16K and 32K) in each symbol [4].
As seen in Fig. 2, next block, as in case of DVB-T, is the
OFDM frame adaptation. The function of this block is the
same as in DVB-T. And again, after the signal conversion
from frequency to time domain (IFFT operation), guard
interval can be inserted. After the carrier modulation (RRC
filtering and IQ modulation), DVB-T2 signal is prepared and
it can be transmitted in broadcasting network.
 0 0
10 10
AWGN AWGN
RC20 RC20
-1 -1
10 RL20 10 RL20
BER before Viterbi decoding[-]

BER before LDPC decoding[-]

-2 -2
10 10

-3 -3
10 10

-4 -4
10 10

-5 -5
10 10

-6 -6
10 10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
C/N [dB] C/N [dB]

Fig. 3. Fixed reception scenario (64QAM, mode 8K, CR 2/3 and GI 1/8) Fig. 6. Fixed reception scenario (64QAM, mode 8K, CR 2/3 and GI 1/8)
and DVB-T performance (BER before Viterbi decoding as a function and DVB-T2 performance (BER before LDPC decoding as a function
of C/N ratio) in classical TV channel profiles. of C/N ratio) in classical TV channel profiles.

0 0
10 10
AWGN AWGN
RC20 RC20
-1 -1
10 RL20 10 RL20
BER after Viterbi decoding[-]

BER after LDPC decoding[-]

-2 -2
10 10

-3 -3
10 10

QEF
-4 -4
10 10

-5
10
-5
10
QEF

-6 -6
10 10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
C/N [dB] C/N [dB]

Fig. 4. Fixed reception scenario (64QAM, mode 8K, CR 2/3 and GI 1/8) Fig. 7. Fixed reception scenario (64QAM, mode 8K, CR 2/3 and GI 1/8)
and DVB-T performance (BER after Viterbi decoding as a function and DVB-T2 performance (BER after LDPC decoding as a function
of C/N ratio) in classical TV channel profiles. of C/N ratio) in classical TV channel profiles.

35 35
AWGN AWGN
RC20 RC20
30 30
RL20 RL20

25 25

20 20
MER [dB]

MER [dB]

MIN
15 15
MIN
10 10

5 5

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
C/N [dB] C/N [dB]

Fig. 5. Fixed reception scenario (64QAM, mode 8K, CR 2/3 and GI 1/8) Fig. 8. Fixed reception scenario (64QAM, mode 8K, CR 2/3 and GI 1/8)
and DVB-T performance (MER as a function of C/N ratio) in classical TV and DVB-T2 performance (MER as a function of C/N ratio) in classical TV
channel profiles. channel profiles.

727
 0
III. SIMULATION PARAMETERS
10
AWGN
RC20
-1
10 RL20
A brief description of two block diagrams of transmitters
for DVB broadcasting standards, usable for fixed TV
BER before LDPC decoding[-]

-2
10
reception, was presented in the previous chapter. As it can be
seen, DVB-T2, in comparison with DVB-T, offers more types
-3
10
of system parameters and configurations (new code rates,
OFDM modes, modulations, etc.), therefore the possibility of
-4
settings of transmission modes are much higher.
10
The performance of the DVB-T and DVB-T2 has been
-5
simulated during the development of the standard, with two
10
channel models for fixed reception, (RC20) and (RL20),
-6
respectively. These are theoretical channel profiles
10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 for simulation, without Doppler shift [2], [5]. More details
C/N [dB]
about the applied parameters (path delay, path loss and phase
Fig. 9. Fixed reception scenario (256QAM, mode 32K, CR 3/5 and GI 1/16)
shift) can be found in [10]. Method of implementation of
and DVB-T2 performance (BER before LDPC decoding as a function these channel models into MATLAB is presented in [11].
of C/N ratio) in classical TV channel profiles. The settings, which were used for the simulation of the
transmission, are summarized in Table I.
0 TABLE I
10
AWGN
SETTINGS USED FOR THE FIXED TV TRANSMISSION
RC20
-1
10 RL20 Settings DVB-T DVB-T2
2/3 (RS+CR) 2/3 (LDPC+BCH)
Code Rate (CR)
3/5 (for HDTV)
BER after LDPC decoding[-]

-2
10
64QAM (fixed) 64QAM (fixed)
Modulation
256QAM (HDTV)
-3
10 8K (fixed) 8K (fixed)
OFDM
32K (HDTV)
1/8 (large network) 1/8 (large network)
-4
10 Guard Interval
1/16 (mid network)
AWGN (reference)
QEF Channel Models
-5
10 RC20 and RL20 (fixed)
Viterbi LDPC
Method of Decoding
(hard decision) (50 iterations)
-6
10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
C/N [dB]
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS AND THEIR EVALUATION
Fig. 10. Fixed reception scenario (256QAM, mode 32K, CR 3/5 and
GI 1/16) and DVB-T2 performance (BER after LDPC decoding as a function
Simulation results of the fixed TV transmission in the
of C/N ratio) in classical TV channel profiles. DVB-T and DVB-T2 standards for a varying C/N ratio in the
Gaussian channel (AWGN) and in the fixed (RC20, RL20)
fading channels are in Fig. 3 to Fig. 8.
35 The QEF (Quasi Error-Free) [2] operation is defined
AWGN
RC20
as a bit error rate after Viterbi decoding less or equal to 2·10-4
30
RL20 [11]. Then the BER after Reed-Solomon decoding is less or
equal to 1·10-11. The QEF is used in DVB-T standard for the
25
video service availability without noticeable blockiness in the
20
video. For the DVB-T2 standard the definition of QEF is a bit
MER [dB]

