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SCTE · Last updated November 2026

SCTE Digital Video Engineering Professional (DVEP): free practice test

DVEP certifies engineering knowledge of digital media systems (video, audio, interactive services and associated data) as deployed in cable, from the headend to the customer premises. The online exam has 50 questions in 3 hours with a 76% pass mark across five categories: theory, standards, design and integration, test and performance management, and deployment. SCTE names its DVEP course as the most effective study resource, alongside ATSC and AES standards.

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About the SCTE DVEP exam

DVEP certifies engineering knowledge of digital media systems (video, audio, interactive services and associated data) as deployed in cable, from the headend to the customer premises. The online exam has 50 questions in 3 hours with a 76% pass mark across five categories: theory, standards, design and integration, test and performance management, and deployment. SCTE names its DVEP course as the most effective study resource, alongside ATSC and AES standards.

What's on the exam

SCTE DVEP
Digital Multimedia Theory: Sampling, Color and Formats
8 key facts
Digital Multimedia Theory: Compression and Audio
8 key facts
Digital Multimedia and Systems Standards
8 key facts
Design and Integration: Headend and Multiplexing
8 key facts
Design and Integration: QAM and IP Delivery
8 key facts
Test, Monitoring and Performance Management
8 key facts
Digital Video Systems Deployment
8 key facts

Each branch is a topic in the official outline. Members see every key fact on the full mind map. Read the free study guide →

How to pass the SCTE DVEP exam

  • The exam is open book, so prepare an indexed sheet for the things you will look up anyway: SDI rates, QAM payloads, MPEG PID and clock values, TR 101 290 priorities and the SCTE standard numbers.
  • Almost every troubleshooting item comes down to where the fault entered. Compare a good point with a bad point: encoder output, multiplexer output, QAM or IP edge, then the set-top.
  • Keep the clocks apart. PCR runs at 27 MHz and PTS, DTS and SCTE 35 splice times at 90 kHz. Many calculation distractors use the wrong one.
  • 50 questions in 3 hours is 3.6 minutes each, and you need 38 right. Spend the extra time on capacity and timing arithmetic, and round channel counts the way real multiplexing works.

Save your results and get your Readiness Score

Create a free account after the test: your score by topic, a mistakes bank, the complete study notes for the first topic, flashcards and the RCDD Numbers & Formulas Sheet.

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What's in the premium SCTE DVEP prep

Premium SCTE DVEP prep is studied one topic at a time. Each step starts with that topic's key notes and flashcard deck, then its own question sets of 25, so you master one topic before you move to the next. When every topic is strong, the 6 full mock exams show you're ready.

3,000practice questions, every answer explained
6full-length mock exams, 50 questions each, timed
800flashcards with spaced repetition, sorted by topic
60comprehensive key notes across 7 topics

Your step-by-step study path

  1. 1
    Digital Multimedia Theory: Sampling, Color and Formats9 key notes, 115 flashcards, then 450 practice questions in 18 sets of 25
    Notes free with an account
  2. 2
    Digital Multimedia Theory: Compression and Audio9 key notes, 115 flashcards, then 425 practice questions in 17 sets of 25
    Premium
  3. 3
    Digital Multimedia and Systems Standards9 key notes, 115 flashcards, then 425 practice questions in 17 sets of 25
    Premium
  4. 4
    Design and Integration: Headend and Multiplexing9 key notes, 115 flashcards, then 425 practice questions in 17 sets of 25
    Premium
  5. 5
    Design and Integration: QAM and IP Delivery8 key notes, 115 flashcards, then 425 practice questions in 17 sets of 25
    Premium
  6. 6
    Test, Monitoring and Performance Management8 key notes, 115 flashcards, then 425 practice questions in 17 sets of 25
    Premium
  7. 7
    Digital Video Systems Deployment8 key notes, 110 flashcards, then 425 practice questions in 17 sets of 25
    Premium
  8. Final step: 6 full mock exams50 questions each, timed like test day. Pass them, then book your exam.
    Premium
Free with an account

Read the complete SCTE DVEP study notes for “Digital Multimedia Theory: Sampling, Color and Formats”

Our first full set of comprehensive notes, about 12 minutes of reading: Sampling and quantization · Luma, chroma and subsampling · Frame formats · Color and HDR · Studio interfaces, a worked exam example, the traps examiners use and a one-minute recap. Create a free account to read it and see how premium notes work before you decide.

