This document provides an overview of digital TV technologies and standards. It discusses digital TV receivers and their main components, including tuners, demultiplexers, MPEG decoders, CPUs, and conditional access modules. It also covers digital TV standards like ATSC, DVB, and ISDB, comparing their features and profiles. The document aims to introduce readers to key concepts in digital TV systems and technologies.

1. Timothy K. Shih
Selected Topics for e-
Learning Technologies
(Digital TV and MHP)

2. Digital TV technologies
• Outline
– Part1: Introduction to DTV
– Part2: DTV receivers
– Part3: MHP middleware
– Part4: Interactive TV

3. Introduction to DTV

4. Introduction to DTV
• Outline
– DTV overview
– Characteristic of DTV industry
– DTV standard overview

5. DTV overview
• What does DTV mean?
– Higher Picture Resolution
• High definition program
– Multicasting
• More programs at the same channel and bandwidth
– Better Picture Quality
• Less noise
– New Type of Broadcasting Service
• Interactions

6. DTV overview
• Digital receivers
– STB v.s. iDTV
– STB (Set-top box)
• standalone
• Two separate remote control
• Cheap products
– iDTV (Integrated DTV)
• Integrating STB to TV
• STB is a part of DTV
• Future trend

7. DTV overview
• Viewing Experience with DTV
– Basic Functions
• Channel Scanning
• Channel Organization
• Channel Change Banner
• Now/Next Information
• Parental Guidance
• PIP/POP
• Teletext, ClosedCaption

8. DTV overview
• Viewing Experience with DTV (cont’d)
– – Advanced Functions
• EPG (Electronic Program Guide)
• PVR (Personal Video Recording)
• SSU (System Software Update)
• PayTV(CA/CI)
• Interactive TV (MHP)
• Mobile TV

9. DTV overview
• DTV Basic Functions
– Channel Scanning
• Different settings for Satellite/Cable/Terrestrial DTV receivers
• Automatically/manually scan
– Channel Organization
• Channel list
• Channel edit
• Favorite list
• Sort, delete, hide, …
• Lock/unlock channels

10. DTV overview
• DTV Basic Functions
– Channel change banner
• Program name, description
• Date/time, duration
• HD/SD, Dolby, Aspect ratio,
• Parental rating, subtitling
– Now/Next information

11. DTV overview
• DTV Basic Functions
– Parental Guidance
• by program rating
• by channel
• by time
– PIP & POP
• Picture in picture
• Picture out picture
• One tuner v.s. twin tuners

12. DTV overview
• DTV Basic Functions
– Teletext (TT)
• The users can access text information on TV.
– Closed Caption (CC)
• The caption is separated with video frames.
• MPEG-II allows different caption streams.

13. DTV overview
• DTV Advanced Functions
– EPG (Electronic Program Guide)
• Displaying program information: name, start
time/duration, description.
• Present/Following (now/next) v.s. Scheduled (weekly)
EPG
• Display one dimensionally or two dimensionally

14. DTV overview
• DTV Advanced Functions
– PVR (Personal Video Recording)
• Recording
• Time-based, EPG-based
• One time, periodically
– Playback
• Normal, FF, FR, Repeat
– Time shifting
– Stream Editing
• DVB-SSU (System Software Update)
– Over-the-air software update

15. DTV overview
• DTV Advanced Functions
– PayTV
• The access to services inside TS is
• allowed only when subscription
– CA (Conditional Access)
• Smart card verification system
• Middleware porting is needed
• Different STB for different CA providers:
• Nagravision, Viaccess, Irdeto, etc.
• Cheap but not compatible

16. DTV overview
• DTV Advanced Functions
– CI (Common Interface)
• Common PCMCIA interface for different
• CA modules
• Same STB for different CA smart cards
• Expensive but compatible

17. DTV overview
• DTV Advanced Functions
– MHP (Multimedia Home Platform)
• A middleware
• More applications than audio/video
• Java-like applications

18. Characteristic of DTV
industry
• Characteristics of DTV Industry
– A lot of industries are involved.
• Major components of the DTV system
– Content/Service Provider
• TV program, Movie industry, Music industry, Game industry,
• information industry,etc.
• Digital studio, storage, broadcasting equipments.
– Transmission Channel
• Satellite, Cable, terrestrial, fixed/mobile network
• Communication equipments
– Terminal devices
• TV, Set-Top Box, PC/NB, cellular, PDA, vehicle device, etc.
• IC(tuner/decoder/display), Panel, Storage, software, OS, etc.