different. As mentioned above, DVB-T2 uses concatenated

MIN
15 LDPC and BCH encoding/decoding. These codes assure
better protection, allowing more data to be transmitted
10 in a given channel, in comparison with DVB-T. In case of
DVB-T2 standard, generally, the limit of the error-free
5
reception (QEF) is considered as C/N, for which the BER is
equal to 1.10-7 after LDPC decoding [5]. In this paper, the
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 limit of the QEF reception is considered as C/N for which
C/N [dB]
BER is equal to 1.10-5 after LDPC decoding, as it is used in
Fig. 11. Fixed reception scenario (256QAM, mode 32K, CR 3/5 and [12]. The number of iterations in LDPC decoding (DVB-T2)
GI 1/16) and DVB-T2 performance (MER as a function of C/N ratio) is depending on the hardware complexity of the receiver.
in classical TV channel profiles. In this paper, the number of iterations equals to fifty (50),
as recommended in [5].

728
 TABLE II
COMPARISON OF THE C/N FOR ACHIEVING THE QEF IN DVB-T AND DVB-T2
STANDARDS
DVB-T DVB-T2
Scenario Modulation Channel
C/N [dB] C/N [dB]
AWGN 14.9 6.9
Fixed
64QAM RC20 16.5 7.6
(8K mode)
RL20 23.0 19.0
AWGN - 13.0
Fixed-HDTV
256QAM RC20 - 14.0
(32K mode)
RL20 - 23.0
Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 illustrate BER before and after Viterbi
decoding in Gaussian and fixed fading channels (RC20 and
RL20) for DVB-T transmission. For the data transmission in
the fixed scenario, 8K OFDM mode and 64QAM modulation
were used. How it was presented in [10], both channel
profiles, RC20 and RL20, are very similar. One main
difference between them is the availability of the direct path.
The RC20 channel model contains a direct path, but RL20
channel has only echoes (without direct path). Therefore,
to achieve QEF limit in RC20 channel it is needed only C/N =
16.5 dB. For RC20 channel this value is higher, concretely
C/N = 23.0 dB.
The MER is a measure for evaluation used to quantify the
performance of a digital transmitter or receiver in a
communications system using digital modulation [9]. In the
area of DVB, it is a measure of the sum of all interference
effects, occurring in the transmission link. Dependences of
the MER on C/N in the DVB-T system for all type of
channels are shown in Fig. 5. The minimal value MIN [1],
which is necessary to achieve the QEF, is defined in Section
IV and marked in the graphs by dashed line.
Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 illustrate BER before and after LDPC
decoding in Gaussian and fixed fading channels for DVB-T2
transmission. As described in introduction, DVB-T2 uses
concatenate LDPC and BCH coding. These codes assure a
better protection in comparison of the RS and convolutional
coding, which are used in DVB-T standard. Thank to this
configuration, for achieving a good signal quality; a lower
C/N ratio is needed. In case, when RC20 channel model is
used, C/N = 7.6 dB is needed. For RL20 channel this value is
higher again, it is equals to C/N = 19.0 dB.
Dependences of the MER on C/N in the DVB-T2 system
for all type of channels were obtained too (see Fig. 8). MER
is again descending by decreasing value of C/N in all cases.
Generally, higher MER means less fading in the transmission.
In addition to previous simulations, the dependences of
BER before and after LDPC decoding on C/N ratio are shown
in the Fig. 9 to Fig. 11, when recommended HDTV
transmission mode for DVB-T2 was simulated. From the
results it is clear that DVB-T2, thanks to the latest
improvements in signal processing and FEC, allows
successful HDTV broadcasting with minimal C/N
requirements and, at the same time and in the same
transmission channel as in case of DVB-T, with higher bit
rate.
The differences in BER results for the all investigated
transmission scenarios and channel types for both standards
are also illustratively compared and summarized in Table II.
729
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper the performance of the DVB-T and DVB-T2
standards in classical fixed TV channel models were
explored. Dependences of the BER before and after Viterbi
decoding (DVB-T) and before and after LDPC decoding
(DVB-T2) on C/N ratio were evaluated for the Gaussian
channel, as the reference, and for two classical fixed fading
channels RC20 and RL20. Obtained results were evaluated
and discussed in Section IV.
As can be seen, there are very big differences between the
results. In case of DVB-T2, the results are much better than in
transmission of DVB-T. The reason is that the performance
of LDPC codes (DVB-T2) can be significantly improved by
increasing the number of decoding iterations. In this paper, as
it is recommended in [5], the number of decoding iterations
was equal to 50. On the other hand, this number is depending
on the hardware complexity of the receiver [5]. In many
cases, it is not important to use the recommended number of
decoding iterations. Therefore, in the future work, the
dependences of the BER on the number of decoding iterations
should be better explored.
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