FEATURE: STATUS: International research and standardisation activities in Editorial, Tore Øvensen 3 telecommunication: Introduction, Endre Skolt 73 The technical development of broadcasting in recent The TINA Consortium, Tom Handegård 74 years and towards year 2000 – Special emphasis on the conditions in Norway, Tore Øvensen 5 Telecommunications languages and methods, Arve Meisingset 81 Perceptual audio coding for digital sound broadcasting, Erik Bernatek 13 Message Handling Systems, Geir Thorud 86 Digital Sound Broadcasting Security, Sverre Walseth 89 – Transmission Systems and Terrestrial Networks, Eivind Vågslid Skjæveland 20 Digital Audio Broadcasting: Terrestrial transmission experiments in Norway, Rolf Møkleby 26 Radio production – evolution towards an all digital environment, Are Nundal 31 Television production – evolution towards all digital systems, Per Bøhler 35 Digital Television based on MPEG2 – Activity in Norway, Gisle Bjøntegaard 44 HD-DIVINE – a Scandinavian Digital Television System, Per Appelquist 49 Optical Routing Systems in Radio and Television Production Centres, Bjørn M Elgstøen 55 Olympic Host Broadcaster Operations, Arild Hellgren and Helene Amlie 65 Telektronikk Editorial office: Telektronikk Norwegian Telecom Research RESEARCH Volume 90 No. 2 - 1994 P.O. Box 83 ISSN 0085-7130 N-2007 Kjeller, Norway Editor: Editorial board: Ola Espvik Ole P Håkonsen, Senior Executive Vice President Tel. + 47 63 80 98 83 Karl Klingsheim, Vice President, Research Bjørn Løken, Vice President, Market and Product Strategies Status section editor: Endre Skolt Graphic design: Tel. + 47 63 80 92 11 Design Consult AS Editorial assistant: Layout and illustrations: Gunhild Luke Gunhild Luke, Britt Kjus, Åse Aardal Tel. + 47 63 80 91 52 Norwegian Telecom Research 1 Guest editorial BY TORE ØVENSEN Sound broadcasting in Norway The national commercial pro- started as soon as technology grammes will never cover more made it possible. than about 95 % of the population – the price for reaching full cov- For most of this time, from 60 erage is too high. years back and up to the 1980’s, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting The broadcasting technique up to Corporation) has been the only now has mainly been based on public broadcaster in Norway both analogue technique, both in the for Radio and Television. The studios and on the transmission Norwegian Telecom has been side. responsible for the transmission network. During the next few years a radi- cal change to all-digital systems It has been an enormous task and will take place. Programme pro- very expensive to establish the duction, both in Radio and TV, is NRK national Radio and TV net- already partly digital and trans- work. This is due to the difficult mission systems based on bit topography with narrow valleys compression techniques will and fiords and a scattered popula- gradually replace FM sound tion. transmissions and PAL TV transmissions as we approach the Today, NRK provides one national turn of the century. TV channel, three national FM radio channels and an international The introduction of new digital medium wave and short wave service for Norwegians abroad. technology will also in the longer term give a change in picture format from the aspect ratio 4:3 to 16:9. This broad picture for- The TV network alone consists of 45 large VHF main transmit- mat was primarily developed for the next generation TV, HDTV ters and more than 2,500 repeaters for secondary coverage, giv- – High Definition Television. HDTV production facilities are ing a total coverage of about 99 % of the population. already available, but the introduction of the system for the pub- lic will most probably be put off until the beginning of the next The NRK main production centre for TV, Radio P2 and Radio century. The bottleneck is the delayed development of flat large Norway International is in Oslo, while the main production cen- screen HDTV receivers for the consumer market. tre for Radio P1 and P3 is in Trondheim. A total of 17 local pro- duction centres all over the country contributes to both local The developments mentioned above are a great technical chal- programmes and the national programmes for Radio and Televi- lenge and the following pages will give you more detailed infor- sion. mation of the new fascinating techniques. All programmes from NRK are also transmitted in the D-MAC You will sooner or later be familiar with the newcomers: system in the Nordic broadcasting satellite TELE-X. This dupli- - DAB – Digital Audio Broadcasting cation of transmission is mainly aimed at covering the Spitzber- gen islands and the Norwegian oil installations in the North Sea. - DVB – Digital Video Broadcasting - HDTV – High Definition Television. Today, NRK is not alone on the air. TV2, a commercial national Public Broadcaster, started television transmission in 1992. This edition of Telektronikk will also deal with an important Most of the TV2 terrestrial networks are based on programme event