19. Characteristic of DTV
industry
• Huge difference among different DTV
markets
– 1. Different DTV standards
– 2. Different ecological dispersion
– 3. Different market demands

20. Characteristic of DTV
industry
• DTV Standards
– ATSC: USA, Canada, Mexico, South Korea
– DVB: Europe, Australia, New Zealand,
Taiwan, etc.
– ISDB: Japan
– DMB-TH: China (2006/8)

21. Characteristic of DTV
industry
• Ecological dispersion (Satellite、Cable、
Terrestrial)
– USA
• 85% users watching cable TV.
– Taiwan
• over 85% users watching cable TV
– India, Indonesia , middle of Asia:
• Satellite TV
– In Europe, Japan and China
• urban : Terrestrial TV
• Suburban : Satellite TV

22. Characteristic of DTV
industry
• DTV standards in the world wide

23. Characteristic of DTV
industry
• Market Demands
– Picture Quality
• HDTV markets
• SDTV markets
– TV Size
• Large size of TV
• TV smaller than 30”
– Functionality
• PayTV
– CA, CI
• interactive DTV
– (MHP, OpenCable, …)
• PVR
• Various customization
– Integration
• Integrated with other consumer products, like HDD, DVD.
• Popular in Japan, Korea.

24. DTV Standard Overview
• ATSC standard
– Video: MPEG-II MP@HL (main profile, high level)
– Audio: MPEG-I layer I,II, Dolby AC-3
– System layer: MPEG-ll TS + PSIP
– Modulation: 8-VSB (terrestrial), 16-VSB(cable)
– Interactive middleware: DASE(old) ACAP(new)
• Main Features
– HDTV
• ATSC system supports 18 formats with 6 HDTV, 9 EDTV, 3 SDTV.
– Dolby AC-3
• ATSC boasts “theater quality" audio because it uses the Dolby Digital AC3 format to provide
5.1-channel surround sound.
– Low transmission power
• VSB requires half transmission power compared with COFDM, so ATSC signal coverage is
larger than DVB-T with same power.
• Good for N. America where many places are rural with lower population density.

25. DTV Standard Overview
• DVB standard
– Video: MPEG-II MP@ML (main profile, main level)
– Audio: MPEG-I layer I, II
– System layer: MPEG-ll TS + SI
– Modulation: COFDM (DVB-T/H), QAM(DVB-C), QPSK(DVB-S)
– Channel Bandwidth: 6/7/8MHz (ATSC 6MHz with fixed 19.39bps)
– Interactive middleware: MHP (Multimedia Home Platform)
• Main Features (DVB-T)
– SFN (Single Frequency Network):
• Since it is better at handling multipath, same channel freq can be used for adjacent areas. The
spectrum allocation is efficient.
– Mobile Reception
• Due to Guard Band and the better multipath handling in COFDM, it is good for mobile
reception.
– Two-way communication support
• DVB has standardized return channels RCS/C/T to provide bidirectional communication
which is good for interactive DTV.

26. DTV Standard Overview
• ISDB standard
– Include ISDB-T, ISDB-C, ISDB-S
– Video: MPEG-II
– Audio: MPEG-II AAC (allows 5.1 audio output)
– System Layer: MPEG-ll TS + ARIB STD B-10
– Modulation: DPSK, QPSK, QAM, OFDM
– Channel Bandwidth: 6MHz (3.7 ~23.2Mbps )
• Main Features
– ISDB-S is 1.5 times more efficient than DVB-S. (ISDB-S could
transmit at 51 Mbps with a single transponder, while DVB-S allows
at about 34 Mbps)
– ISDB-T has the most flexibility and efficiency for mobile and
portable reception, compared with DVB-T and ATSC.

27. DTV Standard Overview
• Mobile TV standards
– DVB-H (digital video broadcasting-handheld )
• Derived from DVB-T with improvement on low power consumption, mobile
reception, IP data casting.
– T-DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting)
• Derived from DAB. Used by South Korea.
– MediaFLO (Media Forward Link Only)
• Qualcomm’s technology to broadcast data to portable devices.
• FLO means transmission path is one-way, from tower to device.
• Verizon Wireless (second-largest wireless network in the U.S.) and Cingular
(merged by AT&T Wireless and become the largest wireless carrier in the U.S. )
announced to deploy MediaFLO in US.
– DVB-SH (digital video broadcasting-Satellite handheld Feb. 2007)
• to deliver IP based media content and data to handheld terminals like mobile
phones and PDAs via satellite.