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Study tools included

3,000 practice questions

3,000 exam-style questions per exam, organized topic by topic in sets of 25. Every answer explained, with the rule it comes from.

6 full mock exams

6 full-length timed mock exams per exam, with real question counts and time limits, so test day feels like practice day.

Exam Readiness Score

One 0 to 100 number that tells you when you're ready to book. Reach 80 and you're covered by our Pass Guarantee.

800 flashcards + spaced repetition

800 flashcards per exam, in a deck for each topic, that come back right before you'd forget them. Five minutes a day keeps every number fresh.

60 comprehensive key notes

60 key notes per exam, split across its topics and each explained in full: the concepts, worked exam examples, the traps examiners use and a quick recap. Your first set is free with an account.

Mind maps

See the whole exam on one screen: every topic and the facts under it.

Sample questions with answers

These are the questions in the free test above, with answers. Try the test first. You'll learn more by getting some wrong.

1. A contribution feed is 1920 x 1080 progressive at 59.94 frames per second, 4:2:2, 10-bit. Which is the lowest-rate single-link SDI interface among these that can carry it?
Answer: 3G-SDI at 2.97 Gb/s. With 4:2:2 at 10 bits, each pixel averages 20 bits, so active video is 1920 x 1080 x 59.94 x 20, about 2.49 Gb/s. That is too much for HD-SDI at 1.485 Gb/s, which suits 1080i or 1080p at up to 30 frames per second. Check the active picture rate first, then pick the first interface above it.
2. An operator wants one live UHD HDR feed that also displays acceptably on SDR televisions supporting BT.2020, without producing a separate SDR version. Which HDR approach fits best?
Answer: Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG). HLG was designed for live broadcast: it needs no metadata and its lower signal range follows a curve close to conventional SDR gamma, so SDR BT.2020 displays show a usable picture. PQ is an absolute-luminance system that looks wrong on an SDR display unless it is converted. BT.709 at 8 bits is SDR and carries no HDR at all.
3. An AVC service uses a 120-frame GOP at 29.97 frames per second, and customers report a long black screen after changing to it. Which encoder change most directly shortens that wait?
Answer: Shorten the GOP so random access points come more often. After a tune, a decoder must wait for the next random access point. A 120-frame GOP puts these about 4 seconds apart, so the average wait is about 2 seconds and the worst case about 4. Sending PCR more often helps clock recovery but gives the decoder nothing it can decode. Shorter GOPs cost bit rate, so the setting is a trade-off.
4. A channel's AC-3 audio is delivered with dialnorm fixed at -24. A commercial measures -18 LKFS under ITU-R BS.1770. What is the correct fix?
Answer: Lower the commercial's level by 6 dB to meet the -24 dialnorm. Under ATSC A/85 the audio loudness must match the dialnorm value. -18 LKFS is 6 LU louder than the -24 the metadata declares, so the commercial plays 6 dB too loud and must be brought down. The approximately 2 dB tolerance in A/85 is for measurement, and changing dialnorm for the whole channel would make every correctly mixed program wrong.
5. A PAT points to a PMT that lists video on PID 0x0101, audio on PID 0x0102 and PCR_PID 0x0101. An analyzer finds PCR values only on PID 0x0110. What is the effect on a decoder?
Answer: It cannot recover the program clock from the PID that it was given. A decoder reads the PCR_PID field in the PMT and locks its 27 MHz clock to PCR values on that PID. Here the PMT points to a PID with no PCR, so clock recovery fails even though the video and audio PIDs are correct. Only the PAT is fixed on PID 0x0000. Correct the PMT or re-multiplex so that the PCR is where the table says.
6. A transcoder outputs a channel with every PTS 180,000 ticks later than its input, but passes the SCTE 35 cue messages through untouched. What should it do with the cues, and how large is the shift?
Answer: Add 180,000 to pts_adjustment; the shift is 2 seconds. SCTE 35 times use the 90 kHz clock, so 180,000 ticks is 2 seconds, and the true splice time is pts_time plus pts_adjustment. Processing that changes the time base must rewrite the splice time or carry the offset in pts_adjustment, or splices land in the wrong place. 6.7 milliseconds comes from wrongly using the 27 MHz PCR clock.
7. An MPEG-2 service is transcoded to AVC for cable delivery. Picture and audio are fine, but CEA-708 captions disappear on set-tops. Where should the caption data be in the AVC output?
