iTV handbook: technologies & standards

Abstract

Interactive television (iTV) is an evolutionary merging of digital TV and the internet. iTV technology offers new powerful ways for consumers to interact with content and service providers. In Europe, iTV has gained significant traction during the turn of the century. For example, about 500,000 viewers signed up for SkyDigital's email service during 2000. In another example, Nickelodeon's "Watch Your Own Week" voting application was available to SkyDigital viewers during Oct 22-27 2001. While only 100,000 votes were anticipated for the whole week, this goal was reached within two days; a total of 578,000 votes were recorded for the week. Today, Europe counts tens of millions of iTV consumers.The iTV Handbook is a broad overview of the business and technical issues, and could be used as a textbook for an introductory technical course: it lays out the current thinking on commercially viable uses of iTV, surveys the related technical standards, and describes a broad range of technologies and the relationships among them. A whole chapter is devoted to the big picture of the iTV food chain, and another key chapter is devoted to a survey of media streaming methods. A "file system in the sky" is described which is the broadcasting equivalent of the network file system, and can be used to eliminate the notorious "hot spot" encountered when millions of receivers are trying to access a small set of pages. The book provides many rare insights into the nuts and bolts of the technologies being used. For example, the book presents part of the theoretical foundation for MP3 compression, and describes in detail many popular file formats used to deliver iTV content, including GIF, QuickTime, AVI, and ZIP.

Using video embedded markings for supporting content sensitive interaction in multiple contexts

“…Esta inovação cria oportunidades para a produção e desenvolvimento de novos serviços dos mais diversos tipos, por exemplo, acesso personalizado aos conteúdos, busca e navegação em guias eletrônicos de programação (EPGs), informações e programações adicionais, serviços comerciais, dentre outros [23].…”

Arquitectura funcional para la implementación de mobile IPTV sobre redes LTE y LTE-Avanced

“…• QoS y QoS: los parámetros de desempeño de la red como velocidad de transmisión, retardo, jitter y pérdida de paquetes deben ser mantenidos dentro de los niveles aceptables para el despliegue de sistemas de IPTV [4].…”

“…Bajo este escenario uno de los servicios más exigentes en términos de consumo de recursos será la Mobile IPTV puesto que requiere de una red de alta velocidad, baja tasa de error y bajo retardo para permitir la reproducción en tiempo real del contenido seleccionado por el usuario [4]. En consecuencia, el despliegue de sistemas LTE marcará el inicio de una nueva era en las comunicaciones móviles que permitirá a los operadores contar con una plataforma global para soportar las próximas generaciones de servicios con la calidad requerida por cada uno de ellos [5].…”

Using the iDTV as the Center of an Ubiquitous Environment

“…The first most significant occurred in 1950 with the emergence of the color TV Sets and the growing of program options to the viewers (Schwalb, 2004). In the 1980s came the first digital production islands.…”

“…This kind of interactivity allowed the emergence of the new interactive Digital TV (iDTV). According to Schwalb (2004) and Morris & Smith-Chaigneau (2005), the iDTV can be classified as Enhanced TV with texts, graphic elements and improvement of audio and video quality; Internet on TV where the Internet can be accessed through the TV; personalized TV where the TV is adapted according to the viewer's profile; Personal Video Recorder (PVR) where the TV content is recorded from a genre, title or schedule; Walled Garden, a portal from which the user can browse for some desired iDTV application; Games, where the viewers use the TV to play a game or to connect with other players located connected in network; Electronic Program Guide (EPG), similar to the Walled Garden, but it has more details about the channels; and Teletext which shows information (economics, wheater, last news and so on) provided by the broadcasters in a text format. Another issue that enables the use of interactivity for viewers is the usage of the return channel.…”