Course Description:
This Training Series provides a modular program of training to be run over a period of 10 days. The aim is to provide 1 day and 2 day modules of training aimed at providing a fast overview for engineers and manager new to the subject of Digital Television and Next Generation Communications systems. It is intended that the modules will stand on their own so that participants can select those modules most appropriate to their need and not necessarily attend every module.
These modules examine the delivery of TV and communications over Next Generation Networks based upon IP core communications and optical carrier Ethernet services. The intention is to produce a Program suitable for participant with no prior knowledge to access the training and to build up a knowledge base quickly so that they can be valuable members of new and evolving digital TV and Media teams.
Module 1, will examine how and why digital television is sweeping the world very quickly. It will consider the way in which Analogue TV has been delivered in the past and how the digital dividend can provide increased government revenue by adopting digital TV. It will examine bandwidth issues and demonstrate using hands-on exercises different methods of encoding and of deliver without going into the technical details. At the end of this module attendees will be aware of what is possible and what the limits of technology are but not necessarily how thins work, which will be covered by later modules.
Module 2, identifies how digital TV is encoded in detail. It examines how MPEG-2 works and provides hands-on exercises experimenting with MPEG-2 rates and profiles. It then goes on to look and higher compression techniques of MPEG-4 and H.264 for encoding HDTV. At the end of this module participants will have a solid understand of how encoding works to a level that enables them to recognize the difference between MPEG-2 and H.264. To describe the difference between H.264 and Microsoft Windows Media Video 9 and to trancode between different codecs using free or open source software.
Module 3, examines multiplexing as it is used in Digital Video Broadcast systems. The DVB standards have been written to enable the same multiplexing techniques to be used for Terrestrial, Satellite and Cable delivery. A simplified subset is also used for delivery of IPTV using DVB-IPI. This module will teach students how DVB multiplexing works at both the Program stream and the Transport stream levels. It will introduce hands-on exercises to enable participants to capture transport streams and to analyze them to understand how multiple TV channels are multiplexed into a single high speed digital stream for broadcast. They will further study the service information and control tables used to allow set top boxes to navigate through the multiplexes, locate individual program streams and play them.
Module 4, considers how the Intellectual Property value of TV can be protected. The key to the success of any Television Services is high quality content that the viewer wishes to watch. This generally costs a lot of money and time to produce and so Intellectual Property owners like movie companies and commercial TV production companies need to prevent their content being pirated. Simulcrypt and Multicrypt provide standardized methods for Conditional Access that allow broadcasters to ensure the protection of high value content from illegal copying, and to restrict viewing to particular population groups where required. This is usually used for ensure the customer pays for pay-per-view or premium-rate channels. However it can also be used to restrict access to special channels used for security monitoring or Program production in special cases. More recent developments have allowed the delivery of video on demand over IP networks as well as recoding broadcast channels and the copying and retention of this material can be restricted by Digital Rights Management. This module will examine how DRM systems work and examine both commercial and open source systems.
Module 5, will consider Next Generation Networks and the evolution to packet based core networks from earlier generations of circuit based services. The module will look in fast overview at how earlier generation services can be emulated over high speed IP cores to deliver service networks which can delver better performance at much lower cost yet higher reliability. It will also demonstrate the feasibility of this using hands-on exercises that integrate Voice, Internet Access and Television over the same Ethernet interface both wired and wireless.
Module 6, continues the examination of Next Generation Evolution but from the perspective of Carrier Transport Networks. In any modern Digital TV Broadcasting system it is necessary to transport the digital multiplexes from the TV Head-End to individual transmitter sites for broadcast. With Single Frequency Networks accurate timing and synchronization is also vital. This module will examine the options for these transport networks including Optical Fiber, microwave and satellite delivery. Technologies such as Ethernet Aggregation and protection switching will be considered to provide an understanding of how reliability can be controlled and improved.
Having introduced all the key building block technologies, Module 7 will provide an understanding of design. It will introduce the concepts of network design and using an example of a TV broadcasting Network demonstrate how the project can be take through the key stages from Initial Service Requirements definitions, Technical Specification, Service sizing, Wavelength allocation and planning, Transmitter sitting, installation, testing and delivery.
Module 8, will look at TV Program Production to give engineers an appreciation of the tools and techniques available for the artistic aspects of Program products, the technical aspects of editing, recording and mixing services and finally the storage and delivery. Using simple editing tools attendees will shoot some video, edit it and produce a short Program clip. They will then stream this over a network.
Module 9, Multicast IP Television is now used to deliver Television services in some administration as well as to provide interconnection between encoders and multiplexers within DVB Head-ends. This module provides an understanding of how IPTV streams are carried over RTPUDPIP, the difference between using TCP and UDP to deliver services and how to analyze these services using protocol Analyzers
Module 10 Configuring Routers and Switches for Multicast and Reliable carrier Services. This module will teach attendees how to configure elementary routing protocols, OSPF, Ethernet Aggregation and Protocol Independent Multicast on Cisco switches. Attendees will work as a group and configure individual interfaces to use specific VLANs, configure and test OSPF routing and them implement PIM for multicasting. They will then undertake hands-on exercise to demonstrate the correct working using IPTV streams.
Module 11 Service sizing and performance requires an understanding of simple statistics and applying this to broadcasting and transport network design. This module aims to help attendees understand why networks are never as fast as they expect and why projects always take linger then you expect. Providing an understanding of confidence intervals, elementary queuing theory and applying this to the design of network traffic allows attendees to better calculate the service profiles for real services and to apply their newly learned techniques to estimating service demands in the future.
Students Will Learn:
Course Length:
10 Days
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