A comparison of regular DCII, turbo-8PSK-DCII, turbo-8PSK-ATSC-DCII and regular OTA ATSC

As the subject says, this is a comparison of the PID structure of the above signal types, using TSREADER.

First, traditional DCII. Traditional DCII uses several SRs, including 29270,19510,14632,4877,3251,1829 , and a few others that were less common. Pulling a typical DCII signal (Anik F1r 11728H19510) up with TSREADER:

The first thing you notice is the PID structure at the left. Besides the normal PAT, and PMTs for the channels, you can see a CDT, MMT, TDT, SIT, and CAT. The CAT shows the General Instruments encryption standard typical of DCII signals. The MMT contains a list of the typical SR and FEC values, shown below:

You can see 4 of the previously mentioned SRs, including the highlighted 19510 3/4 , which happens to be the SR/FEC of this transponder. Also specified in the MMT is modulation type, QPSK in this case.

The CDT contains a list of IF frequencies for the transponders, typically based on the standard C-band and Ku LO frequencies of 5150 and 10750.

The TDT lists the transponder info for the current network.

The SIT shows info for the current satellite in use.

The above traditional DCII was used at a time when virtually all digital satellite was QPSK modulation, mostly using 19510 and 29170 SRs carrying SD video. These signals could be received by 4DTV, and 4200 commercial DCII receivers. In order to carry more HD content, DCII was adapted to several newer SR/FEC values, and the content was put on turbo-8PSK transponders rather than the traditional DCII transponders. The old 4DTV, and 4200 commercial DCII receivers cannot lock these newer style transponders.

A typical turbo 8PSK DCII transponder is shown below:

Notice that the PID structure is basically the same as the traditional DCII structure, having SIT, CDT, MMT, TDT, and CAT. The CAT still shows the GI encryption, but the similarity ends there. Below, I have opened up the MMT:

The MMT has a list of the SRs being used, however when you click on any of the SRs in the list, the content shown in the upper center box is not correct, ie it still shows SRs and FECs from the old traditional DCII rather than what is actually in use. The same is pretty much true for the SIT, CDT, and TDT, ie the names of the categories reflect DCII, but the content has little relationship to what is currently being used. This suggests that this DCII structure is not even being used, but is just there to satisfy some old DCII receivers. But the one thing that IS true DCII seems to be the encryption.

Now, onto the turbo-8PSK ATSC DCII channels. The G1-11682H transponder is a good example.

First notice that id does NOT have the SIT, CDT, MMT, or TDT structure typical of DCII. Instead it has RRT, SST, MGT, TVCT, and EIT/ETT typical of ATSC muxes. Also notice that when you open up the TVCT, that it identifies the transponder as being ATSC. See the similarity to an OTA ATSC below:

The only similarity to DCII is that it has a CAT, which identifies the encryption as GI.

This 11682H mux is identified as TVO, which seems to be a Canadian educational network TV Ontario. However it isn't clear to me why there should be 6 channels, since TVO seems to consist of only TVO and TVO-KIDS. But it does seem to be an OTA network with several transmitters.