Concepts
Digital Broadcasting Device Manager (DBDM) is a PC based application, providing a single point for the monitoring and control of devices used in the transmission of digital broadcasting services.
Devices managed by the DBDM include support for many digital broadcasting standards including DVB-T, DVB-H, DVB-S, DVB-C, DAB and DBM.
 With its rich set of features, the efficient monitoring and control of remote devices saves time and cost of fault diagnosis and resolution.
It is a user-friendly and powerful application that allows technical staff located at one or more operations centres (or at transmission sites) to undertake a number of important tasks such as:
- Monitoring of the fault status of devices
- Remotely fixing faults
- Monitoring device configuration
- Reconfiguring devices
- Automated gathering of device status reports
- Display of fault logs
- Audit trails
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Example
Click here to view an example diagram which shows how the Digital Broadcasting Device Manager interrelates with the other elements of a Digital Terrestrial Television system. Those functions provided by DBDM are shown in green.
In a typical configuration there would be a separate alarms system, this would alert an operator (via lights, buzzers or on-screen displays) in the event of an error condition arising. There may also be some automatic switch-over mechanisms at the transmission site that are triggered in the event of a fault.
Once the operator had been alerted to a fault then DBDM provides him with a powerful and easy to use set of functions to allow him to remotely interrogate the devices at the affected site to obtain detailed diagnostic information; once this diagnostic information had been analysed he may then use the remote control and configuration functions of DBDM to connect to the various devices in order to fix the fault.
DBDM achieves a connection with all remote sites via a TCP/IP telnet or SNMP connection, and maintains a database of all information regarding the devices, default values, users and so on. Through this connection the operator is provided with a wide range of functions for the control and monitoring of the various devices.
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Features
Primary uses of the Digital Broadcasting Device Manager are to:
- Use a single application to access, control and monitor devices.
- Use a central database to store all device status and configuration information.
- Monitor the fault status of devices or transmissions to provide more detailed user friendly diagnostic information than is possible via the normal telemetry alarms
- Remotely fix faults found
- Monitor the configuration and support the re-configuration of devices, in particular, the default standard configurations for DTT sites
- Support configuration comparisons between devices and transmission content by allowing multiple access to several devices concurrently
Additional functions include:
- Planned configuration work, e.g. increase of power to an amplifier or configuring a replaced device to the standard settings
- Gathering of status reports from each site
- Maintaining an audit trail
- Display of fault logs
- Saving/Printing of the status, configuration, logs
- Access to named devices via a generic display
- MPEG2 Stream Analysis via Stream Explorer from R&S
- Hierarchy of access privileges for users
- Ability to communicate to each device via a full macro script language.
- Scheduling of macro scripts required for device polling or configuration changes
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