Triple-Play Service Deployment

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Chapter 6: Troubleshooting Video in the Headend
With regard to digital video, MPEG testing cannot be reduced to
“go/no go” LEDs. Rather, MPEG relies on guidelines laid out by the
Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) Project. The DVB Project is a
consortium of public and private television entities who came
together to define an open standard for the delivery of MPEG-2
based digital television. Predominantly European in origin, it has
grown to be a global body and the DVB open standard is fairly
global in adoption as well. Where the MPEG specifications for
video and audio transport were focused on just the transport task,
with an eye on being flexible and forward compatible, the DVB
standards were thorough and provided copious definition of the
methods for implementing television services over MPEG. In May
of 1997, the DVB Project created a set of measurement guidelines
for MPEG/DVB systems which focuses on the MPEG-2 transport
stream and includes details on DVB specific tests. One of those was
this set of measurement guidelines, as recorded in ETR 290 and
later expanded in TR 101-290.
TR 101-290
TR 101-290 takes a series of tests for the MPEG-2 transport stream,
MPEG-2 PSI, and DVB SI (Service Information: these are in-band
tables containing DVB Electronic Program Guide data) and groups
them into three categories according to their importance. The
result is a simple matrix that reflects the instantaneous “health” of
the MPEG-2 transport stream. Any comprehensive MPEG test set
will provide some form of TR 101-290 evaluation. Figure 6.5
illustrates the TR 101-290 view of the JDSU DTS-330 MPEG Analyzer.