Utilization of DLNA in a IPTV Solution

Transcription

DANIEL
IGNAT
Master of Science Thesis
Stockholm, Sweden 2011
DANIEL
IGNAT
Master’s Thesis in Media Technology (30 ECTS credits)
at the School of Computer Science and Engineering
Royal Institute of Technology year 2011
Supervisor at CSC was Trille Fellstenius
Examiner was Alex Jonsson
TRITA-CSC-E 2011:093
ISRN-KTH/CSC/E--11/093--SE
ISSN-1653-5715
Royal Institute of Technology
School of Computer Science and Communication
KTH CSC
SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
URL: www.kth.se/csc
Abstract
This thesis was carried out within the Next Generation Media Project, where research is
done by TeliaSonera and Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). Its aim was to analyze
the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) guidelines, an IPTV service, and conclude
in what meaningful ways the two can be linked together. On top of that a Proof of
Concept prototype was to be constructed, showing how a Set Top Box (STB) could
present pictures located on the Residential Gateway (RGW).
The customer base that could benefit from this study is big, several hundred thousand
households. The potential customer base is even bigger. My study could have a real
impact on how IPTV evolves at TeliaSonera.
The research methodology used is described in detail in Section 4. It consists of three
parts: A literature study and market analysis, construction of a Proof of Concept prototype, and an evaluation of use cases based on the Stuart Pugh decision matrix method.
The Pugh decision matrix is an evaluation method originally intended to be used when
iteratively improving a design.
Ten use cases were formed, evaluated against seven criteria, and weighted with the
criteria weight of each criteria. The resulting score was an indicator on how interesting
a use case was to implement. Due to several reasons (for example technical difficulties,
fear of lost revenue), five use cases were discarded.
The study was successfully carried out, showed that there are meaningful ways to link
DLNA with an IPTV service, and that it is possible to do so. It is important to conduct
further research on consumer interest before releasing any new feature, as it is unclear
how well the consumer interest survey participants represent the customer base.
ii
Sammanfattning
Tillämpning av DLNA i en IPTV-lösning
Det här examensarbetet utfördes inom Next Generation Media-projektet, där forskning
utförs av TeliaSonera och Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH). Målet var att analysera
Digital Living Network Alliance riktlinjer, en IPTV-tjänst, och dra slutsatser om hur de
två kan kopplas samman på meningsfulla sätt. Utöver det skulle en Proof of Conceptprototyp konstrueras, som visade hur Set Top Boxen (STB) presenterade bilder som låg
på en Residential Gateway (RGW).
Kundbasen som kan dra nytta av den här studien är stor, flera hundra tusen hushåll.
Den potentiella kundbasen är ännu större. Min studie kan ha en riktig inverkan på hur
TeliaSoneras IPTV-tjänst utvecklas.
Forskningsmetoden som användes är beskriven i detalj i Sektion 4. Den består av tre
delar: En litteratur- och omvärldsstudie, konstruktion av en Proof of Concept-prototyp,
samt en utvärdering av användarscenarion som baseras på Stuart Pughs beslutsmatrismetod. Pughs beslutmatris är ursprungligen en utvärderingsmetod tänkt att användas
vid iterativ förbättring av en design.
Tio användarscenarion tänktes ut, utvärderades mot sju kriterier och vägdes mot varje
kriterias vikt. Resultatpoängen var en indikator över hur intressant ett användarscenario var att implementera. På grund av många olika anledningar (till exempel tekniska
svårigheter och/eller rädsla över förlorade intäkter) så kastades fem användarscenarion.
Studien anses som lyckad, visade att det finns meningsfulla sätt att koppla DLNA med
en IPTV-tjänst, och att det är möjligt att genomföra. Det är viktigt att undersöka mer
utförligt hur användarintresset ser ut innan nya funktioner släpps, eftersom det är oklart
hur väl deltagarna i kundintresse-enkäten representerar kundbasen.
iii
Preface
This thesis was carried out for the school of Computer Science and Communications
(CSC) at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), located in Stockholm, Sweden. The
thesis project was planned by and carried out on behalf of the Next Generation Media
Project, a cooperation between TeliaSonera and KTH.
