[linux-dvb] Re: ATSC?

[Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org>]

On Tue, Mar 26, 2002 at 01:56:04PM +0100, Thomas Sailer wrote:

> Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> 
> > incompatible.  The adoption of ATSC in North America seems to be a curse,
> > because those of us who live here will not be able to take advantage of the
> > DVB hardware which seems to be widely available in Europe.
> 
> The main difference AFAIK between ATSC and DVB are:
> 
> - ATSC uses the rather broken VSB modulation for terrestrial transmission
>   versus DVB COFDM. This should only be visible to the demodulator chipset,
>   both deliver Transport Stream packets to the upper layers.
>   In fact, NIM modules are announced that can demodulate both
>   standards. The only difference should be the tuning and mode information 
>   you write into the NIM module.

This sounds as if the two standards could be software-compatible (same
applications and API), if not hardware-compatible (same device drivers,
interface cards which understand both modulations).

What is a NIM module exactly?  Network Interface Module?  What kind of
device can interface with a NIM?

> - ATSC requires A/52 aka AC.3 sound, DVB requires MPEG Layer II
>   and has AC.3 optional.
> 
> - ATSC has different PSI (Program Specific Info) tables.

Thanks for these specifics.

-- 
 - mdz


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