<p>This thesis covers the investigation of different content sources on the Internet and the analysis of the requirements they put on a set-top box. It also covers the adaptation of the set-top box to one of these sources. </p><p>An IP based set-top box (IP-STB) is mainly constructed for access to TV and video distributed over a high speed network. The IP-STB is also connected to the Internet and it potentially has access to all of the Internet based content. This could provide the user of the IP-STB with a lot of new services and was the stating point for my thesis work.</p><p>The goal of this thesis was to make a broad investigation of different content sources on the Internet and to adapt an IP-STB to one of them. </p><p>The investigation focused on streaming media content and how it was distributed over the Internet. It resulted in a representative overview of the streaming media content available and how the content is distributed. The IP-STB was adapted to handle the Streaming HTTP protocol which made it possible to listen to web radio transmissions from Sveriges Radio and other providers using the same protocol for their distribution.</p>

This thesis covers the investigation of different content sources on the Internet and the analysis of the requirements they put on a set-top box. It also covers the adaptation of the set-top box to one of these sources. An IP based set-top box (IP-STB) is mainly constructed for access to TV and video distributed over a high speed network. The IP-STB is also connected to the Internet and it potentially has access to all of the Internet based content. This could provide the user of the IP-STB with a lot of new services and was the stating point for my thesis work. The goal of this thesis was to make a broad investigation of different content sources on the Internet and to adapt an IP-STB to one of them. The investigation focused on streaming media content and how it was distributed over the Internet. It resulted in a representative overview of the streaming media content available and how the content is distributed. The IP-STB was adapted to handle the Streaming HTTP protocol which made it possible to listen to web radio transmissions from Sveriges Radio and other providers using the same protocol for their distribution.

<p>This thesis covers design and implementation of a media system solution for home networks with personal computers and a set-top box. </p><p>In a home there are effectively two independent media systems with the same purpose: the personal computer and the digital set-top box, with the purpose of delivering digital media in form of audio and video to the consumer.</p><p>The goal of the thesis work was to implement a solution that bridges the gap between the two systems, so that the user, from the set-top box, can play back media that is actually stored on one or several personal computers. </p><p>Our solution is based on UPnP technology, which is used for service discovery and control. The choice of UPnP is motivated by an evaluation of discovery protocols, which concludes that UPnP is the most suitable technology in this particular system. Also, an evaluation of suitable transport protocols was done. Here,HTTP was used. </p><p>For the personal computer, a media server and a graphical user interface for configuring the media server were created. For the set-top box, a media client, and a graphical user interface for browsing the content of the media server, were created. In conclusion, the creation of the prototype was successful and the set-top box was able to playback media that had been shared by the PC on the network.</p>

<p>This theses covers the design and implementation of recording functionality for a set-top box in a home network. An initial investigation is done and possibilities for extending the system to support specific features are presented. </p><p>Digital TV is becoming more common each day, and soon it will be more widely used than todays analogue standard. At the same time the need for recording TV shows remains the same or is increasing, which is shown by the number of PVR solutions popping up on the market. </p><p>The goal of this thesis work was to investigate the possibilities for extending an existing set-top box to support common PVR features and, if possible, to implement a prototype. This was supposed to be done in a home network environment with the set-top box as the digital media center. </p><p>A satisfying solution, covering basic recording functionality is defined and implemented. The solution includes recording to a USB hard drive and to a PC on the local network. On top of this, a graphical user interface is built and some simple benchmarks show the performance of the set-top box with the new functionality.</p>

Web cluster systems provide cost-effective solutions when scalable and reliable web services are required. However, as the number of servers in web cluster systems increase, web cluster systems incur long and unpredictable delays to manage servers. This study presents the efficient management schemes for web cluster systems. First of all, we propose an efficient request distribution scheme in web cluster systems. Distributor-based systems forward user requests to a balanced set of waiting servers in complete transparency to the users. The policy employed in forwarding requests from the frontend distributor to the backend servers plays an important role in the overall system performance. In this study, we present a proactive request distribution (ProRD) to provide an intelligent distribution at the distributor. Second, we propose the heuristic memory management schemes through a web prefetching scheme. For this study, we design a Double Prediction-by-Partial-Match Scheme (DPS) that can be adapted to the modern web frameworks. In addition, we present an Adaptive Rate Controller (ARC) to determine the prefetch rate depending on the memory status dynamically. For evaluating the prefetch gain in a server node, we implement an Apache module. Lastly, we design an adaptive web streaming system in wireless networks. The rapid growth of new wireless and mobile devices accessing the internet has contributed to a whole new level of heterogeneity in web streaming systems. Particularly, in-home networks have also increased in heterogeneity by using various devices such as laptops, cell phone and PDAs. In our study, a set-top box(STB) is the access pointer between the internet and a home network. We design an ActiveSTB which has a capability of buffering and quality adaptation based on the estimation for the available bandwidth in the wireless LAN.