28. DTV Standard Overview
• Profile and level
DTV broadcasting applications
• DVB: MP@ML (main profile at main level).
• ATSC: MP@HL (main profile at high level).

29. DTV receivers

30. What does a DTV receiver
do?
• Receives digital TV programs from a cable, satellite
or terrestrial network
• Decodes transport streams
• Outputs signals to television
– More interactions can be done
– Ex. Running applications on STB

31. Block diagram of a typical
receiver
Tuner Front-end
Smart card /
CA Module
MPEG-2
decoder
CPU
Middleware
SDRAM
Flash memory
Graphics
processor
Descrambler
MPEG-2
demultiplexer

32. The Front End
• Receiver
– Converting analog signal to digital one.
– Including the tuner and the front end
• The tuner
– Receives frequency-specified signal
– Demodulates the signal
– Turns the analog signal into a digital bitstream
• The front-end
– Error correction
– Removing packetization in the stream
– Outputs an MPEG-2 transport stream

33. The Demultiplexer
• Decoding information in TS for STB
– Elements in the current channel
• Audio and video streams
• Broadcast data streams
• Service information
– Service information for the network
• Passing streams to corresponding components
– Service information and data streams to the CPU
– Audio and video to the MPEG decoder

34. The MPEG Decoder
• Decoding audio and video streams and displaying them on
the screen
• Supporting graphical overlays
– Cursor, graphics
– Some receivers support up to five graphics planes
• Background, video, two graphics planes, cursor
• Supporting scaling, clipping and repositioning video
– But this may be limited

35. The CPU
• Deal with other tasks in the system
– Decoding and handling service information
– Decoding broadcast data streams
– User interaction
– Running built-in or downloaded applications
• Often integrated with the MPEG-2 decoder and other components
• Typical CPUs
– STMicroelectronics 551x family
– NEC EMMA2
– ATI Xilleon
– Broadcom BCM3560

36. Conditional access (CA)
• Anti-piracy system for pay-TV
– Decrypts data from input streams
• Depending what was encrypted by the network operator
– Worked on specified devices
• integrating with the receiver
• Smart card or similar device
• Each STB usually has one CA system integrated
– This is enough for most pay-TV systems
– The box is tied with the subscription, so only used on one network
and one CA system

37. Conditional Access (CA)
• Some CA systems require special hardware support
• Some network operators are now using pure software CA systems
– May still use smart cards for authentication
• CA systems may do more than just encryption
– Pair a smart card to a single receiver
• Smart card can not be moved to other receivers
– Provide a way of uniquely identifying the receiver
• Smart card serial number
– Prevent STBs moving to other household
• Second STB
• Every household must have their own subscription

38. Conditional Access (CA)
• Integrated CA systems are unsuitable for some markets
• May use a pluggable CA module instead
– Entire decryption solution on a PCMCIA card
– Smart card plugs in to PCMCIA card
– Used on retail systems to allow use with any network
• This has several limitations
– More expensive (PCMCIA card)
– Few vertical markets will use pluggable CA modules
– Less secure, in the case of DVB-CI
• Not all CA systems will support pluggable modules

39. Return channel
• Communicating with the network operator or service operator
– Ordering pay-per-view services, home shopping, home banking
• May be used for general network access
– Web browsing, email, chat
• Many types in use
– PSTN modem (usually 56K)
– Cable modem and ADSL modem
– Exotic technologies such as GSM, DVB RCS (return channel via
satellite)
– Not every receiver will have a return channel
– The cost is relatively high.
– It’s not necessary for all services.

40. Middleware
• A common software platform for application development
– Usually in C or Java
– Basic features
• Graphics & video manipulation, return channel access, access to
service information, etc.
• Provided middleware platforms today
– OpenTV (OpenTV Core)
– NDS (NDS Core)
– Canal+ (MediaHighway)
– PowerTV (PowerTV)
– Microsoft (Microsoft TV)
– Nagravision-Kudelski (Tsunami)
• Open middleware platforms
– MHP, OCAP, ACAP, JavaTV, ARIB-B23

