Empirical Determination of the Effectiveness of Pre-Selecting IPTV Channels

Abstract

Abstract This paper aims to determine the actual amount of channel change time reductions seen by correctly pre-selecting the next channel to be accessed in Internet Protocol Television systems. Numerous researchers have published techniques for pre-selecting channels that are then streamed down to user set top boxes prior to selection to reduce channel change times. These previous papers consistently indicate that when the next channel selection is already being streamed to the user that the channel change times will be significantly reduced based on the theory of operation. However, a precise determination of this reduction has not been adequately put forth in the previous research, nor has an experimental analysis validating this reduction been well documented. In this research an experimental platform was constructed and a systematic analysis of the beneficial effects of channel pre-selection was undertaken. A theoretical forecast of the resulting channel change time reduction is advanced, and a comparison of the forecast to the experimental results validated the expected time reduction.