What's new in ITV II: Hardware

Systems require passing reliability parameters that ensure uninterrupted service delivery. The characteristics of robust, reliable, scalable, interoperable and cross-platform systems, among others, are definitive conditions when choosing a technological partner.

Below we will take some of the latest developments in equipment used within the different stages of transmission of an ITV service, to finish with a review of the most significant case that the ITV has had so far, the TIVO service and the characteristics they offer to their users and that being an innovation at the time had a greater impact within consumers.

When referring to STBs, previously we used to see them as those "boxes" that received television signals, without thinking that a fundamental part of the technological development of platforms such as ITV, IPTV, MHP, among others, was given inside them. The STB went from being a simple delivery instrument to being a unit that offers interactive services and interacts directly with the user, making its function increasingly transcendental.

Pace Micro Technology introduced its latest digital home gateway technology in the Di6000 model. A unit that integrates the latest silicon technology, high-performance processor and advanced peripherals. It was designed to support evolved Internet browsers and multimedia applications required for interactive digital and analog services. It can work with any conditional access system, has a DOCSIS/EuroDOCSIS modem and supports, among others, PPV services, e-mail, purchasing services and banking.

Additionally, Pace introduced three new models of STBs that offer the possibility for operators to expand their market and increase their revenue through new services. Pace 500 Series is an STB equipped with Scientific Atlanta's PowerKey technology, Broadcom BCM 7100 processor, 170 MIPS processing speed, DAVIC return, PowerTV operating system and capacity for more than 150 channels. It is followed by the 700 model that offers the possibility of operating between the Microsoft TV, Liberate and OpenTV platforms, equipped with Motorola DigiCipher II conditional access technology, DOCSIS modem, processing speed of 300 MIPS and option to integrate a new hard drive to provide PVR services.

Ready for today's digital trends and tomorrow's demands, Pioneer Broadband's Voyager 3000 enables programming options, digital and two-way services. Enhanced with a dual processor BCM7100 CPU from Broadcom, it offers system-on-a-chip functionality dedicated to processing applications with superior graphics. With SDRAM memory of 16 or 32, it allows selections between digital applications, has four digital tuning channels to program more than 1999, and USB or IEEE-1394 ports.

These new models are characterized by their memory capacity, support for HDTV, HPNA network options, PVR, etc. The platform of the DCT5100 is characterized by having front panel I/O, CPU NEC5432 RISC, flash memory of 16 0 32 MB expandable to 128, USB and A / V inputs, wireless interface and YPbPr component for HD. The DCT5200 and 52X0 models have PVR options with all the functionality of a VCR. The 5200 model has a pre-installed hard drive capacity of 20 GB while the 52X0 can be configured according to the needs of the operator with a disk up to 60GB, additionally it has the ability to encode for secure recordings.

These units allow access within the networks to large amounts of content or libraries and simultaneously classify, separate, store or transfer them to users who have requested such programming; offer scalability and flexibility features to the headend. The servers are responsible for facilitating the provision of services such as live video streaming, sports and news.

It is a digital server that provides quick access to large audio and video libraries, makes multichannel recording possible and can be controlled remotely. It is a modular unit, easy to expand and designed with the best components that virtually eliminate the possibility of failure. It offers more than 24 independent channels of recording or playback, multiple access to the same video, supports MPEG2 and MJPEG standards, analog and digital, and automation with Louth, Odetics, SGT and Etere systems.

This RADD (Remote Addressable DANIS/DSL) server increases the capacity and functionality of the entire interactive digital system. By adding several servers of this type, operators will be able to increase the number of connected users by thousands. It provides real-time message repetition, can be controlled remotely over the Internet using a JAVA console, a user interface based on java applet.

They are devices that make possible the entry and exit of content with audio and video of different formats, allowing the production and post-production of video with broadcast quality, safe video playback for applications such as VOD, HDTV mastering and application of graphics, animations and effects.

It is ideal for HDTV transmissions since it records, converts and plays digital animations in real-time and uncompressed video clips, has location and instant playback functions and thanks to features such as addition or elimination of 3:2 sequences, transfer of materials from 24 frames per second to PAL25 with 8 or 10-bit resolution, it becomes a particularly interesting unit for the 24p production market. In a compact three-rack unit, it records from 9 to 36 minutes and allows its expansion for hours of recording with external drives. It can be controlled by means of RS-422 or TCP/IP over Ethernet, has SDI and YPbPr inputs and outputs, and a compression rate of 10:10:10 and transmission of 2GB/second.

Designed to record and play back video and audio using hard drives and other digital media, it can be controlled remotely via RS-422 using the Sony 9-pin protocol. It has the advantage of the instant location of any position of the disk making possible immediate access to information. It records one video channel and eight audio channels, has time code, normal playback and slow motion, and supports QuickTime, TIFF, TGA, etc. formats. Once the material is captured, it encodes it using the GOP1 MPEG system and then records it. Finally, it can be connected to large editing platforms since it has the CBSC (Constant Block Size Compression) system for audio and video synchronization or very precise editing.