41. Integration
• Cost is a major factor in STB manufacture
– Lots of competition
– Typical cost is ~100 USD to the network operator for a standard STB
• Retail is more expensive
• Many components get integrated to save cost
– Tuner and front end
– Demultiplexer/MPEG decoder/CPU/graphics processor
• Most current STBs are one- or two-chip solutions
– Depends on features needed

42. Block diagram of a typical
receiver
Tuner
Smart card /
CA Module
MPEG-2
decoder
CPU
Middleware
SDRAM
Flash memory
Graphics
processor
Descrambler
MPEG-2
demultiplexer
Front-end
Standard STB with pay-TV
support (integrated)
BOM Cost: ~80 USD
Integrated into front-end
Integrated into CPU

43. Block diagram of a basic
receiver
μController
SDRAM
ROM
Free-to-Air ‘zapper’ box
BOM Cost: ~30-40 USD
MPEG-2
decoder
SDRAM
MPEG-2
demultiplexer
Tuner /
Front-end

44. MHP middleware

45. What Is MHP?
• An open standard for interactive digital television
• Defined by DVB
• Related open standards
– DVB, MPEG, JavaTV
• Providing interactive functionality to develop application

46. What Is MHP?
• MHP is:
– A platform definition
– A set of Java APIs
– A set of HTML document type definitions
– A set of compatibility tests
• It is also:
– Compatible with current DVB-based solutions
– Freely available (specification available on the web)
• MHP has been adopted in many countries
– Germany, Finland, Singapore, Korea, Australia and others
– Included in the US OpenCable standard
• Many other broadcasters & content developers working with MHP

47. What Is MHP?
• Three main standards are related to MHP
– MHP 1.0.x (1.0.0 – 1.0.3)
• The original MHP specification plus updates
• The most commonly deployed version of MHP
– MHP 1.1.x
• Adds some new elements
• HTML support, stored applications, Internet client APIs, smart
card APIs
• Still a work in progress
– Globally Executable MHP (GEM)
• A subset of MHP 1.0.2
• Designed to form the basis of other DTV middleware standards
• Currently used by OCAP, ACAP and ARIB B23

48. Types of MHP Application
• Information services
– super teletext, etc.
• Show-related interactivity
– online quiz show, online voting, etc.
• Games
• T-commerce and banking
• Internet access

49. Building MHP Services
• Applications are built in Java or HTML
– Most of products use Java only
• Transported in a DVB transport stream
– Transport stream with DVB tables
• Transported in IP connection

50. What Can An Application
Do?
• MHP application can be supported by follow APIs
– Most of standard Java APIs
– Extensions for TV-specific functionality
– APIs for accessing return channel
– APIs for controlling and communicating applications
• HTML application support for latest internet standards
– XHTML, CSS 2.0, ECMAScript

51. MHP deployment
• MHP 1.0.2 deployed in:
– Finland
– Germany
– Italy
– South Korea
• Other countries will follow soon
– Australia, USA (through OCAP)
• MHP 1.1 is not currently deployed
– Too many problems remaining
– Not enough need for the additional features
• Usually other ways to get what you need

52. Interactive TV

53. outline
• Research about interactive TV
• The requirements
• The proposed system or model
• The evaluation or results
• conclusion

54. Research about interactive
TV
• Four papers are presented here
– Interactive TV: VoD meets the Internet
– MiTV: rethinking interactive TV
– An integrated live interactive content insertion
system for digital TV commerce
– Open graphical framework for interactive TV

55. The introduction
• Interactive TV: VoD meets the Internet
– Shim, S.S.Y.; Yen-Jen Lee;
– Computer , Volume: 35 , Issue: 7 , July 2002
– Pages:108 - 109

56. What is interactive TV?
• Television commerce combines the
interactive power of the internet with
traditional TV programming.
• Two ways to deliver VoD services:
– Focus on TV
– Focus on PC

57. Generic architecture for
interactive VoD
• Back-end-service
– Video server platform
• Support unicast or multicast at broadband rates.
• Consist of a streaming server engine , real-time
streaming file system , etc.
– Security manager
• User profiles and usage histories
– Program scheduler
• Responding to user interaction

58. Generic architecture for
interactive VoD (cont’d)
• Database
– To store metadata and are used on video
retrieval.
• Service applications
– E-commerce transaction
– Messaging platform

59. Generic architecture for
interactive VoD (cont’d)
• Client platform
– There are various device to present multimedia
stream to client side.
– Web-based management and rendering
applications can reside in an STB , a PC or a
PDA.
– The details will be discussed in the next section.

