IPTV Systems Research Articles

A Recommendation System Based on Implicit Data for Internet Protocol Television (IPTV)

IPTV delivers television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Videos On Demand (VOD) is the most popular IPTV, allowing users to freely select from a vast pool of program genres. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce innovative features to attract new users and retain existing ones. For this purpose, IPTV systems typically use VOD recommendation engines. The primary purpose of recommendation systems is to suggest user-relevant items from various items by producing a list of recommendations for each user. In this paper, we introduce an approach to recommendation systems in IPTV. We developed this approach on implicit feedback derived from users’ interaction with movies/series sets, such as how many times they watched a movie and how long they have spent watching specific movies/series. For the previous factors, we tested a variety of recommendation algorithms, content-based, collaborative-based, and hybrid. Then applied the previously mentioned algorithms on real-life big data sets after introducing some modifications to the algorithms, then benchmarked the results on multiple performance metrics. We noticed that the applied changes achieved promising results.

ОЦЕНКА ПАРАМЕТРОВ QOS ДЛЯ БЕСПЕРЕБОЙНОЙ РАБОТЫ IPTV

This article describes the IPTV system, as well as its implementation methods and related protocols. The concept of IPTV includes both real-time television and recording television, the so-called VoD. In real time, streaming data is sent using only the RTP protocol and in addition to it, the RTSP protocol is used for streaming VoD. In addition, methods for measuring QoS parameters are analyzed, considering practical applications for estimating IPTV traffic parameters. An important feature of providing quality IPTV services is a high level of quality of service. Also, in theory, an Internet connection model with insufficient network bandwidth is considered. The following characteristics are taken into account: bandwidth, one-way delay, inter-packet jitter, the number of lost packets, the number of duplicated packets, packets with errors, and damaged packets. A reordering issue is mentioned. In addition, two important QoS parameters for VoD are measured: START delay and PAUSE / RESUME delays. Service messaging is considered while providing IPTV service. The maximum, average, and minimum values for the network quality of service parameters are found.

A survey on content awareness challenges in IPTV delivery networks

Nowadays, with the evolution of digital video broadcasting, as well as, the advent of high speed broadband networks, a new era of TV services has emerged known as IPTV. IPTV is a system that exploits the high speed broadband networks to deliver TV services to the subscribers. From the service provider viewpoint, the challenge in IPTV systems is how to build delivery networks that exploits the resources efficiently and reduces the service cost, as well. However, designing such delivery networks are affected by many factors including choosing the suitable network architecture, load balancing, resources waste, and cost reduction. Furthermore, IPTV contents characteristics; particularly size, popularity, and interactivity play an important role in balancing the load and avoiding the resources waste for delivery networks. Ignoring the content status in solving delivery networks issues particularly replica placement, request distribution, and resource allocation problems leads to load imbalance, which in turn, leads to performance degradation in IPTV system. In this survey paper, we introduce IPTV delivery networks terminology and taxonomy. Upon that, we investigate the challenges related to the contents’ awareness in those delivery networks. At the end of the paper, we propose a content-awareness in ITV delivery networks and CDN as the future direction and discuss its importance in different aspects as request redirection, resource allocation, and replica placement.

On the synthetic dataset generation for IPTV services based on user behavior

The adoption of the paradigm shift from push-based media broadcasting to pull-based media streaming has seen a significant growth in the recent decade. IPTV is good example to illustrate this claim. In IPTV systems hundreds (or maybe thousands in near future) of live TV channels and video contents are available to subscribers. In many application domains a clear understanding of access pattern to the items is necessary. However, for security reasons, in IPTV systems this kind of information is not publicly available. In this paper, taking into account a model which mimics the behavior of a typical IPTV user, and with the aid of MovieLens dataset, we produce a trace file or synthetic dataset, named UBSDI. We then show that, this dataset can reflect many properties of real datasets quite realistically. This dataset is publically available and can be used in many applications such as recommender systems, network capacity planning, network dimensioning, and system performance optimization.

2D-to-3D conversion based hybrid frame discard method for 3D IPTV systems

One of the main limitations for 3D streaming services on IPTV is network bandwidth mismatch due to the large size of 3D video traffic. It causes fatal decoding errors and mosaic-like damage. This paper presents a hybrid frame discard method to address the problem. The main idea of the proposed method is combining the selective frame discard methodology with 2D-to-3D conversion technique, which enables efficient utilization of the network bandwidth. In the proposed method, the frames to be discarded are selected after consideration of the support of 2D-to-3D conversion, the network bandwidth, and the inter-frame dependency relationship within a group of pictures (GOPs). The experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method enhances the media quality of 3D video streaming even in bad network conditions. The proposed method is expected to be practically utilized in 3D IPTV system.

A Modeling Framework with Population Dynamics for Content Pollution Proliferation in P2P IPTV System

A Modeling Framework with Population Dynamics for Content Pollution Proliferation in P2P IPTV System

Mitigating the IPTV Zap Time in Enhanced EPON Systems

Zap time (channel switching time) is a critical quality of experience (QoE) metric for IPTV systems where synchronization, signaling, and propagation delays are the components under consideration. An Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) is one of the main infrastructures in broadband access networks that provides high bandwidth with low propagation delay. The functionality of the EPON hardware architecture can be extended by adding programmable networking engine (PNE) and programmable sub-system (PSS) components in the optical line terminal (OLT) and optical network unit (ONU) as described in this paper to improve IPTV delivery performance for synchronization and signaling delays in terms of traffic localization. Furthermore, a new IPTV delivery mechanism is proposed to eliminate synchronization delay by buffering the current I-frames of broadcasted channels in the OLT for possible new coming requests and dropping additional streams along with the main stream. The OLTand ONUs implement a multicasting mechanism to handle part of the IPTV request as intra-domain traffic. Simulation results show that the proposed mechanism significantly improves the QoE and quality of service (QoS). IPTV bandwidth usage and system throughput have improved mean packet delays and packet loss in enhanced EPON architecture.

Fast and low-complexity encoding of Raptor codes based on operation lists for known source block lengths

Raptor codes can provide good error correction capability and efficient encoding and decoding rate. Its fountain code property is effective in avoiding packet retransmission for both unicast and multicast service delivery. Hence, there are many mobile, vehicular and broadband applications adopting it such as mobile multimedia broadcasting, multimedia communications for high-speed rails and broadband IPTV systems. In this paper, we present an efficient systematic Raptor codes encoder based on operation lists for known source block lengths. For a Raptor codes application that can frequently use one or several fixed source block lengths (i.e., the number of source symbols in a source block), we could produce the corresponding operation lists in advance and use them to generate the encoding symbols more efficiently. We first introduce the basic architecture of the proposed Raptor encoder, and then describe the details about how to generate operation lists and Raptor intermediate symbols. The simulation results show that our encoder is at least two times faster than the conventional Raptor codes encoder which is adopted by 3GPP and DVB-H. Besides, the reduction on CPU utilization for a real Raptor-based streaming server is described, which is from 11.59 % to 53.41 %, depending on the employed source block length and symbol size.

Mining the IPTV Channel Change Event Stream to Discover Insight and Detect Ads

IPTV has been widely deployed throughout the world, bringing significant advantages to users in terms of the channel offering, video on demand, and interactive applications. One aspect that has been often neglected is the ability of precise and unobtrusive telemetry. TV set-top boxes that are deployed in modern IPTV systems can be thought of as capable sensor nodes that collect vast amounts of data, representing both the user activity and the quality of service delivered by the system itself. In this paper we focus on the user-generated events and analyze how the data stream of channel change events received from the entire IPTV network can be mined to obtain insight about the content. We demonstrate that it is possible to predict the occurrence of TV ads with high probability and show that the approach could be extended to model the user behavior and classify the viewership in multiple dimensions.

Fair and Popularity based Content Allocation Scheme for IPTV Delivery Networks

gained a significant attention from researchers and Internet service providers due to its ability to benefit from the capabilities of IP based networks to deliver TV related services with high level of QoS. One of the main problems in IPTV Delivery Networks is how to manage the huge amount of multimedia contents efficiently to meet the demands of users especially for Video on Demand (VoD) services. IPTV Delivery Networks is employed to manage the storage of VoD contents in IPTV system but the dynamic changes in both VoD contents and users interests make the need for efficient content management is crucial. Many content allocation schemes are proposed for IPTV Delivery Networks to manage the contents efficiently in hierarchical and distributed architectures. Peer-service architecture of IPTV Delivery Networks is efficient and provides high level of QoS but does not take load balance factor of storage servers into consideration. This paper aims to investigate load imbalance problem in IPTV Delivery Networks, modify peer-service architecture, and propose a novel content allocation method that solves the load imbalance in peer-service content network by replicating the contents based on their popularity and the workload of servers within the service area. Experimental results show that this proposed balanced and popularity based content allocation method can maintains the load balancing among servers and avoid the over/under utilization of servers.

Popularity Prediction of Videos in IPTV Systems

Video on demand (VoD) service in IPTV is a bandwidth-hungry application. It has been argued that the distribution of popularity of videos can be well measured using a Zipf-like distribution in which top 10% of the videos account for nearly 90% of requests. In this article, we propose a neural network based method to predict the popularity of videos in an IPTV system. The popularity prediction can be used by service providers for video placement in content delivery systems or hierarchical servers and hence it can lead to bandwidth save. Simulation-based performance evaluation of our proposed method confirms a significant accuracy in the prediction of the popularity of the videos.

A Validated Analytical Model for Availability Prediction of IPTV Services in VANETs

In vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), besides the original applications typically related to traffic safety, we nowadays can observe an increasing trend toward infotainment applications, such as IPTV services. Quality of experience (QoE), as observed by the end users of IPTV, is highly important to guarantee adequate user acceptance for the service. In IPTV, QoE is mainly determined by the availability of TV channels for the users. This paper presents an efficient and rather generally applicable analytical model that allows one to predict the blocking probability of TV channels, both for channel-switching-induced, as well as for handover-induced blocking events. We present the successful validation of the model by means of simulation, and we introduce a new measure for QoE. Numerous case studies illustrate how the analytical model and our new QoE measure can be applied successfully for the dimensioning of IPTV systems, taking into account the QoE requirements of the IPTV service users in strongly diverse traffic scenarios.

Design of a Distribution Management System for IPTV Systems

IPTV, acronym of Internet Protocol Television, is a system that delivers television services through Internet protocol networks. Therefore, an IPTV system consists of many subsystems including content management, user management, and broadcast management systems. Among the main subsystems, the distribution management system handles purchasing orders from distributors, transcoding original content into the format designated by the distributor, and transmitting transcoded content to the server designated by the distributor. In order to realize one source multi-use and to boost content circulation, an IPTV system should be open in that any authorized content providers are allowed to upload their content for circulation and any authorized distributors are allowed to circulate content. The distribution management subsystem of an IPTV system allows distributors to request for content circulation and system managers to process distributors’ requests. Therefore, a distribution management system is one of the most important subsystems of an IPTV system. This paper introduces our design of a distribution management system for IPTV systems.

An Improved Particle Swarm Optimization Based on Deluge Approach for Enhanced Hierarchical Cache Optimization in IPTV Networks

In recent years, IP network has been considered as a new delivery network for TV services. A majority of the telecommunication industries have used IP network to offer on-demand services and linear TV services as it can offer a two-way and high-speed communication. In order to effectively and economically utilize the IP network, caching is the technique which is usually preferred. In IPTV system, a managed network is utilized to bring out TV services, the requests of Video on Demand (VOD) objects are usually combined in a limited period intensively and user preferences are fluctuated dynamically. Furthermore, the VOD content updates often under the control of IPTV providers. In order to minimize this traffic and overall network cost, a segment of the video content is stored in caches closer to subscribers, for example, Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM), a Central Office (CO) and Intermediate Office (IO). The major problem focused in this approach is to determine the optimal cache memory that should be assigned in order to attain maximum cost effectiveness. This approach uses an effective Grate Deluge algorithm based Particle Swarm Optimization (GDPSO) approach for attaining the optimal cache memory size which in turn minimizes the overall network cost. The analysis shows that hierarchical distributed caching can save significant network cost through the utilization of the GDPSO algorithm.

Achieving Convergence through Deployment of IPTV in Cellular Network

Present IPTV system fails to establish QoS due to packet loss, server congestion and limited bandwidth. To overcome these drawbacks an implementation of IPTV is presented here using MPLS in 3GPP LTE release 8 networks. This implementation will provide multicast capability and FEC along with retransmission to minimize packet loss. Deploying IPTV in LTE makes LTE capable of transmitting voice, data and audio/video which will ensure convergence.

Private personalized social recommendations in an IPTV system

In our connected world, recommender systems have become widely known for their ability to provide expert and personalize referrals to end-users in different domains. The rapid growth of social networks and new kinds of systems so called “social recommender systems” are rising, where recommender systems can be utilized to find a suitable content according to end-users' personal preferences. However, preserving end-users' privacy in social recommender systems is a very challenging problem that might prevent end-users from releasing their own data, which detains the accuracy of extracted referrals. In order to gain accurate referrals, social recommender systems should have the ability to preserve the privacy of end-users registered in this system. In this paper, we present a middleware that runs on end-users' Set-top boxes to conceal their profile data when released for generating referrals, such that computation of recommendation proceeds over the concealed data. The proposed middleware is equipped with two concealment protocols to give users a complete control on the privacy level of their profiles. We present an IPTV network scenario and perform a number of different experiments to test the efficiency and accuracy of our protocols. As supported by the experiments, our protocols maintain the recommendations accuracy with acceptable privacy level.

Introducing a design of a product creation system for IPTV systems

It is well known that the content management system (CMS) and the broadcast management system (BMS) are the most essential components of an IPTV system. An IPTV system retrieves container files from the CMS and delivers them to the end users through the BMS. Therefore, most of research works about IPTV systems handle container files. However, a container is a mix of video, audio, computer graphic, text and metadata. A container that is created for sale is a product. In this paper, we design and implement a product creation component for IPTV systems.

Experimental Analysis of the Fault Tolerance of the PIM-SM IP Multicast Routing Protocol under GNS3

PIM-SM is the most commonly used IP multicast routing protocol in IPTV systems. Its fault tolerance is examined by experimenting on a mesh topology multicast test network built up by Cisco routers under GNS3. Different fault scenarios are played and different parameters of the PIM-SM and of the OSPF protocols are examined if they influence and how they influence the outage time of an IPTV service. The failure of the Rendezvous Point (RP) of the given IP multicast group as well as the complete failure of a router in the media forwarding path of the multicast stream are examined. A method is given how the service outage time caused by the complete failure of a router can be limited by an appropriate choice of the Dead Interval parameter of OSPF.

A development of a sales log system for IPTV systems

This paper introduces our development of a sales log system for IPTV systems. This log system records all events related to sales including registration of content, distribution contracts, customers' accesses to content, and payments. Billing is one of essential activities of any commercial organization. Our log system provides all necessary information for billing. Sales history and sales amount of each content item, of each content provider and of each distributor can be retrieved from our log system. Retrieved information can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet. One of the distinct features of our system is that it is system independent in that any IPTV system can use our log system via the Web services our log system provides.

Integration of P4P and IMS-based IPTV

In this paper, we propose an IPTV system architecture based on IMS and P4P. It uses IMS as core functions to achieve system operation and signalling control by the SIP protocol. At the same time, this system uses P4P network to transmit multimedia streams. An iTracker module is added to the traditional Peer to Peer P2P network, which can make the adjacent nodes of the peers construct a P2P network, to alleviate the traffic volume of the backbone network, balance the load of the whole network and improve the system performance. In addition, this paper elaborates the system implementation process in detail. An experiment is designed to verify the system. Experimental results show that the proposed IPTV system has some obvious advantages on multimedia transmission than the systems based on traditional P2P networks.