SBTVD

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SBTVD, short for Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão Digital (English: Brazilian Digital Television System) is a proposed digital television standard for Brazil. Developed by an association including Brazilian government, Brazilian universities and communication companies, the system was presented in 13 November 2005 by Hélio Costa, Minister of Communications of Lula government.

[edit] History

[edit] ABERT/SET tests

Before SBTVD, from 1999 to 2000, the ABERT/SET group in Brazil did system comparison tests of DTV under the supervision of the CPqD foundation. The comparison tests were done under the direction of a work group of SET and ABERT. The ABERT/SET group selected ISDB-T as the best system among ATSC, DVB-T and ISDB-T. The outdoor coverage of field-tests result in "Brazilian digital television tests" show that ISDB-T is most robust system in Brazil.

ABERT/SET Brazilian digital television tests

[edit] SBTVD

Brazil government founded the SBTVD committee on November 27, 2003.

As of February, 2006, negotiations are being done to decide whether SBTVD will be compatible with ATSC, the American system, DVB-T, the European system or ISDB-T, the Japanese system. The latter is currently used in Japanese largest metropolitan areas and is publicly preferred by Costa and by Brazilian television companies.

The preference is due to the portability(e.g. 1seg) of this standard allowing people watch TV in portable devices, as cellular phones. This is one of the four requirements made by the Brazilian government for the intended system, the others being high definition, interactive TV and mobile reception of HDTV or SDTV on motor vehicle.

June, 2006: Brazil has announced that ISDB-T modulation will be used as the base for SBTVD. Video and audio compression systems are still being decided, but it has been suggested that SBTVD will adopt MPEG-4. Under the current plan, Brazilian TV stations are to start their SBTVD rollout by December 2007. Analog shutdown is expected to take place in 2016.

It is likely that other South American countries such as Argentina and Venezuela adopt SBTVD to benefit from possible synergies and regional parts supply (within the Mercosur common market).