I would like to thank everyone who helped me along the way to completing this thesis.
Thank you Annika Kilegran, Bruce Horowitz, Joakim Svensson, Åsa Pehrsson and Mattis Lind, employees at TeliaSonera.
Many thanks to Fredrik Höglin and Andreas Lindvall, fellow thesis workers at TeliaSonera, for the great company.
My thesis presentation opponent Andreas Green, as well as my examiner Dr Alex Jonsson, deserve special mention due to the constructive and detailed feedback given on the
report.
Finally I’m grateful to Trille Fellstenius, my mentor at CSC. Your support and expertise
has helped me tremendously.
- Daniel Ignat, Farsta, 2011-04-27
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Contents
1 Introduction
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . .
1.1.1 TeliaSonera History
1.1.2 IPTV . . . . . . . .
1.1.3 DLNA . . . . . . . .
1.2 Purpose . . . . . . . . . . .
1.3 Problem Description . . . .
1.4 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.5 Report Target Audience . .
1.6 Participants . . . . . . . . .
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2 Theory
2.1 Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) . . .
2.1.1 Legacy: Universal Plug and Play . . .
2.1.2 The Layers of DLNA . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.3 DLNA Device Categories and Classes
2.1.4 The Certification Process . . . . . . .
2.1.5 Problems With DLNA . . . . . . . . .
2.1.6 Alternative Solutions . . . . . . . . . .
2.2 Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) . . . . .
2.2.1 IPTV Versus Analog Broadcast TV .
2.2.2 Open IPTV Forum Standardization .
2.2.3 TeliaSoneras IPTV Structure . . . . .
2.2.4 TeliaSoneras Set Top Boxes . . . . . .
2.2.5 TeliaSoneras Residential Gateways . .
2.3 Currently Available Products and/or Services
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3 Detailed Problem Description
3.1 Interesting Questions to be Answered
4 Approach
4.1 Road Map . . . . . . . . . .
4.2 Prototype . . . . . . . . . .
4.2.1 Detailed Use Case .
4.2.2 Implementation Plan
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5 Results
5.1 Survey: Consumer Interest .
5.2 Scenario Solutions . . . . . .
5.3 Interview: Important Criteria
5.4 Survey: Criteria Weights . . .
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v
5.5
5.6
5.7
Final Pugh Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.5.1 #1: RGW as a Server (all) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.5.2 #2: STB as a Player (music/images) . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.5.3 #3: STB as a Player (video) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.5.4 #4: Smart Phone DMS + STB DMP (images) . . . . . .
5.5.5 #5: PVR Sharing in the Home (video, other STB) . . . .
5.5.6 #6: PVR Sharing in the Home (video, any DMP) . . . .
5.5.7 #7: Channel Sharing in the Home (video, same channel)
5.5.8 #8: Channel Sharing in the Home (video, any channel) .
5.5.9 #9: STB DLNA Remote UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.5.10 #10: STB Over DLNA, Simple Video Streaming . . . . .
5.5.11 Resulting Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Resulting Road Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Implementation of the Prototype . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6 Discussion
6.1 Work Methodology . . . . .
6.2 Conclusions . . . . . . . . .
6.3 Validity and Reliability . .
6.3.1 Validity . . . . . . .
6.3.2 Reliability . . . . . .
6.4 Further Work and Research
6.5 Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . .
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Abbreviations
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References
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Appendixes
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vi
1 Introduction
This introductory chapter defines the problem area and explains why I got interested in
the thesis subject. It gives a brief description of a managed Internet Protocol Television
(IPTV) platform as well as the Digital Living Network Alliance guidelines. The chapter
also includes a problem description, guiding questions for the thesis and some scope
definitions.
1.1 Background
This thesis was carried out within the Next Generation Media Project, where research on
the next generation of media is done by TeliaSonera and Royal Institute of Technology
(KTH).
Scheduled television broadcast, while still very much present, is not the only way to
enjoy multimedia. According to Stelter (2008), on demand is on the rise. Until every
television broadcast is available to be consumed whenever the user decides, recording live
broadcast for a later date is a strong tool to enable on demand viewing of any program.
