Advanced video encapsulation formats for DVB-H broadcasting

Abstract

DVB-Handheld is the new adaptation of the successful Digital Video Broadcasting standard for terrestrial environments (DVB-T) that allows audiovisual content reception with compatible mobile terminals. Although many aspects of the standard were fixed during its definition [1], the final election on the video data encapsulation was left to the broadcasters. Nowadays most DVB-H terminals (including a growing number of adapted mobile phones and PDAs) are designed to provide basic compatibility with AVC/H.264 [2] raw streams over Realtime Transport Protocol (RTP) [3] and other encapsulation methods of the video are left for specific laboratory models. The use of encapsulation standards brings several advantages like in-depth multiplexing of several audio and video streams on the same channel, addition of live interactive information, easy inclusion of subtitles, additional error protection, etc. Since a lot of encapsulation standards have been released in the past years, and each one of them has its own characteristics to suit different technical environments, the election between them is not obvious. In this paper we shall analyze the exiting standards on encapsulation and develop several test (real, with a complete DVB-H platform, and simulated, with a PC based programmable environment) to achieve conclusions on which encapsulation format is more suitable to be used in DVB-H broadcasting so its adoption by the consumer electronics market and mobile terminals manufacturers can be achieved with the lowest cost assumptions.