Summary

A cable television system is required to provide a set of high quality multichannel video programmes using hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) or fibre optic cables. These are now mostly in an RF format, but as cable television infrastructure migrates to support IP, the signal format should support both IP and RF formats. The use of an IP format, as compared to the RF format, is expected to grow in the future.

Recommendation ITU-T J.481 defines the requirements and architecture of a cable television system able to provide video services in both RF and IP formats. This Recommendation is expected to support cable operators to continue their current cable television business during the transition to IP and in mixed RF and IP environments.