Answer: In SEI user data within the video elementary stream. Digital captions travel with the pictures they belong to. In MPEG-2 they are in picture user data, and in AVC they are in SEI messages, as ATSC A/72 and SCTE 128 describe. A transcoder must extract and re-insert this data, otherwise it is lost even when the picture is fine. The PMT caption service descriptor only announces the services.
8. A 256-QAM J.83 Annex B channel is built as a constant bit rate multiplex with no statistical multiplexing. Budgeting 3 Mbps for audio, tables and overhead, how many 6 Mbps video services fit?
Answer: 5. The channel payload is about 38.81 Mbps. Subtract the 3 Mbps budget to get 35.81 Mbps, then divide by 6 Mbps to get 5.97, which rounds down to 5 because a constant-rate service cannot be split across channels. Skipping the overhead budget gives 6.47 and a false answer of 6.
9. Two redundant encoders send the same channel to one multicast group, each from its own source address. Edge QAMs must join a chosen encoder by its source address. Which receiver-side protocol is required?
Answer: IGMPv3 with source-specific multicast joins. IGMPv3 lets a receiver ask for a specific (source, group) pair, so the edge device can pick the primary or backup encoder. IGMPv2 can only join a group, so a receiver would get traffic from both sources at once. Source-specific multicast normally uses the 232.0.0.0/8 range.
10. A VOD system must support 800 concurrent constant bit rate 3.75 Mbps streams on 256-QAM J.83 Annex B channels. How many QAM channels are needed at minimum?
Answer: 80. Each channel carries about 38.81 Mbps, and 38.81 / 3.75 = 10.3, so only 10 whole streams fit because a stream cannot span two channels. 800 / 10 = 80. Dividing total bandwidth (3,000 Mbps / 38.81 = 77.3) gives 78 but ignores the unusable remainder on each channel, and 115 is what 64-QAM would need at 7 streams per channel.
11. An IPTV encoder wraps a transport stream in RTP over UDP over IPv4 with no IP options. What is the largest whole number of 188-byte TS packets per IP packet on a 1500-byte MTU without fragmentation?
Answer: 7. Headers take 20 bytes for IPv4, 8 for UDP and 12 for RTP, leaving 1,460 bytes. 1,460 / 188 = 7.77, so 7 whole packets (1,316 bytes) fit. This is why 7 is the standard grouping, and also why losing one IP packet removes 7 TS packets at once.
12. A probe at the edge shows bursts of continuity_count errors on every PID of several multicast services at once, with a nonzero MDI media loss rate. The same services are clean at a probe in the headend. What is the most likely cause?
Answer: Packet loss in the IP network between the two probes. The continuity counter is a 4-bit per-PID sequence, so gaps on every PID at once mean whole packets vanished, and each lost IP packet carries several TS packets. A clean headend probe rules out the encoder and multiplexer, and a nonzero media loss rate confirms loss in transit. Check switch and link counters on the path between the probes.
13. A 256-QAM channel at a customer's set-top averages 36 dB MER, yet the picture tiles for a moment every few minutes and uncorrected codeword counts jump at the same times. What is the most likely cause?
Answer: Intermittent burst noise that average MER does not show. MER is an average, so short bursts of noise can overwhelm the FEC and interleaver while the average still looks healthy. A constant shortfall would pull MER down all the time. Statmux starvation and PCR errors do not produce uncorrected codewords, because those are physical layer events. Correlate error counts over time to find the source.
14. An ABR channel plays cleanly at any single bit rate, but viewers see a glitch each time the player switches between renditions. The encoder ladder is using free-running GOPs. What should be corrected?
Answer: Align IDR frames and segment boundaries in all renditions. A player switches renditions at segment boundaries, so each segment in every rendition must start with an IDR frame at the same presentation time. With free-running GOPs the renditions do not line up and a switch cannot be seamless. Bit rates and manifest timing do not fix misaligned segments.
15. A new premium tier is launched. Most customers who bought it can watch, but one customer's set-top still shows a not-authorized message on that tier and plays all their other channels. What is the most likely cause?
Answer: The set-top has not received the EMM with the new entitlement. EMMs carry entitlements addressed to individual devices, while ECMs carry the frequently changing control words shared by everyone on the service. Because other subscribers can watch, ECMs and the PAT are working. An authorization message rather than tiling points to entitlements, not RF. Resend the entitlement and confirm the device is correctly provisioned.