60. Generic architecture for
interactive VoD (cont’d)
The generic interactive architecture

61. Combining other devices to
interactive TV
• MiTV: rethinking interactive TV
– Bing, J.; Dubreuil, J.; Espanol, J.; Julia, L.; Lee,
M.; Loyer, M.; Serghine, M.;
– Virtual Systems and Multimedia, 2001.
Proceedings. Seventh International Conference
on , 25-27 Oct. 2001
– Pages:365 - 369

62. Traditional interface for iTV
• The shortage of traditional iTV
– When Interactive event happened , the audience
can not carry on browsing the original program.
– Co-watchers
– Feedback
• Answering questions
– Entering data
• No suitable devices

63. A new interaction paradigm
• A natural device that comes with the TV is its
remote.
• The switch mode is efficient for TV with
100+ channel (change channels by forward
and back ).
• Using mobile devices like PDA or tablet to
replace remote control may be a better way.

64. The foundations
• The CAB (Collaobrative Architecture of
BravoBrava! )infrastructure.
• It’s used for established communications
between the mobile devices and interactive
TV.
• Based on Microsoft’s DCOM architectures.

65. Applications of MiTV
• TV guide on pocket PC

66. Applications of MiTV
(cont’d)
• TV guide on a tablet

67. The pop-up information
• Showing logos on mobile devices instead of
on screen can keep the completeness of view
area.

68. Some examples of
interactive TV games
• The audience can join a interactive TV game by receiving
information and sending their answers by tablet or PDA.

69. Some examples of interactive
TV games (cont’d)
• Using hand-writing to answer quiz.

70. Example of an interactive
game meant for kids

71. Example of TV shopping

72. The third part
• An integrated live interactive content
insertion system for digital TV commerce
– Liang-Jie Zhang; Jen-Yao Chung; Lurng-Kuo
Liu; Lipscomb, J.S.; Qun Zhou;
– Multimedia Software Engineering, 2002.
Proceedings. Fourth International Symposium on
, 11-13 Dec. 2002
– Pages:286 - 293

73. introduction
• MPEG-2 is the video format used in digital TV. there are
three types of digital TV formats:
– ATSC
• Advanced television systems committee scheme
– DVB
• Digital video broadcast
– ARIB
• Association of radio industries an business

74. Introduction (cont’d)
• The problem of effectively organize the
interactive content and deliver its data in a
timely fashion to an mpeg-2 data injector.
• This paper proposed an improved method for
inserting interactive content into a live TV.

75. Digital TV commerce
solution
• Interactive solution

76. System architecture of the
integrated system for live data
insertion
• System architecture

77. Software based
implementation flow
• Dataflow diagram

78. The HotMedia TV Live

79. Interactive content
creation engine (ICCE)
• The authors provide an ICCE engine to
convert the online product list on the e-
commerce server.
• And combine some control (java script) to
the web part in interactive TV.

80. Interactive content
creation engine (cont’d)
• A sample of the
converted HTML

81. Scheduling
• Time-action mapping list
– 10/10/2000, 10:21:30, 3
– 10/10/2000, 10:40:30, 5
• Event-action mapping list
– PROGRAM_START, 5
– PROGRAM_END, 4
– COMMERCIAL_END, 3
– COMMERCIAL_START, 4

82. The final part
• Open graphical framework for interactive TV
– Cesar, P.; Vierinen, J.; Vuorimaa, P.;
– Multimedia Software Engineering, 2003.
Proceedings. Fifth International Symposium on ,
10-12 Dec. 2003
– Pages:21 - 28

83. introduction
• This paper focus on development of
framework and emphasize on cross platform
• So they choose JAVA for implementation
and Linux platform for performance.

84. System architecture
requirements
• User experience
• Developer experience
• Core architecture
• Adaptability

85. Classic architecture
• User Interface software components

86. Evaluation themes
• Here are some interesting terms they defined
to evaluate UI software tools.
– Focus
– threshold
– Ceiling
– Path of least resistance

87. The digital television
standard
• Various DVB , they are popular in Europe
– DVB-S (satellite)
– DVB-T (terrestrial)
– DVB-C (cable)
– DVB-MHP (multimedia home platform )

88. The architecture models
• Graphical architecture model and MHP setup

89. The proposed system
• Navigator application

90. The proposed system
(cont’d)
• Teletext application

91. The proposed system
(cont’d)
• SMIL television application

92. Summary