IPTV

Contents
Contents............................................................................................................. 1

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................2

SIGNIFICANCES OF OPEN NETWORK AND CLOSED NETWORK...............................3

IS IT INTERNET TV SAME AS IPTV?.........................................................................4

IS IT YOUTUBE AN IPTV?........................................................................................5

PROTOCOLS OF IPTV..............................................................................................6

PERSONAL VIDEO RECORDER................................................................................6

AVAILABLE SYSTEMS FOR IPTV..............................................................................7

TYPES OF BROADBAND NETWORK PROVIDED FOR COMMERCIAL SERVICE...........7

CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................10

REFERENCES........................................................................................................11
 IPTV

INTRODUCTION
IPTV is considered as the one of the main evolution of the 21 st century. For the last few
years the growth of IPTV is not comparable with any type of entertainment medium. This is
mainly because of the growth internet and more and more people find time on that. Since
IPTV is integrated forms of internet and video entertainment people find time for viewing
these at the hectic work schedule just for an entertainment. According to different survey
study shows that the IPTV market is growing in terms of multiple, and some of studies like
iSuppli say that the market of IPTV stood around $ 780 million in the year 2006, and in
recent study done Alcatel- Lucent say that the subscription of IPTV will reach between 70 to
100 million with the year 2010 (Thomson, 2006). And these studies show that growth and
the demand for IPTV is increasing day-by-day.

This report deals with the IPTV, its technical explanations, issues that are involved in quality
of the video, its different function, and bandwidth required for its transmission and some
other topics that are related to IPTV. After introduction next parts this paper going explain
about the IPTV and its backgrounds and there after I explained about different aspects about
IPTV like triple play, digital rights management, difference between closed and open
network. And there are some calculation done in this paper to find throughput of the IPTV.
 IPTV
BACKGROUND

The IPTV history starts in the year 1994 with ABC broadcast a television show named ‘World
News Now’ over the internet with help of software called CU-SeeMe. But IPTV term was first
introduced in the year 1995 with invention of ‘Precept Software’ by Judith Estrin and Bill
Carrico. And that IPTV is compatible for Windows and UNIX based applications that from
single as well as multicast video traffic signals. And those signal quality range from low to
high DVD quality. And the Precept software was acquired in 1998 by Cisco systems, and
Cisco obtains IPTV as trademark.

The two earliest IPTV were introduced, one by Cable and Wireless Hong Kong Telecom
launched IPTV in name of iTV as interactive service for commercial Television, and that was
the early stage of Hong Kong’s first IPTV service and the second earliest service of IPTV
was by Kingston Communications, it launched IPTV in the name Kingston Interactive
Television (KIT), it provide service through base on DSL broadband in the year 1999. And
KIT started video on demand (VoD) in the year 2001 through Yes TV. Yes TV is VoD service
provider based on IP. And Kingston was considered to be one among the first who introduce
IPTV over DSL to the world. AT&T in 2006 launched a U-Verse IPTV services and offers
around three hundred channels in eleven cities and the company added more in the next
year. AT&T builds their own IP network mainly for video transport.

TRIPLE PLAY

Triple play is defined as the way of providing the services such as high speed internet, IPTV,
and telephone connection over a single broad band connection. The important aim of this
triple play is for the development of business model in a combined form instead of resolving
the technical issues. And the main challenges of providing triple play are mainly linked with
finding the proper business model, customer support, backend functions, and economy
rather than the technology behind it. And in technical wise there are different challenges to
overcome like the quality of service, speed of the internet connection, and packet losses.
And also it needs high bandwidth lines to provide those services.

SIGNIFICANCES OF OPEN NETWORK AND CLOSED NETWORK

Closed network is defined as a system which transmits and receives data in large
infrastructure that is made of cables that connecting the subscribers and the service
provider. And open network is define as, network which shares with all that uses the internet.
And people can upload and download whatever they what from the open network. But in
closed network people could not do any alteration to what the subscriber is provided with,
 IPTV
that means the people cannot upload any videos from a closed network.(Master New Media,
2005).
For the quality of service there will be a significant difference between an open network and
a closed network. For most of the cases the quality of service might be better for closed
network than that of an open network. Because these closed network are dedicated lines for
subscribers than that of open network.

IS IT INTERNET TV SAME AS IPTV?

IPTV and internet TV both refers to a medium of broadcasting the videos but in technical
wise these two mediums are different in their way of broadcasting. The term internet TV is
refers to some website that hosts an online video streaming like YouTube. And for IPTV it is
used for broadcasting high quality both live and stored videos. Other difference in IPTV and
internet TV is the way of broadcasting, IPTV is closed networks which are used for
broadcasting to dedicated customers, so the quality wise and streaming wise it far better
than internet TV. And internet TV is considered as an open network that can be viewed by
anyone using the internet and people can able upload or download whatever they want from
it.

The internet Television does not need any special architecture for broadcasting the videos,
a website is enough for it. It can be operated through on the present infrastructure such as
DSL, ADSL, satellite and cable. There is no need of process like billing, solution for the
customer complaint, quality of service, etc.