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SCTE DVEP exam FAQ

How many questions are on the SCTE DVEP exam?

50 questions, with a time limit of 3 hours (dvep, dep and ipep get 3 hours; most scte exams get 2). the exam cannot be paused and breaks are not allowed. Format: open book under the scte certification exam integrity policy: scte online training materials, books, printed documents, notes, tables, calculators and internet resources are allowed (digital content in a separate tab of the same browser), but ai tools and ai-enabled search are banned. written knowledge exam only.

What is the passing score for SCTE DVEP?

76%.

How much does the SCTE DVEP exam cost?

US$125 (same for SCTE members and non-members); each attempt needs a new fee. Certification is valid 3 years and is renewed with 36 continuing education hours and a recertification application fee of US$110 (US$60 for members), or by retaking the exam. BICSI fees can change without notice, so confirm on bicsi.org before you apply.

Which languages is the SCTE DVEP exam offered in?

English. SCTE's catalog lists Spanish versions of some exams, but not DVEP.

Where do I take the SCTE DVEP exam?

Bought from the SCTE online exam catalog and taken online with Proctorio remote proctoring in a Chromium browser (Chrome or Edge); the exam must be taken within one year of purchase.

Is this SCTE DVEP practice test free?

Yes. The 15-question practice test on this page is free, with an explanation for every answer and no signup. A free account also unlocks the complete study notes for the first topic. The full SCTE DVEP prep is Premium at $147 a month for this exam.

What's in the premium SCTE DVEP prep?

3,000 practice questions organized topic by topic (Digital Multimedia Theory: Sampling, Color and Formats: 450; Digital Multimedia Theory: Compression and Audio: 425; Digital Multimedia and Systems Standards: 425; Design and Integration: Headend and Multiplexing: 425; Design and Integration: QAM and IP Delivery: 425; Test, Monitoring and Performance Management: 425; Digital Video Systems Deployment: 425), 6 full-length timed mock exams of 50 questions, 800 flashcards and 60 comprehensive key notes split across all 7 topics, plus a mistakes bank and the Readiness Score.

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Exam details are summarized from the official candidate information available in October 2026. BICSI changes formats and fees, so confirm with SCTE, a subsidiary of CableLabs before you book. RCDDQuizBank is not affiliated with BICSI or Pearson VUE.

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