Integration between Digital Terrestrial Television and Internet by means of a DVB-MHP web browser

Irene Amerini, Roberto Caldelli, Rudy Becarelli, Francesco Filippini{irene.amerini, roberto.caldelli, rudy.becarelli, francesco filippini}@unifi.it

Giovanni Ballocca, Roberto Borri{giovanni.ballocca, roberto.borri}@csp.it

24 March 2009

Outline

• Why Integration? • Digital Terrestrial Television• How Integration is achieved• WebClimb system architecture• WebClimb prototype evaluation• Conclusions

Why Integration?

• 2012: digital TV convergence in Europe (hundred of millions of terminals)• To enrich the user experience in DTT • Reduction of digital divide

• A multifunctional platform that provides an access to both interactive TV and also to Internet services

TV WEB BROWSER

Digital Terrestrial Television

• Many standards exist (OCAP, ACAP, ISDB, DMB)

• DVB-MHP: Europe, part of Asia, Latin America, some country of Africa

DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) consortium: standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television. This system transmits compressed digital audio, video and other data in an MPEG transport stream.

MHP (Multimedia Home Platform):open standard platform for interactive digital TV and multimedia services.

MHP applications: DVB-J application or XLET

embedded in STB or downloaded from an object carousel

Digital Terrestrial Television

• MHP 1.0 Enhanced Broadcast Profile

Interactive Broadcast Profile (return channel)

• MHP 1.1 Internet Access Profile

a few STBs support such a profile, higher price

PersonalJava ~Java 1.1.8 +

Java TV APIHAVi UIDAVIC APIDVB API

to provide Internet access under MHP 1.0 profile

How Integration is achieved (1/2)

• Specs-Constraints:

• MHP 1.0

• JDK 1.1.8 + Java TV, HAVi UI, DAVIC, DVB API

• Reduced interactivity (only remote control)

• Low screen resolution

• Small memory footprint (<1Mbyte)

• Downloaded from an object carousel as a normal Xlet (device independent)

WebClimbXHTML web browser as a DVB-J

application

Return Return channelchannel

WWW

BROADCASTER

The Infrastructure

TV Digital SignalTV Digital Signal

STB

WebClimb System Architecture

GUI

Rendering/Layout

Networking

• presentation

• layout engine• parsing

• HTTP Client (Apache) - HTTP/HTTPS connection over return channel• Ethernet/PPP Resolver - session management connection DVB API• URL Resolver

URL

XHTML CSS data

display

System Architecture – Rendering/Layout (1/2)

JTidy

Visual formatting model specs W3C

Assignment algorithm

SACParser

System Architecture – Rendering/Layout (2/2)

GUI Viewport

Text paragraph

Title h1 link

CSS

System Architecture – GUI (1/2)• Two navigation levels: UI, Content Area

System Architecture – GUI (2/2)• Virtual keyboard

• Remote control: key to key navigation

WebClimb evaluation

• Test on various XHTML pages• Execution on commercial STBs

• different model and brand (ADB, Humax, Elsag, TeleSystem)

• Memory RAM 8Mbytes-64Mbytes• Modem, Ethernet connection or both

Results

• Clear visualization, correct character encoding and management of the graphical elements on the screen

• Compatibility with respect to different model and brand STBs

• 900 kbytes dimension

WebClimb evaluation• some examples……..

• some examples……..

WebClimb evaluation

WebClimb evaluation• some examples……..

WebClimb evaluation• some examples……..

Conclusions

• Integration between TV and web• Development of a DVB-MHP web browser: WebClimb• Positive results of testing with different kinds of STBs

Future Trends• Compare WebClimb functionalities with others DVB-MHP web browser

on the market (preliminary test give positive results)• Total dimension optimization• A deeper evaluation of the usability

Integration between Digital Terrestrial Television and Internet by means of a DVB-MHP web browser

Irene Amerini, Roberto Caldelli, Rudy Becarelli, Francesco Filippini{irene.amerini, roberto.caldelli, rudy.becarelli, francesco filippini}@unifi.it

Giovanni Ballocca, Roberto Borri{giovanni.ballocca, roberto.borri}@csp.it

24 March 2009