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Satnews Daily
April 7th, 2015

Of SatBroadcasting™ Interest: @ NABSHOW, NovelSat To Demo A New Twist On An Old Technology


[SatNews] NovelSat will be at the NAB show In Las Vegas to demonstrate satellite modulation technology that enables 5% Roll-off Factor with DVB-S waveforms.


NovelSat's NS1000 Satellite Modulator.

This new twist on an old technology can be a big advantage to DTH (Direct-To-Home) satellite service providers who can achieve up to 28% higher spectral efficiency with their existing satellite bandwidth and Customer Premises Equipment (CPE). When a satellite signal is filtered, or masked, the ‘edges’ of the signal drop off and are not used for transmission. This drop off is known as Roll-off Factor (ROF). A lower ROF means that more of the signal can be used for transmission.

The DVB-S standard, still common in DTH set top boxes in customer premises, specifies ROF at 35%. By dropping the ROF down to 5%, NovelSat can give DTH providers the capacity to deliver more content channels or increase their HD content offering without increasing their satellite bandwidth budget. This can be an important customer retention advantage that does not increase the provider’s operating expenses.

An increase in delivery capacity would normally require replacing or upgrading the tens or hundreds of thousands of STBs that the provider operates. With the NovelSat DVB-S 5% ROF solution, using the NovelSat NS1000 Satellite Modulator, most existing CPEs running DVB-S can still be used to receive the expanded content package. This presents the potential for substantial savings on the cost of new equipment, support and marketing affiliated with end user upgrades.

In addition to the new DVB-S solution, NovelSat offers 5% ROF and other spectral efficiency features for a wide range of waveforms including DVB-S2, NovelSat NS3 and the recently demonstrated NovelSat NS4 waveform (available Q3 2015) which currently tests at up to 25% more efficient than DVB-S2X. The NovelSat DVB-S 5% ROF solution is already available now with the NovelSat NS1000 Satellite Modulator. NovelSat will be demonstrating this new technology as well as the new NovelSat NS4 waveform by appointment at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 13-16.