Short technical lexicon

AC3

Audio coding MPEG 2/layer 3 - The scrambled digital sound signal for Dolby Digi-

 

tal. It transmits 5 sound channels and one reduced sound channel for the sub-

DiSEqC

woofer.

DiSEqC (Digital Satellite Equipment Control) is a communication system between

 

 

the Sat receiver (master) and the peripheral Sat components (slaves), such as

 

LNBs, multi-switch, motorised antenna systems.

 

This is a single master/multi-slave system, i.e. there is always only one master in

 

the Sat system. All activities emanate from the master.

DiSEqC components

When DiSEqC switchover matrices are cascaded, the master receiver must send

 

 

out the DiSEqC signal several times so that all DiSEqC multi-switches in the cas-

 

cade receive their commands.

 

Nowadays, DiSEqC components (slaves) must be retrocompatible, i.e. they must

 

also respond to the analogue switching criteria of receivers which are only

 

equipped with the control signals H/V and 22 kHz.

 

A DiSEqC switchover matrix operates with analogue switching criteria until the

 

DiSEqC command is received from the master. All analogue switching criteria are

 

then ignored.

DVB MPEG-2

DVB is the abbreviation for digital video broadcasting. DVB-S refers to the type of

 

 

transmission (S=satellite). MPEG is the abbreviation for Moving Picture Experts

 

Group, a working group which draws up internationally valid standards for the digi-

 

tal compression of video together with audio. MPEG-2 has been promoted to the

 

standard for the compression of digital TV signals. MPEG-2 operates at a data rate

 

of up to 100 MBit/s.

Eb/No ratio

The Eb/No ratio is a measure for the signal-to-noise ratio of the digital signal. This

 

 

value is not identical to the C/N value as known from analogue reception technol-

 

ogy. As a rule, reception is no longer possible at Eb/No levels below 5 dB.

FEC

FEC is the abbreviation for Forward Error Correction. The FEC error rate corre-

 

 

sponds to the viterbirate.

PID

The PID number (Package Identification) is an identification number for video sig-

 

 

nals and audio signals in the digital data stream of DVB MPEG-2 signals. The re-

 

ceiver uses the PID number to establish distinct allocation of the video and audio

 

data transmission. PID-PCR is the identification number for the synchronisation

 

signal. PID-PCR is normally identical to PID video. In the case of multi-language

 

channel transmissions, by means of manual entry of the audio PID, it is possible to

 

allocate another language to the TV broadcast. After entering the PID, the digital

 

receiver automatically selects audio data from the data stream identified by the PID

 

number and allocates these data to the video signal.

Programme package

The programme package of a digital transponder mostly contains several TV and

 

 

radio channels. Each channel package has a fixed allocation with regard to the

 

transponder transmit frequency, the polarisation (horizontal or vertical), the symbol

 

rate and the viterbirate or error rate.

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Kathrein UFD 520 manual Short technical lexicon, AC3