In IPTV the system is entirely different from internet TV, it needs dedicated lines for the
subscribers, and the quality of service must be good. And the system for IPTV is more
intricate than that of internet TV these needs special billing system for the subscribers
according to what they seen and also add special charges for videos on demand, so due to
these the billing system, the IPTV system must be more complex. And there should be a
good customer support to in operation to resolve the customer complaints.
 IPTV

FIGR : IPTV ARCHITECTURE (REFERENCE: Zhone Technologies)

IS IT YOUTUBE AN IPTV?
YouTube is website used for broadcasting videos through internet. Usually it played on
streaming window and the speed of the streaming depends on the internet speed. And it
does not contain any broadcasting any live videos, and also the quality of service where not
guaranteed as that of an IPTV. And for YouTube it does not required any dedicated lines or
fibre cable for its broadcasting and due to these factors YouTube is not considered as an
IPTV.

DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT (DRM)

 IPTV
It is the rights to access digital media by the publisher, manufactures of hardware, and
copyright holders to constraint the use of digital media. DRM for IPTV is not only controls the
live streaming video but also controls the downloaded video and what should happen to that
video which is once viewed.

PROTOCOLS OF IPTV
Protocols are defined as the set rules that must followed by a technology for the purpose of
transmission services. There are different types of protocols for IPTV such as IGMP version
2 (Internet Group Multicast Protocols), RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol).

IGMP is mainly for multicasting, and these multicast protocols are mainly for implementing
protocols between the router and the host’s set top box. And this protocol manages the
delivery of traffic through IP multicasting. In IGMP there are mainly four types of functions for
IP multicast networking, they are Join, Query, there are two different types of queries they
are specific query and general query, and the forth type of IGMP is membership report. Join
is for indicating the multicast group that it would like to get data from it. The specific query is
for host to confirm whether is it a part of the particular multicast group and the general
queries is for the host is request to specify that the group it belongs to.

RTS Protocol is specified for the unicast streaming videos. Video on demand (VOD) is a
unicast streaming process. There are different features for these RTSP has and one of them
is rough synchronisation, means a coordinate playback from different servers.

CUSTOMER PREMISE EQUIPMENT (CPE)

IPTV requires a device which connects or interface the host television with its subscriber that
is known as Customer Premise Equipment. Set Top Box is type of CPE which is
programmed to different users. Instead of STB we can use computer as CPE.

PERSONAL VIDEO RECORDER

Personal video recorder (PVR) is a feature of IPTV that enables the viewers to record
whatever they want and it is to be stored for viewing it later. This feature is incorporated with
the set top box of IPTV. And this feature is one of the main advantages of the IPTV, because
the people can watch the recorded program at whatever time they want and also the viewer
can watch other programs at the same time of recording another video. These recordings
are normally programmed through the electronic programme guide on basis of choice.
Recording schedule can be remotely performed through mobile phones or using internet.
 IPTV
Usually PVR services are provided along with the subscription package. PVR can store the
videos in STB or it could be stored in a central storage of the service providers. It needs
larger bandwidth for the centralized PVR system since the stored program to be shared by
more number of subscribers. But it needs low band width for the subscribers when the PVR
system is packaged into STB. [Whitnell, J.]

AVAILABLE SYSTEMS FOR IPTV

The different existing available system for IPTV are SBC, Verzion, Bell Canada, Bell south
and more. And some other existing IPTV companies are KITV and Video Networks.

TYPES OF BROADBAND NETWORK PROVIDED FOR

COMMERCIAL SERVICE
For IPTV technology it requires mainly three network equipment for its transmission. They
are video encoder, a broadband network, and a set top box. The video encoder is a device
which converts the video signals from transmitting centre to IP packets. Broadband network
which connects the centre station with the subscribers set top box. And the set top box is
used to convert the IP packets to video signals.

The broadband network for IPTV is usually with high speed digital subscriber line (DSL), like
ADSL, VDSL, ADSL2, and ADSL 2+. These DSL technologies deliver the IPTV services to
the subscribers from the central station. In some cases the central station uses DSL and
filter to the curb together depending on IPTV services. The different downstream data rate of
different DSL are 8Mbps for ADSL, 12 and 24 Mbps for ADSL2 and ADSL2+ respectively
and VDSL has a downstream of 52 Mbps. And the different upstream data rate of DSL are
up to 640 kbps, 1 Mbps, 2, and 6 Mbps for ADSL, ADSL2, ADSL2+ and VDSL respectively.
The 10 Gb Ethernet cable for IPTV can used to send around 200 SD and around 100 HD
channels through that. And it gives a good quality for the IPTV service.

