News & Updates 2012

The first DVB-C2 plug fest was hosted by Kabel Deutschland in Berlin from 27th to 29th February 2012. The purpose of this plug fest was to test the interoperability between DVB-C2 modulators and demodulators from several manufacturers.

DekTec participated with its DTA-2111 multi-standard VHF/UHF modulator with DVB-C2 signal generator software (DTC-379 C2Xpress). The architecture of the DTA-2111 uses floating point computations and digital upconversion, resulting in excellent signal quality up to 4096-QAM.
C2Xpress supports the generation of multi-PLP and multi data-slice signals, with full control over all C2 parameters. At the plug fest, the combination of DTA-2111 and C2Xpress stood out for the high signal quality and completeness (all DVB-C2 features are supported).

The DVB-T2 Lite plug fest was helt in Conflans Sainte-Honorine, France, from 5th to 7th March 2012. It provided the opportunity to test the interoperability between gateways, modulators and receivers using the new T2-Lite profile. This profile was introduced in DVB-T2 version 1.3.1 to support mobile and portable TV and to reduce implementation costs.

In the T2-Lite plug fest DekTec demonstrated that its set of tools for the generation, reception and analysis of DVB-T2 signals is unique in its class. The DVB-T2 signal generator software (DTC-378 T2Xpress) fully complied with DVB-T2 version 1.3.1 and successfully showed the generation of multi-profile streams where a T2-Lite profile signal is combined with a conventional DVB-T2 signal (T2-Base profile) in a single RF-channel.

The DVB-T2 Receiver and Analyser (DTC-342 T2Xpert) proved to be an excellent tool for the reception and analysis of T2-Base, T2-Lite and multi-profile DVB-T2 signals.

The DTA-2137 satellite receiver card now supports DVB-S2 baseband frames (BBFRAMEs) in three ways:
 -  Read BBFRAMEs in your application using DTAPI;
 -  Loop complete BBFRAMEs packaged in L.3 frames to one of the ASI ports;
 -  Select a specific TS from the BBFRAMEs and loop it to one of the ASI ports.

This new feature adds the capability to receive Generic Streams, next to standard Transport Streams. BBFRAMEs enable you to receive interactive services that use ACM (Adaptive Code Modulation). It even allows you to build VCM (Variable Code Modulation) systems. The diagram below shows how BBFRAMEs can be processed in a custom application.

The BBFRAMEs are packaged in L.3 frames, so that stream type, C/N ratio, frame counter and MODCOD (constellation and code rate) are available in the stream. Reading this information from the stream is more efficient and convenient than polling the demodulator board.

You can read more about receiving BBFRAMEs in application note DT-AN-2137-1.

Support of BBFRAMEs is implemented in DTA-2137 firmware version 5. If your DTA-2137 has an older firmware version, you can freely upgrade to firmware version v5 by downloading the latest version of DtInfo and pressing the update button. The latest version of the DekTec SDK (DTAPI) can be downloaded from here.

DekTec is proud to announce the release of its next-generation HD-SDI product, the DTA-2152, a low-profile PCI Express card with two HD-SDI ports and analogue genlock. Both ports are software programmable as either HD-SDI input or output, so the board can function as dual input, input+output or dual output card. The analogue sync port accepts bi- and tri-level genlock sources. The board supports HD 720p and 1080i as well as SD signals for all common frame rates including 23.98 and 59.94Hz.

The DTA-2152 is built around a radically new hardware architecture. The onboard memory is organized in a matrix of frame buffers, a row per input and a column per instance of time. Each line of each frame is directly and randomly accessible. Synchronization of multiple input streams is straightforward because frames with the same arrival time are stored in the same column. The new architecture is built for speed and ease of use and minimizes the required PCI Express bandwidth and CPU processing power.

The new Matrix API complements the hardware architecture, so that you can conveniently utilize its power. The API provides functions to read or write individual lines, the full frame or scaled video. Other functions let you access all of HANC and VANC with support for embedding and de-embedding up to 16 channels of audio.

All of the classes and functions are integrated tightly into DekTec's highly praised main API, the DTAPI. For current DTAPI users the new Matrix API is an extension of the current API making the migration to HD-SDI and the new API an easy and painless task, while interoperability with other DekTec devices is guaranteed.

The DTA-2152 is the first in a series of HD products to be introduced soon. DekTec’s HD products and the Matrix API are aimed to make working with HD signals significantly easier and more stable than it was in the past. You can concentrate on writing your application logic, while all the plumbing and synchronization is taken care of by the Matrix API.

The DTA-2152 is shipping in quantities now and the Matrix API can be downloaded from our website as part of the Windows SDK