A new technique for transmitting two high quality video signals over a single terrestrial microwave channel

A new video transmission system recently installed on RCA Americom's terrestrial microwave link between New York City and a satellite transmission facility in New Jersey is analyzed. Here, two video channels are conveyed within the frequency allocation assigned to a single microwave channel, thereby doubling the capacity of the video transmission facilities without a concomitant increase in frequency allocations. Various considerations relevant to the design of the system are discussed, and the performance of the system is evaluated. This performance in turn is related to overall end-to-end performance, including the satellite link in tandem with the terrestrial link. It is noted that tests on the system involved extensive objective and subjective observations for both signal-to-noise and video distortion effects.