ABU Researchers at STRL
Md. Foezur Rahman Chowdhury
I am a visiting researcher from National Broadcasting Authority (Radio), Bangladesh, an ABU member country. I am working since August of last year for one year, and I am involved with the research work on new services considering internationalization of multimedia data broadcasting for portable and mobile reception. National Broadcasting Authority (Radio) recently had setup Internet based computer networks to process and store audio content as an initiative for digitalization of the broadcasting systems in Bangladesh. I was involved with the panning, designing and implementation of the networks, and I had the opportunity to study the digital broadcasting system, which can contribute to the socio-economical uplift of Bangladesh. Therefore, I am very happy for having such a great opportunity to study directly and conduct full-scale research work on the digital broadcasting system especially ISDB-T during my one year residency in Japan.
At the NHK STRL, after widely studying the ISDB data broadcasting systems, research work on Internationalization of Broadcast Markup Language (BML) to provide multilingual multimedia contents for a wide range of audiences was conducted. Accordingly, a computer simulation was carried out to encode data in Japanese, English and Arabic as representatives from the three major International language scripts CJK (*), Latin and Middle Eastern. The result of this experiment shows that different languages with different characteristics need different media layouts and the scheme for controlling the dynamic position of different display planes, Video, Still picture, Graphics, text etc. is necessary. In this experiment we verify the suitability of application of Document Object Model (DOM) for this purpose. We are now working to expand the above mentioned concept to find a good scheme, and we are scheduled to conduct research concerning the mobile reception to analyze the characteristics of received signal and improvements on the transmission and reception characteristics for terrestrial broadcasting.
My experience that I am gaining in NHK STRL will be a great asset for my future career as a researcher.

(*) CJK : Chinese, Japanese, Korean



Erdenekhuu Norinpil
I'm a research engineer from Mongolian National radio and Television Authority and have been now working in NHK STRL as a visiting researcher since September 3 2001 for a one-year term. I'm engaging in research on ISDB-S system, particularly on the link design of ISDB-S system.
The first three months after my arrival at STRL were for improving my understanding, and my study work focused on research papers about ISDB-S system and precipitation prediction methods required for the design of the broadcasting satellite system. Currently, I'm working on the link budget analyzing a 21 GHz band BSS system using the ISDB-S transmission standard.
The 21 GHz band that is allocated by WARC-92 for ITU region 1 and 3 will be able to be used for advanced satellite broadcasting service in Japan from 2007. Although the 21 GHz band has wide bandwidth, atmospheric absorption and rain attenuation are much larger than in the 12 GHz band. Therefore, some research in STRL is being conducted on techniques about mitigation of rain attenuation and atmospheric absorption. In the future, I will work on research concerning the link budget of BSS system in all ITU regions for the purpose of evaluation and comparison.
My one-year research experience in STRL will be helpful for adopting and implementing digital satellite broadcasting system in my country. I'm very grateful for working in NHK STRL, having many Japanese friends and deepening my knowledge about BSS system.