An unlicensed indoor HDTV multi-vision system in the DTT Bands

Multimedia contents distribution through wireless networks in the home environment is a challenging issue. At present, several systems are proposed mainly relying on 802.11g/n standards which offer adequate bandwidth for HD video contents. However, the rapid revolution in wireless communication in past years has increased the demand of radio spectrum to fulfill the requirements of wireless applications, leading to spectrum overcrowding. The licensed-free ISM band is now overexploited and experiences serious coexistence issues. However, the transition from analog to digital TV is in progress worldwide and digital switchover plans have driven a thorough review of TV spectrum exploitation. Huge debates are taking place within the wireless world about the possible exploitation of the unused portion of the TV spectrum. Within this framework, this paper proposes a multi-vision system working on the TV band for the short-range indoor transmission of HDTV contents. The proposed system relies on geo-location databases for the TV band, it is based on the OFDM core technology and it is compliant with the DVB-T/T2 standard for HDTV. The authors investigated the feasibility of the system whereas preserving the integrity of incumbent services: computer simulations have been supported by hardware implementations on USRP2 SDR board for test-bed measures and transmission in real conditions. © 2012 IEEE.