Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting: Encyclopedia II - Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Introduction

Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Introduction

ISDB is maintained by ARIB. The standards can be obtained for free at the DiBEG website and at ARIB.

The core standards of ISDB are ISDB-S (satellite television), ISDB-T(terrestrial), ISDB-C (cable) and 2.6GHz band mobile broadcasting which are all based on MPEG-2 video and audio coding as well as the transport stream described by the MPEG-2 standard, and are capable of high definition television (HDTV). ISDB-T and ISDB-Tsb are for mobile reception in TV bands.

The concept was named for its similarity to ISDN, because both allow multiple channels of data to be transmitted together (a process called multiplexing). This is also much like another digital radio system, Eureka 147, which calls each group of stations on a transmitter an ensemble; this is very much like the multi-channel digital TV standards ATSC and DVB-T. ISDB-T operates on unused TV channels, an approach taken by other countries for TV but never before for radio.

Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Video and audio compression

ISDB has adopted the MPEG-2 video and audio compression system. ATSC and DVB also adopted the same system.

Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Transmission

The various flavors of ISDB differ mainly in the modulations used, due to the requirements of different frequency bands. The 12 GHz band ISDB-S uses PSK modulation, 2.6 GHz band digital sound broadcasting uses CDM and ISDB-T (in VHF and/or UHF band) uses COFDM with PSK/QAM.

Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Interaction

Besides audio and video transmission, ISDB also defines data connections (Data broadcasting) with the internet as a return channel over several media (10Base-T/100Base-T, Telephone line modem, Mobile phone, Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11) etc.) and with different protocols. This is used, for example, for interactive interfaces like data broadcasting (ARIB STD B-24) and electronic program guides (EPG).

Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Interfaces and Encryption

ISDB describes a lot of (network) interfaces, but most importantly the Common Interface for Conditional Access (ARIB STD-B25) with the Common Scrambling Algorithm (Multi-2) required for (de-)scrambling TV.

The ISDB CAS system is operated by a company named B-CAS in Japan; the CAS card is called B-CAS card. The Japanese ISDB signal is always encrypted by the B-CAS system even if it is a free TV program. That is why it is commonly called "Pay per view system without charge". An interface for mobile reception is under consideration.

ISDB supports RMP (Rights management and protection). Since all DTV systems carry digital data content, a DVD or HD recorder could easily copy content losslessly, so that a great deal of pirated content could be circulating the market. Hollywood requested copy protection; this was the main reason for RMP. The content has three modes: “Copy once”, “Copy free” and “Copy never”. In “Copy once” mode a program can be stored on a hard disc recorder, but cannot be copied.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Introduction", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki