Frame Control-Based Terrestrial UHD (ATSC 3.0) Buffer Model for Dynamic Content Insertion

Abstract

Hybrid broadcasting utilizing heterogeneous networks can provide not only Audio/Video(A/V)-based unidirectional broadcast services but also various interactive A/V and data services via both broadcast and communication networks. Customers of hybrid broadcasting services can then consume A/V content that is transmitted from broadcasting stations and data services relevant to A/V content through communication networks, such as the Internet. Since interactive data can be widely ingested in various countries and regions, it is advantageous for it to be customized for personalized services depending on consumer preferences and locations. However, the current broadcasting standard has not yet defined a standardized method of inserting content into a broadcasting program. Thus, the research on content insertion technology using heterogeneous networks is actively progressing. The most important technical challenge of inserting content is rendering a smooth replacement of on-air broadcast content with media data through communication networks and an accurate return to the over-the-air broadcast content consistent with the rendering timeline using legacy receivers. Since most legacy receivers have one decoder, both the inserted content and the broadcast content have to be handled by one decoder. When two video streams are processed by one decoder, decoding and rendering problems due to the buffer overflow may occur, and buffer management of the decoder is required to solve this problem. Therefore, this paper proposes a content insertion method of using a frame control-based receiver buffer model to enable smooth and accurate rendering of inserted and on-air content without any blackout scenes.