Measurement of DVB-S and DVB-S2 parameters

Abstract

Satellite television is probably most used satellite technology today. One of the biggest providers is the ASTRA system of geostationary satellites. Television satellite standard widely used is the DVB-S which established a unified standard for a satellite transmission accepted both by customers as well as the industry. Standard DVB-S2 has improvements in efficiency (bits/Hz) and adaptive as well as variable coding and modulation. While DVB-S digital satellite standard has constant modulation and coding, standard DVB-S2 can adopt both modulation and coding depending on the weather conditions, channel interference, etc. Both technologies still co-exist today. This paper analyses the parameters of both DVB-S and DVB-S2 standards such as bit error rate, modulation error rate, signal to noise ratio and signal level in different weather conditions. The measurements were performed in clear sky, clouds and rain conditions. They included extensive coverage of digital video signal in thirty different weather conditions. The results showed that DVB-S2 standard performs similar to DVB-S standard in clear sky conditions as well as cloudy weather, while for rain DVB-S2 excels. Bit error rate for DVB-S2 standard stayed the same regardless of weather conditions and about four orders of magnitude compared to DVB-S standard.