FLASH TV: a solution for outside broadcasting of digital HDTV

The main goal of FLASH TV is to develop a system capable of providing broadcasters, news agencies and telecom operators with means to set up broadband digital HDTV links in the range of 34.5 to 69 Mbit/s, with an emphasis on transmission from remote areas with little or no telecommunications infrastructure towards fixed and well-equipped post-processing studios. The system is designed to work with rain attenuation prevailing in the Ku-band frequencies (14 GHz band on the uplink and 11/12 GHz band on the downlink, the frequencies assigned to the FSS, Fixed Satellite Services) and is optimised for 36-MHz transponders, the most widely available transponder type in Europe. The system makes use of flexible bit rate: the nominal useful bit rate is 69 Mbit/s but when transmission conditions degrade the BER, the useful bit rate is stepwise reduced down to 34.5 Mbit/s, while redundancy for error protection is increased accordingly to maintain a transmission quality of no more than one error event per hour, which is termed the QEF or quasierror-free criterion