DVB-S

Digital Video Broadcasting - Satellite (DVB-S) is a standard for digital television distribution via satellite. DVB-S is part of the DVB family of standards and is compatible with the DVB-C standard for cable transmission. The DVB-C and the DVB-S standard differ in the way the payload is transmitted, because a satellite link is more prone to transmission errors and the bandwidth of the radio channels differ.

The DVB-S system is designed to cope with the full range of satellite transponder bandwidths. The payload, which is the useful bit rate, is surrounded by a number of layers to make the signal less sensitive to errors and to arrange the payload in a form suitable for broadcasting. The system is arranged to adapt to the error characteristics of the channel and circumstances (power, dish size, available bit rate). The data is modulated on the satellite broadcast carrier using quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK).

The payload can be used to carry any combination of video, audio and other data services. In a common system setting for a 36 MHz transponder a useful bit rate of about 39 Mbit/s will be available as the payload.

DVB-S2

DVB-S2 is an advancement of DVB-S. In theory, DVB-S2 provides 30% greater efficiency than DVB-S. Besides that DVB-S2 provides an increased range of applications including interactive services and professional applications, such as data content distribution.