for the introduction of new TV production and transmis- feeding from a satellite (Intelsat) in the D2-MAC system. TV2 sion technology, the XVII Olympic Winter Games at Lilleham- is therefore also available at Spitzbergen and in the North Sea, mer in February of this year. and the satellite transmission gives also supplementary coverage of the Norwegian mainland. NRK, being the host broadcaster, decided to introduce as far as possible the digital 625 line production standard, and this event P4, a commercial FM Radio channel with national coverage, was a breakthrough for a large scale use of this standard and for started transmission in 1993. In addition, a large quantity of the transmission of the digital signals on fibre optic cables in the small local FM Radio stations have been established all over the Lillehammer region. country during the last 10 years. 3 4 The technical development of broadcasting in recent years and towards year 2000 – Special emphasis on the conditions in Norway BY TORE ØVENSEN 1 Introduction Kvitsøy near Stavanger, mainly for serv- 2.2 International broadcasting ing the Norwegian merchant fleet, the on short wave The general conditions for broadcasting fisheries in the North Sea and the Norwe- in Norway are rather extreme: The short wave bands allocated to broad- gian Sea, and Norwegians living and casting have been and will continue to be - The ground conductivity is very low travelling in Europe. Two more of the very important for international sound due to the mountains that consist assigned frequencies are in use, transmit- broadcasting. The international fre- mainly of the hard rock types gneiss ting at reduced power, Vigra Ålesund at quency conference, WARC 92, allocated and granite. The range of the ground 100 kW/MF and Kløfta/Oslo at more frequency bands for this service, waves for long and medium wave 200 kW/LF. These stations are old and but not sufficient to cover the require- transmitters are therefore low, and will probably never be replaced by 1200 ments for channels. Changing to single very high power transmitters are kW transmitters for the following rea- sideband transmission (SSB) will reduce needed to give satisfactory coverage. sons: the congestion in the bands and was - VHF and UHF radio and television - The investments needed are very high strongly recommended by WARC 92. transmission, which is nearly a line of and so are the running costs. But SSB means investments in new sight transmission, must fight against transmitters and will take a long time, - The technical quality is limited to high mountains and steep valleys. In especially in developing countries, mono sound and a maximum audio some parts of the country, fiords at the because of the high investment costs. bandwidth of 4.5 kHz. bottom of the valleys give reflections During the last 10 to 15 years NRK has from the water surface causing special - The NRK FM networks give nearly built two new short wave stations at problems. 100 % coverage, at least for stationary Kvitsøy/Stavanger, and Sveio/Haugesund reception. - The high latitude causes low elevation on the Norwegian west coast (Figure 1). angles for satellite broadcasting. The These two stations are complementary The existing AM network is far from suf- elevation angle is about 24 degrees in and jointly they cover all relevant trans- ficient for full coverage of the country, the south and about 10 degrees in the mission directions. The stations are but has some value as supplementary north of the main-land resulting in equipped with 500 kW transmitters and coverage for mobile reception, especially shadows in east-west going valleys. are also able to transmit in the SSB in West Norway, where the topography is Large buildings and trees can also modus. NRK has already used so-called a great problem for FM reception. cause trouble. compatible SSB transmission for some In the future, after the introduction of ter- years in the highest frequency bands. In - The radio link network for feeding restrial digital audio broadcasting (DAB), addition to the upper sideband, the carrier transmitters and for programme contri- some of our AM transmitters will still be is transmitted with a 6 dB power reduc- bution has an extension of about 2,000 important for the fishing fleet and for the tion. After a very long transition period, km in the south-north direction. This coverage of Europe. If DAB transmission lasting into the next century, the final very long transmission path gives spe- by satellite will be introduced at the modulation system will be introduced. cial requirements for reliability and beginning of the next century, AM broad- The carrier will then be reduced by 12 signal quality. casting at long and medium waves could dB, giving the full benefit of the system, be superfluous. which is interference reduction and All these extreme conditions have been a power savings at the transmitter stations. great challenge when establishing the infrastructure for broadcasting in Nor- way.