This thesis covers design and implementation of a media system solution for home networks with personal computers and a set-top box. In a home there are effectively two independent media systems with the same purpose: the personal computer and the digital set-top box, with the purpose of delivering digital media in form of audio and video to the consumer. The goal of the thesis work was to implement a solution that bridges the gap between the two systems, so that the user, from the set-top box, can play back media that is actually stored on one or several personal computers. Our solution is based on UPnP technology, which is used for service discovery and control. The choice of UPnP is motivated by an evaluation of discovery protocols, which concludes that UPnP is the most suitable technology in this particular system. Also, an evaluation of suitable transport protocols was done. Here,HTTP was used. For the personal computer, a media server and a graphical user interface for configuring the media server were created. For the set-top box, a media client, and a graphical user interface for browsing the content of the media server, were created. In conclusion, the creation of the prototype was successful and the set-top box was able to playback media that had been shared by the PC on the network.

This theses covers the design and implementation of recording functionality for a set-top box in a home network. An initial investigation is done and possibilities for extending the system to support specific features are presented. Digital TV is becoming more common each day, and soon it will be more widely used than todays analogue standard. At the same time the need for recording TV shows remains the same or is increasing, which is shown by the number of PVR solutions popping up on the market. The goal of this thesis work was to investigate the possibilities for extending an existing set-top box to support common PVR features and, if possible, to implement a prototype. This was supposed to be done in a home network environment with the set-top box as the digital media center. A satisfying solution, covering basic recording functionality is defined and implemented. The solution includes recording to a USB hard drive and to a PC on the local network. On top of this, a graphical user interface is built and some simple benchmarks show the performance of the set-top box with the new functionality.

<p>The market for digital TV is developing and some industry actors focus on interactive TV. Interactive content and services that previously only were able to use through a standard PC are now available to use through the TV set. To distribute the services to the TV a so called set top box with broadband connection needs to be used. Such a box can be described as a unit where a standard PC and a digital TV receptor are integrated.</p><p>This thesis aims to investigate the market for electronic payment solutions with a focus on payment for interactive content and services in digital TV. The presumptive services are many which lead to a relative complex analysis of how they should be paid for. What kind of service is it really to be paid for? </p><p>In order to conduct an appropriate analysis this thesis contains an identification of five different service-/content types. The grouping we have conducted is in so called On Demand services, Voice over IP, Shopping, Interactive TV and web services. In order to be able to conduct a relevant assessment of how the distributed services should be paid for the understanding of the market situation is utterly important. Therefore the thesis contains a pre study of the different market actors that can be related to a set top box and interactive TV. </p><p>The study of eight different actors on the Swedish market provides an overview of content providers’ as well as payment companies’ view on how interactive content and services should be paid for. The result from the thesis is a recommendation on how an electronic payment solution should be designed and important aspects to think of. One of the key outcomes is that different services needs different types of payment solutions which implies that you should first decide on what type of services that are to be provided before a decision is made on the payment solution. </p><p>A byproduct from the thesis is the analysis model that facilitates analysis of services as well as payment solutions and - methods related to electronic payments and interactive media.</p>

The market for digital TV is developing and some industry actors focus on interactive TV. Interactive content and services that previously only were able to use through a standard PC are now available to use through the TV set. To distribute the services to the TV a so called set top box with broadband connection needs to be used. Such a box can be described as a unit where a standard PC and a digital TV receptor are integrated. This thesis aims to investigate the market for electronic payment solutions with a focus on payment for interactive content and services in digital TV. The presumptive services are many which lead to a relative complex analysis of how they should be paid for. What kind of service is it really to be paid for? In order to conduct an appropriate analysis this thesis contains an identification of five different service-/content types. The grouping we have conducted is in so called On Demand services, Voice over IP, Shopping, Interactive TV and web services. In order to be able to conduct a relevant assessment of how the distributed services should be paid for the understanding of the market situation is utterly important. Therefore the thesis contains a pre study of the different market actors that can be related to a set top box and interactive TV. The study of eight different actors on the Swedish market provides an overview of content providers’ as well as payment companies’ view on how interactive content and services should be paid for. The result from the thesis is a recommendation on how an electronic payment solution should be designed and important aspects to think of. One of the key outcomes is that different services needs different types of payment solutions which implies that you should first decide on what type of services that are to be provided before a decision is made on the payment solution. A byproduct from the thesis is the analysis model that facilitates analysis of services as well as payment solutions and - methods related to electronic payments and interactive media.

<p>An IPTV Set-top box enables the possibility of doing much more than decodingtelevision content. Its Ethernet interface gives it the same possibilities to communicatewith the outside world as any network device. This enables a wide rangeof services from internet radio to acting as a digital media receiver in your homenetwork. These highly interactive services increase the demands for responsiveand visually attractive user interfaces.Due to the cost-sensitive market of IPTV STBs the preferred platform to developthe user interface is the HTML browser as it allows for fast developmenttimes and low costs. As a W3C standard it also offers high portability and hardwareabstraction making it easy to use more than one STB vendor. The cons ofHTML based GUIs are low performance and lacklustre graphics.This thesis aims to find out if SVG can be used to achieve rich, scalable and animatedgraphics with high performance and still keep the attractive characteristicsof HTML.To do this much effort was put into identifying the strenghts and weaknesses ofSVG. The lessons learned resulted in an SVG AJAX framework called TOIXSVGmaking it possible to develop SVG GUIs in the same manner as modern Rich InternetApplications, enabling component reuse to make sure development time scalespreferably with the scope and complexity of the user interface. Along with theframework several new widgets had to be developed to achieve the targeted functionality.As a proof of concept a mock-up GUI was created with the frameworkand widgets.</p>