Digital Television Set-top Box Research Articles

Development of a SoC for Digital Television Set-Top Box: Architecture and System Integration Issues

This work presents the integration of several IPs to generate a system-on-chip (SoC) for digital television set-top box compliant to the SBTVD standard. Embedded consumer electronics for multimedia applications like video processing systems require large storage capacity and high bandwidth memory. Also, those systems are built from heterogeneous processing units, designed to perform specific tasks in order to maximize the overall system efficiency. A single off-chip memory is generally shared between the processing units to reduce power and save costs. The external memory access is one bottleneck when decoding high-definition video sequences in real time. In this work, a four-level memory hierarchy was designed to manage the decoded video in macroblock granularity with low latency. The use of the memory hierarchy in the system design is challenging because it impacts the system integration process and IP reuse in a collaborative design team. Practical strategies used to solve integration problems are discussed in this text. The SoC architecture was validated and is being progressively prototyped using a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA board.

Universal set-top box: a simple design to provide accessible services

This paper presents the design of a low cost accessible digital television set-top box. This set-top box was designed and tested to the International ISDB-T system and considered the adoption of solutions that would provide accessible services in digital television in the simplest digital television receiver. The accessible set-top box was evaluated regarding the processing and memory requirements impacts to provide the features for accessible services. The work presents also the access services bandwidth consumption analysis.

A DVB-MHP web browser to pursue convergence between Digital Terrestrial Television and Internet

In the last decade with the growth of Interactive Digital Television (IDTV) we have seen the end of passive television. An example of this trend is Internet access through television by means of the last generation Set Top Boxes (STBs). The chance to enjoy web contents through digital television Set Top Boxes, delivering a satisfying browsing experience across this platform, could provide the opportunity to promote social inclusion and bridging the "digital divide". In this paper we present WebClimb, a web browser that would pursue an effective integration of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and Internet in the DVB-MHP platform. WebClimb is a Java-based web browser that enables users to browse the web by interacting with an easy to use Graphical User Interface (GUI), driven by a common TV remote control without asking for reformatting such a content on the server side. In addition to this, the main requirement has been to design and develop an MHP browser application to be broadcast through a TV channel and not embedded in a specific device, though it could be too. Experimental results and a comparison with other possible solutions are provided.

PSYCHOLOGICAL INTOLERANCE TO IMPLANTABLE CARDIOVERTER DEFIBRILLATOR

Implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) are mobile implantable cardiac devices for immediate treatment of live threatening ventricular arrhythmias. However, these devices can affect patients, physiologically, psychologically and have effects on electrical devices. The case of a 61-year-old patient is reported. The patient came for regular 3-months visits with his ICD and complained about electromagnetic interference with all household electrical appliances, especially refrigerator and digital television set-top box. He described several phantom shocks when he came close to the electrical appliances. He noted the exact times and symptoms of the episodes but the device memory did not record anything. This case demonstrates the rare occurrence of psychological intolerance to implanted ICD shortly after implant. The device was programmed for higher sensitivity. The patient was calmed and reassured about the reprogramming.

Delivering interactive services via a digital TV infrastructure

This article discusses an architecture for interactive service delivery to the home via the digital television (DTV) infrastructure in systems with and without return channels. This approach relies on a broadcast computing model adapted to suit the DTV environment. The model works even with low-cost user terminals, such as the basic DTV set-top boxes with limited computational and graphics capability and no local disk storage.