For most of the twentieth century, the only
ways to watch television were through over-the-air broadcasts and cable
signals. With broadcast TV, an antenna picks up radio waves to transmit
pictures and sound to your television set. With cable TV, wires connect to a
set-top box or to your TV itself. These wires run from your house to the
nearest cable TV station, which acts as one big antenna. Aside from a few
options like satellite TV, broadcast and cable were -- and still are -- the
main ways to watch television. New technology can change the way we receive
news and entertainment, though. Radio challenged newspapers in the early 1900s,
and television challenged radio. Now, it looks as though traditional television
has its own competitor, but it's not one that's easily separated from
television. It even has television in its name -- it's what we're now calling
Internet TV.
An IPTV signal is a stream of data packets
traveling across the Web.Internet TV is relatively new -- there are lots of
different ways to get it, and quality, content and costs can vary greatly.
Shows can be high-quality, professionally produced material, while others might
remind you of Wayne and Garth broadcasting "Wayne's World" from their
basement. Traditional TV networks are also easing into the technology and
experimenting with different formats.
¬Internet TV, in simple terms, is video and
audio delivered over an Internet connection. It's also known as Internet
protocol television, or IPTV. You can watch Internet TV on a computer screen, a
television screen (through a set-top box) or a mobile device like a cell phone
or an iPod. It's almost the same as getting television
through an antenna or a series of cable wires -- the difference is that
information is sent over the Internet as data. At the same time, you can find
even more variety on Internet TV than cable TV. Along with many of the same
shows you find on the big networks, many Web sites offer independently produced
programs targeted toward people with specific interests.
Internet Protocol Television (known widely as
IP TV), being the newestarrival on the block, threatens the other two mediums
by promising to give a toughcompetition. IP TV is a mechanism of viewing the
regular television channels over IP.Similar to Satellite TV and Cable TV, the
signal is encrypted using vendor specificsecurity mechanisms and can only be
decrypted by a receiver (STB). The video is sentin the form of IP packets over
the existing broadband infrastructure and is assembledat the viewers’ end with
the help of a Set Top Box. This becomes advantageous asexisting broadband
distribution infrastructure can be used to deliver television signalsenabling
the user to enjoy television over the same broadband connection used forsurfing
the internet. This is beneficial for broadcasters as they can offer “Triple
Play”service of voice, data and television over the same network using the
sameinfrastructure. “Triple Play” service refers to three different services of
VoIP, Internetand IP-TV bundled together and offered over the same network.
With IP TV, one canbe assured of better video quality and stereophonic sound
much like in case of DTH& Digital Cable TV. Even the customer specific
services of Video on Demand (VOD)become a reality. Also, this enables
broadcasters to have two way communicationswith the viewers as opposed to in
case of DTH and Cable TV.
Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is a
system through which digitaltelevision service is delivered using the
architecture and networking methods of theInternet Protocol Suite over a
packet-switched network infrastructure, e.g., theInternet and broadband
Internet access, instead of being delivered through traditionalradio frequency
broadcast and cable television (CATV) formats.
It is important to note that historically
there have been many differentdefinitions of "IPTV" including
elementary streams over IP networks, transportstreams over IP networks and a
number of proprietary systems. Although it ispremature to say that there is a
full consensus of exactly what IPTV should mean,there is no doubt that the most
widely used definition today is for single or multipleprogram transport streams
(MPTS) which are sourced by the same network operatorthat owns or directly
controls the "Final Mile" to the consumer's premises. Thiscontrol
over delivery enables a guaranteed quality of service, and also allows
theservice provider to offer an enhanced user experience such as better program
guide,interactive services etc. The official definition approved by the
InternationalTelecommunication Union focus group on IPTV (ITU-T FG IPTV) is as
follows:
"IPTV is defined as multimedia services
such as television/video/audio/text/graphics/data delivered over IP based
networks managed to provide the required level ofquality of service and
experience, security, interactivity and reliability.""Internet
TV" generally refers to transport streams sent over IP networks(normally
the Internet) from outside the network that connects to the users premises.An
Internet TV provider has no control over the final delivery and so broadcasts
on a"best effort" basis. Elementary streams over IP networks and
proprietary variants asused by websites such as “You Tube” are rarely
considered to be IPTV services.
Forresidential users, IPTV is often provided
in conjunction with Video On Demand and may be bundled with Internet
services such as Web access and Voice over IP (VoIP). The commercial bundling
of IPTV, VoIP and Internet access is referred to as a Triple Play. Adding the
mobile voice service leads to the Quadruple Play moniker. IPTV is typically
supplied by a broadband operator using a closed network infrastructure. This
closed network approach is in competition with the delivery of TV content over
the public Internet, however, the latter is often lacking a guaranteed quality
of Service.Internet TV and DVR capabilities have
become very popular in the past few years. Mobile phones are being proposed to
control the smart home and to offer a personalized service. In this paper, we
are interested in providing to the mobile user the capability of controlling an
IPTV session from his mobile device, a concept that we define as “out-of-band”
remote Control – “clicker”. The solution relies on a
mobile device acting as a remote control, a secure token to authenticate user
and move IPTV sessions, and a middleware server acting as an intermediary or
proxy between the user and the IPTV server. Mobile content delivery is an
important issue that needs to be discussed in association with this
application. Information (multimedia clips etc.) sent to the device needs to be
adapted and matched to a particular device profile. We propose a mechanism on
how content is adapted using a middleware system that best matches the user’s
device.
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