ISDB-Tb is the short for International System for Digital Broadcast, Terrestrial, Brazilian version.
It is a Digital TV system based on Japanese ISDB-T (Integrated System for Digital Broadcast, Terrestrial). ISDB-Tb system is also known as SBTVD (Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão Digital — Brazilian System for Digital Television in English) and is used in Brazil. Argentina, Chile, Peru, Venezuela and most recently Bolivia, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Uruguay have decided to adopt ISDB-Tb.
ISDB-Tb was developed by a Work Group composed by members of Brazilian Ministry of Communications, National Agency for Telecommunications (ANATEL), Brazilian Institute for Information Technology (ITI), Technology Development and Research Center (CPqD), several Brazilian Universities, R&D institutes, Organizations related to the matter (broadcast professionals association, broadcast companies association, etc.) and electro-electronics manufacturers.
Basically ISDB-Tb differs from original Japanese ISDB-T by using MPEG-4 (H.264) as video compression system and a middleware called Ginga composed by procedural (Ginga-J — Java portion) and declarative (Ginga-NCL — NCL/Lua portion) modules that allow more complex interactive TV programs.
Implementation of ISDB-Tb (SBTVD) is being relatively successful and in 16 months has implemented digital transmission in 50% of Brazilian territory. Nevertheless, on most locations the transmission is still limited to only one channel and most of the broadcasting is not yet made in High Definition, except for some soccer matches and soap operas.