Performance analysis of substituting DVB-S2 LDPC code for DVB-T error control coding system

As HDTV (High Definition Television) services are the next big thing in the television broadcasting, the work for the next generation terrestrial Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB-T2) standard has started. Since HDTV channels require more capacity, new technologies as compared to current terrestrial DVB-T standard are necessary. One improvement is to select a more efficient Forward Error Control (FEC) code. A potential candidate for this is the Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) code specified in the in the DVB-S2 (second generation satellite Digital Video Broadcasting) standard. It is stated in the call for technologies issued by the DVB project, that this code is the working assumption. It is further stated that if the DVB- SI LDPC code is not suitable for terrestrial channels, other channel coding schemes could be considered. In this paper the performance of a system where DVB-T concatenated Reed-Solomon-convolutional coding scheme is replaced by the DVB-S2 LDPC code is studied by simulations. The aim is to investigate the performance of the LDPC code in a terrestrial channel model.