SatSig topic:

Bandwidth of SD and HD TV Channels

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Jul 3^rd, 2019 at 5:27pm

Dear Members

How much bandwidth or data rate normally a Standard Definition (SD) and High Definition (HD) TV channel need for transmission over a satellite link with MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 compression. What are industry norms and do we have any ITU standard for this?

Thanks and regards

Jul 10^th, 2019 at 8:39pm

If you have a look in lyngsat you will get some idea of how many TV channels are merged onto a high bit rate carrier.
e.g. https://www.lyngsat.com/Astra-2E-2F-2G.html

The bit rate allocated to each TV channels varies from moment to moment according to the content of the picture. A highly detailed image that suddenly changes to different highly detailed image will cause a burst of high bit rate. A steady image will have very low bit rate, once it is initially displayed. A still head on still background with lips only moving will have low bit rate. A crowd scene with camera panning might cause moderate bit rate as new image data gets inserted at the side and some people move in the crowd.

Read more: https://www.astra2sat.com/televison/tv-bitrates/

Also read this: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/27324/zetacast.pdf particularly about trends with bit rates.

Best regards, Eric.