HIGH-DEFINITION TELEVISION (HDTV)

In HDTV the quality of output mainly depends on the transmission of high quality picture
through the channels. The IPTV gives a good challenge for the HDTV for its performance
because of its requirement in bandwidth. For IPTV the required bandwidth is 2 Mbps where
as for HDTV it is 8 Mbps per channels. So in case of altering the HDTV service channels, it
simultaneously transmits two streams and this shows that it required at least 40 Mbps for
one HDTV. And this quality of service encourages the viewers to have good judgment while
playing video in a different way. [Uilecan, Zhou, Atkin]
 IPTV

THROUGHPUT CALCULATIONS

Throughput is defined as the amount of data that to be transferred in a particular time, and it is
expressed in terms of bits per second. (micro2000, 2007)

Calculation

Here we are going to calculate different throughput for SDTV and HDTV. In SDTV and HDTV
consists of different sub sampling ratios are 4:4:4, 4:2:2, 4:2:0,

SDTV

Picture resolution for SDTV is considered to be 704*480

There for the number of pixel per frame =704 * 408= 337920 pixels/ frame

Considered there 30 frames per second, in these 30 frames there are 1 I and 29 P frames are
there.

The compression ratio for I frame= 0.1 and for P frame =0.4

There for compression ratio for 30 frames = (0.1 *1 +0.04*29)/30 =0.042

Now we can consider ratio 4:4:4

Number of bits per second= number of pixels per frame * number of bits required to represent a
pixel

Number of bits per second = 337920 * 24 = 8110080 bits per second (where 24 is bits represent a
pixel [3 * 8 =24] )

There for throughput = compression ratio * number of bits per second

=0.042 * 8110081

= 340623.3 bits per second

= 340kbps
 IPTV
Next consider 4:2:2,

Number of bits per second= 337920 * 16 =5406720 (16 is the number of bit required to represent a
pixel [2 * 8=16])

There for throughput = 0.042* 5406720

=227082.24

=227 kbps

Now consider 4:2:0

Number of bits per second =337920 * 12 (16 is the number of bit required to represent a pixel [1.5 *
8=12]

=4055040

There for throughput = 0.042 * 4055040

=170311.68

= 170kbps

HDTV

The picture resolution for HDTV is considered to be 1080*1920

There for number of pixels per frame= 1080*1920= 2073600 pixels per frame

Consider 30 frames per second same like SDTV it consists of 1 I frame and 29 P frames

Compression ratio for 30 frames = (0.1*1 + 0.04 * 29)/30

=0.042

Now consider sub sampling of 4:4:4 ,

Number of bits per second = number of pixels per frame *number of bits required to represent a
pixel

= 2073600* 24 (where 24 is number of bits to represent a pixel [3*8=24 ] )

= 49766400bps

There for throughput = compression ratio * number of bits per second

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= 0.042 * 49766400

=2090188.8bps

= 2.09Mbps

Now consider sub sampling for 4:2:2,

Number of bits per second = 2073600* 16 (where 16 is the number bits to represent pixel [2*8=16])

=33177600bps

There for throughput = 0.042 * 33177600

=1393459.2

= 1.39Mbps

Now consider sub sampling 4:2:0

Number of bits per second = 2073600* 12

=24883200bps

There for throughput =0.042 * 24883200

=1045094.4bps

= 1.045Mbps

(Reference: Lecture Notes of Marcel Ambrose)

CONCLUSION
IPTV is considered to the one of the most emerging trend in future in the field of
entertainment, now itself the demand for IPTV increases beyond expectation as studies
shows. And other main advantage of these IPTV is the video on demand property which
attract more people to it and also the recording of the video function. So we can hope in
future the IPTV will have more functions and channels, and the data rate will be more
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compared now with more efficient technologies that can efficiently use the provide
bandwidth.

REFERENCES

Gilbert Held (2007) ‘Understanding IPTV’, Aerobic Publications, New York

IPTVXL (2006); ‘History of IPTV’ (online)

Available at http://www.iptvxl.com/iptv/history/ (Accessed on 25-02-09)

Arts Techinica (2006); ‘An Introduction to IPTV’; (online)

Available at http://arstechnica.com/guides/other/iptv.ars/1 (Accessed on 28-02-09 )

Master New Media (2005); ‘IPTV vs. Internet TV: Key Differences’ (online)

Available at http://www.masternewmedia.org/2005/06/04/iptv_vs_internet_television_key.htm

(Accessed On 02-03-09)

James Thomson (2006), ‘IPTV – Market, Regulatory Trends and Policy Options in Europe’,

International Telecom Union , Korea.

Micro2000 (2007); ‘Terms for Remote Scope and Networks’ (online)

http://www.micro2000.co.uk/network_glossary.htm (Accessed on 03 -03-09)

I TV Dictionary (2009); ‘What is IPTV’ (online)

Available at http://www.itvdictionary.com/iptv.html (Accessed on 5-3-09)

Zhone Technologies (2009), ‘IPTV and RFTV’ (online)

Available at http://www.zhone.com/solutions/iptv/ (Accessed on 1-3-09)

Uilecan, I. V and Zhou, C.( 2007) ‘Framework for Delivering IPTV Services over WiMAX
Wireless Networks’, IEEE EIT Proceedings (online pdf)
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Withnell, J. ‘Interactive TV Services for IPTV’ (online pdf)