Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 2011

Estágio realizado na Sun Microsystems Ireland Inc / Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2009

<p>IP-based TV (IPTV) is gradually replacing traditional means for broadcasting. At the same time, players from the telecom industry is seeking to create a new, standardized architectural framework for delivering all kinds of multimedia services over IP to end users; the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS).</p><p>This thesis is about video on demand, one of the more popular services enabled by IPTV. The thesis starts out by introducing the reader to IMS and IPTV and presents the current work in the area of IMS-based IPTV, done by the TISPAN committee of the ETSI.</p><p>The author then takes an explorative approach in investigating how a signaling schema for an IMS-based VOD service could look like, based on TISPAN’s existing work. The service is subject to an extra requirement; it should support session continuity, meaning it should be possible to resume the streaming of a video where the user left off, possibly on a different device. The investigation shows that it is possible to combine SIP and RTSP in several ways to get the desired behaviour.</p><p>The second part of the results consists of a proof of technology-implementation of the signaling schema that is the output from the first part. The implemented service runs on an IPTV set-top box on the client side, and a regular PC on the server side. The service uses open source software to a great extent and is fairly portable. A sample VOD session using the implemented system is presented along with full message contents.</p><p>The thesis concludes with a summary of the results and a discussion on what has been left out from the implementation and possibly subject to further studies. Finally, there is a brief summary on the recent developments within the field of IMS-based IPTV.</p>

<p>IPTV is a growing form of distribution for TV and media. Reports show that the market will grow from the current 20-30 million subscribers to almost 100 million 2012. IPTV extends the traditional TV viewing with new services like renting movies from your TV. It could also be seen as a bridge between the traditional broadcast approach and the new on demand approach the users are used to from internet.</p><p>Since there are many actors in the IPTV market that all deliver the same basic functionality, companies must deliver better products that separate them from the competitors. This can be done either through doing things better than the others and/or delivering functionality that others can’t deliver.</p><p>This thesis project presents the development of a prototype system for serving user generated content in the IPTV middleware Dreamgallery. The developed prototype is a fully working system that includes (1) a fully automated system for transcoding, of video content. (2) A web portal presented with solutions for problems related to user content uploading and administration. (3) Seamless integration with the Dreamgallery middleware and end user GUI, with two different ways of viewing content. One way for easy exploration of new content and a second more structured way of browsing the content.</p><p>A study of three open source encoding softwares is also presented. The three encoders were subjects to tests of: speed, agility (file format support) and how well they handle files with corrupted data.</p>

<p>The trends in todays tele- and datacommunication market point toward using IP for all sorts of service delivery ranging from voice calls to TV. The next natural step in this evolution is to provide the same set of services to the end users independent of the access technology and device used. The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is an IP based telecommunications platform which targets this and lets the operators develop new services once which can then be used on many different devices.</p><p>This thesis examines the integration of IPTV and IMS. Can IMS be used to deliver TV services and can the IPTV set-top-boxes of today be used as clients in IMS? Since this is a new and previously unexamined area an explorative approach is taken. The aim is to identify how such an integration could be performed and the possible problems which have to be solved. To assist in this exploration a TV-push service based on IMS technology is constructed.</p><p>Based on the experiences from this service a general architecture for IPTV in IMS is suggested.</p><p>A number of problems crucial to solve for a successful integration are identified and possible solutions to these are discussed.</p>

The constant growth in network communications technologies and the emergence of Service Specific Overlay Networks (SSONs), coupled with the rapid development of multimedia applications make the management of such technologies a major challenge. This thesis investigates the SSONs management problem and proposes an autonomic architecture, a self-organizing and self-adapting algorithm, and a utility function for monitoring the Quality of Experience (QoE) of IPTV streams in SSONs. First, we examine the different issues stemming from the autonomic management of SSONs and identify the limitations of existing approaches. We then propose an architecture to ease the management of SSONs by incorporating autonomic computing principles to make SSONs acquire self-management capabilities. The proposed architecture introduces autonomic control loops that continuously monitor network components and analyze the gathered data. An Autonomic System (AS) is comprised of one or more Autonomic Managers (AM) which take control of managing other elements in the network. The proposed architecture highlights the different components of an AM and identifies its purpose. The distributed nature of the proposed architecture avoids limitations of centralized management solutions. We then propose a scheme to allow AMs to emerge among the set of nodes in the network as the most powerful ones in terms of different factors, including processing capabilities and stability. Using a self-organizing and self-adapting distributed protocol, each node in the overlay selects an appropriate AM to report to so that sensed data is delivered error-free, and in a timely manner, while the load is distributed over the AMs. Finally, we propose a utility function to monitor the quality of IPTV streams by predicting QoE based on statistical Quality of Service (QoS) information. The proposed function is simple and does not require high processing power. It allows the QoE of IPTV users to be monitored in real-time by the AMs, so that quality degradations are accurately identified and adaptation mechanisms are triggered at the right moment to correct issues causing degradations. Theoretical analysis and simulations studies are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed schemes.

IP-based TV (IPTV) is gradually replacing traditional means for broadcasting. At the same time, players from the telecom industry is seeking to create a new, standardized architectural framework for delivering all kinds of multimedia services over IP to end users; the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). This thesis is about video on demand, one of the more popular services enabled by IPTV. The thesis starts out by introducing the reader to IMS and IPTV and presents the current work in the area of IMS-based IPTV, done by the TISPAN committee of the ETSI. The author then takes an explorative approach in investigating how a signaling schema for an IMS-based VOD service could look like, based on TISPAN’s existing work. The service is subject to an extra requirement; it should support session continuity, meaning it should be possible to resume the streaming of a video where the user left off, possibly on a different device. The investigation shows that it is possible to combine SIP and RTSP in several ways to get the desired behaviour. The second part of the results consists of a proof of technology-implementation of the signaling schema that is the output from the first part. The implemented service runs on an IPTV set-top box on the client side, and a regular PC on the server side. The service uses open source software to a great extent and is fairly portable. A sample VOD session using the implemented system is presented along with full message contents. The thesis concludes with a summary of the results and a discussion on what has been left out from the implementation and possibly subject to further studies. Finally, there is a brief summary on the recent developments within the field of IMS-based IPTV.

The trends in todays tele- and datacommunication market point toward using IP for all sorts of service delivery ranging from voice calls to TV. The next natural step in this evolution is to provide the same set of services to the end users independent of the access technology and device used. The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is an IP based telecommunications platform which targets this and lets the operators develop new services once which can then be used on many different devices. This thesis examines the integration of IPTV and IMS. Can IMS be used to deliver TV services and can the IPTV set-top-boxes of today be used as clients in IMS? Since this is a new and previously unexamined area an explorative approach is taken. The aim is to identify how such an integration could be performed and the possible problems which have to be solved. To assist in this exploration a TV-push service based on IMS technology is constructed. Based on the experiences from this service a general architecture for IPTV in IMS is suggested. A number of problems crucial to solve for a successful integration are identified and possible solutions to these are discussed.

With the rapid development of IT and broadband network, voice, data and video services are gradually integrated. IPTV is one of the popular products, which can deliver and provide consumers a variety of digitized content over the internet. Despite of the advantages mentioned above, IPTV in Taiwan is still not a threat to traditional TV. Therefore, many interesting issues were coming up. One of the interesting issues is looking into the factors of influencing continuance intention. This study explores the factors through the literature reviewing and the data collected from practitioners and participants. Moreover, we try to explain and verify the factors affecting the continuance intention by proposing a new model derived from Value-based Adoption Model (VAM) and Exception-Confirmation Model (ECM). In this research, an empirical survey methodology with 7 hypotheses was applied to verify this model. Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used to analyze the data and evaluate the model. The results not only identify the effective factors of perceived benefit and perceived sacrifice to IPTV services, but also showed that perceived value was influenced by the trade-off between perceived benefit and sacrifice, as well as by the consumers¡¦ confirmation level. The value that consumers perceive from IPTV services will have a significant effect on satisfaction and the continuance intention. In sum, the study explores the factors of perceived benefit and perceived sacrifice, and proposes a more comprehensive framework to explain the ¡§continuing using behavior¡¨. This study also provides a reference model for the value-based or IPTV research and some suggestions for the IPTV practitioners.

Η διπλωματική εργασία έχει σαν σκοπό την ανάπτυξη ενός μοντέλου μέτρησης των παραμέτρων που επηρεάζουν την ποιότητα υπηρεσίας ενός βίντεο IPTV. Αναφέρονται επιγραμματικά όλες οι υπάρχουσες τεχνολογίες παράδοσης ψηφιακής τηλεόρασης και αναλύονται όλες οι τεχνολογίες και η αρχιτεκτονική της IPTV. Επίσης υπάρχει περιγραφή και ανάλυση όλων των μηχανισμών που πρέπει να χρησιμοποιηθούν ούτως ώστε να μειωθεί όσο το δυνατόν περισσότερο η επίδραση των παραμέτρων (απώλεια πακέτων, καθυστέρηση, jitter, εύρος ζώνης) στην ποιότητα υπηρεσίας της IPTV. Τέλος υπάρχει σύγκριση της IPTV με όλες τις υπόλοιπες μεθόδους παράδοσης ψηφιακής τηλεόρασης καθώς και με το Internet TV. / The aim of this paper is to create a model that measures the parameters of quality of service in IPTV. All the existing technologies that we use today for the delivery of digital television are succinctly reported and analyzed as well as the technologies and architecture of IPTV. There is also the description and analysis of all the mechanisms that the providers should use to decrease as much as possible the effect of the above parameters (packet loss, delay, jitter, bandwith) in the quality of service of IPTV. Finally there is a comparison of IPTV with all the technologies that we use for the delivery of digital television as well as with the Internet TV.