Design of Out-of-Band Protocols to Transmit UHDTV Contents in the CATV Network

Abstract

The goal of an UHDTV is to broadcast digital video contents which is 16 times the pixel resolution of HDTV. As the resolution is increased, the UHDTV requires a transmission technology to support very high data transfer rate. In this paper, we propose two out-of-band protocols to transmit UHDTV contents in a CATV network: an OOB-based protocol and a DSG-based protocol. The former may be a short term solution which is well suitable for a traditional CATV network and the letter may be a long term solution which is adoptable for a CATV network equipped with DOCSIS functionalities. In order to transfer 200 Mbps UHDTV contents, proposed protocols use a channel bonding mechanism which combines several QAM channels. We propose CATV network architectures to support an UHDTV service with a channel bonding mechanism, and design the format of messages to share the information of bonded channels between a headend and a STB. We develop an OPNET simulator and ascertain successful transmission of UHDTV contents