DAB vs DVB vs DMB-Difference between DAB, DVB, DMB

This page compares DAB vs DVB vs DMB and mentions difference between DAB, DVB and DMB.

DAB-Digital Audio Broadcasting

It is a digital radio technology which broadcasts radio frequency waves to provide digital audio services to the users having DAB receivers. The service is available in more than 30 countries including Europe and Asia Pacific. It is developed for terrestrial mobile reception and hence user can also obtain service in moving cars.

Following are the advantages or features of DAB system:
• Uses four frequency bands or modes for its operation worldwide. Mode-I uses Band-III having 174 to 240 MHz, Mode-II and Mode-IV use L Band (1452 to 1492 MHz) and Mode-III uses less than 3 GHz frequencies.
• Most of the DAB stations use 128 Kbps which provides better SNR compare to FM radio.
• It uses OFDM along with advanced modulation schemes such as DQPSK to achieve high data rate and to provide simultaneous transmission of multiple programs. It also helps in interference mitigation.
• It provides more than 9 to 10 services on a single frequency simultaneously as mentioned.
• In addition to music other services such as data, weather maps, traffic information, mobile TV, stock information etc. are also available.

DVB-Digital Video Broadcasting

It is used as open standard for digital TV broadcast. There are various standards developed to provide the digital TV broadcasting service viz. DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-C and DVB-H.

Following are the advantages or features of DVB system:
• It uses OFDM along with complex modulation schemes such as QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-QAM etc.
• It uses FEC techniques (e.g. LDPC, BCH) to provide better reception quality with good error correction capabilities at the DVB receivers.
• It uses different interleaving techniques (e.g. bit, time, frequency) in order to take care of interference/fading.
Refer Digital TV basics >> for more information.

DMB-Digital Multimedia Broadcasting

It is digital radio technology developed to transmit radio, TV and data to mobile DMB receivers including GPS receivers. The technology is developed by south korea with aim to replace FM radio. The DMB operates in two modes viz. via satellite (DMB-S) and via terrestrial (DMB-T) transmission. The DMB is similar to mobile TV standard such as DVB-H.

Following are the advantages or features of DMB system:
• DMB-T operates in frequency band III and L band.
• DMB-T uses MPEG-4 part-10 (i.e. H.264) for video and MPEG-4 part-3 BSAC (i.e. HE-AAC V2) for audio. Both video and audio are encapculated in MPEG-TS (i.e. transport stream).
• It uses FEC technique such as RS encoding to provide high quality reception with error correction capabilities. It helps in interference and fading mitigation.
• It uses OFDM-DQPSK modulation technique to provide high data rate and simultaneous transmission of programs.

DAB DVB Related Links

DVB-T vs DVB-S vs DVB-C vs DVB-H
Difference between DVB-T2 and ATSC-3
ATSC-3 Tutorial
DVB channel vs DVB frequency list

Other Digital Radio and Analog Radio Systems

HD Radio Technology
DMR-Digital Mobile Radio
TETRA Radio System
Difference between TETRA and TETRA2 system
APCO-25 versus APCO-16
Opensky Radio System
iDEN-Integrate Digital Enhanced Network

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