Digital TV Labs provides test suite for South Africa's DTT trial

LONDON — Digital TV Labs, which provides independent, specialised conformance products and services for DVB-based markets, is driving South Africa’s move to a digital future by providing its Evora iSuite test technology to support the ongoing DTT trial in the country.

Evora, specifically modified by Digital TV Labs for the DTT trial – which is backed by key broadcasters in the country including SABC – has been successfully used to test set-top boxes against the South African specification. Based on DVB-T with MPEG-4 compression, an increasingly vital technology combination, the test suites have been provided for use both with the trial and also to SABC for internal testing.

Keith Potter, CEO, Digital TV Labs, explains, “Our Evora technology has enabled SABC and set-top box manufacturers to validate receivers in a systematic process against the specification. Evora ensures complete test coverage against the specification and covers all possible broadcast conditions that cannot be easily tested in a live network or with recorded transport streams.

Evora iSuite – which is proven to satisfy the test requirements of both receiver manufactures and broadcasters – generates a test plan for the test engineer to systematically work through and record problems. It also consists of hundreds of authored test streams with thousands of test cases that can be efficiently executed and results recorded in the automatically generated test report.

Yusuf Nabee, Project Leader of SABC’s DTT team, adds, “This Evora iSuite test technology has helped move our DTT trial forwards. It provides accurate and upgradeable functionality for receiver manufacturers and broadcasters alike as specifications are furthered developed and matured.”

“Evora iSuite provides an out-of-the-box DVB receiver conformance package that delivers a total test process and is also easily upgraded for each operator/broadcaster requirement. We are pleased to be able to help countries move into the digital future by assisting in the eradication of complex specification issues,” says Potter.