Digital TV simulcast with shared audio streams

A common problem in the field of digital television is the transition to new encoding formats. The incompatibility between new and old codecs requires a simulcast over a transition period. In some scenarios — particularly when using terrestrial broadcasts — this simulcast represents a significant waste of bandwidth and raises many problems. This article explores the possibility of share audio streams between programs within the same simulcast and presents a technique to reduce the bandwidth required using the ASC (Audio Sharing Compactor). This solution has been validated through the implementation of a demonstrator capable of processing a Transport Stream in realtime before send it to the modulator transmitter.