DVB is the most broadly supported standard in digital television. The Reliability of the satellite transfer is relatively high and no substantial problems concerning packet delivery should be expected. Most of the problems that have been experienced have been due to the high transfer rates and the inability of the receiving PC to process the large quantities of data, which can lead to the data loss. Rebroadcast as an FEC mechanism, as opposed to DVB FEC, is able to correct mistakes in significantly longer time intervals. The time between initial broadcast and rebroadcast is easily configured for each individual virtual channel.
Packets belonging to one virtual channel contain continuity numbers and optionally a job number.
Packets received successfully from a first broadcast are ignored in any following rebroadcast, only the missing are replaced. The continuity number is then applied only to one job. Rebroadcast is a very effective maintenance and corrective system for large file transfers, because of the very low likelihood of the loss of the same packet within a job. If this mechanism is not applied a large file would be difficult to broadcast. It has to be emphasized that mathematically the larger the block of data being transferred the error rate is proportionally greater.