Unlike a Video Home System (VHS) recording, the recordings in the IPTV operators
Set Top Box (STB) today cannot be extracted and played elsewhere without moving the
set top box physically. In a home with several televisions this is a major limitation. By
implementing certain guidelines from the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), the
problem can be resolved.
DLNA could be the key used to unlock several other exciting new possibilities for the
STB in the digital home, such as:
• Cloning the current TV channel and stream it to other devices in the network,
enabling the customer to view the same channel on different devices.
• Sharing recorded content with another STB in the home, or any DLNA compliant
renderer/player. This could perhaps be done in the background, enabling the user
to view live TV on one device, and recorded TV on another.
• Logically moving the STB to another rendering device/TV without moving it
physically. Keep watching the football game on the bedroom TV when the movie
night starts in the living room.
• Accessing pictures, music and video that is made available by other devices on
the network. Copy the pictures from your vacation onto your computer/network
attached storage and have them appear on your TV seamlessly.
The reasons I got interested in the thesis subject are straight forward. The customer
base that could benefit from this study is big, several hundred thousand households.
The potential customer base is even bigger. My study could possibly have a real impact
on how IPTV evolves at TeliaSonera. I believe it is likely that TV as a medium is going
to change drastically in the near future, and integrating IPTV with the digital home is
a big part of that change.
1
1.1.1 TeliaSonera History
TeliaSonera is the result of a merger between Swedish Telia AB and Finnish Sonera
Oy done December 2002. Both Telia and Sonera were state run when created, and
transformed to being joint stock companies a few years before the merger. (TeliaSonera,
2010)
1.1.2 IPTV
Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) refers to broadcasting television content over a
packet-switched network infrastructure, the Internet, using mainly multicast1 as the
distribution technique. The main advantage IPTV has over conventional TV is the
possibility of two-way communication. It has led to a number of features, Video on
Demand being the most popular.
According to The Economic Times (2006) IPTV was first used as early as 1994. ABC’s
World News Now was broadcast over the Internet using the CU-SeeMee video conferencing software.
TeliaSonera Managed IPTV After a few years of research TeliaSonera launched its
IPTV platform in 2005 and today they have over 350 000 customers in Sweden alone.
The IPTV platform is managed, meaning that TeliaSonera has full control over the
Graphical User Interface (GUI) and the content is never transferred over anything but
TeliaSoneras own network infrastructure.
1.1.3 DLNA
DLNA was created to form collective guidelines on how network connected home media
devices should provide and consume content. The user should be able to consume
media content (pictures, sound, video) on any play back device that supports DLNA.
Devices discover each other seamlessly using Universal Plug and Play (UPnP). Over 200
corporations are members of DLNA. There are a lot of DLNA certified devices on the
market. Examples: Televisions, Mobile phones, Set Top Boxes, game consoles. A device
gets certified if it complies to the guidelines for one or several DLNA device classes
(more about device classes in Section 2.1.3 on page 7). January 27th 2011 the first
DLNA compatible software got certified, Skifta for Android2 . (DLNA, 2010c)
Two Box Interaction The most basic DLNA scenario consists of one media provider
device storing media content and one client device consuming the content.
Example: Robert has a DLNA compatible TV which lists all media from the Network Attached Storage (NAS) server, and he selects which video to play with the remote control.
1
2
Explanation of multicast: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast
See http://www.skifta.com for more information.
2
Third Party Control
content.
It is also possible for a third party to control the playback of
Example: Amanda loads an application (app) on her iPhone which finds her media server
containing all of her music and videos. It also finds her TV and her stereo. Amanda
commands the stereo to play her favorite album, located on the media server. The music
keeps playing even though she shuts down the iPhone app.
Mobile Devices Due to its size and limited battery time, a mobile device should not
have the same requirements regarding media formats and network connectivity. The
DLNA guidelines differentiate between home devices and mobile devices.
Interoperability There are two device classes defined in DLNA that are designed to
bridge the gap between home network devices and mobile network devices. One is for
bridging network connectivity and the other for transforming content.
1.2 Purpose
The purpose with this thesis was to see how to link IPTV and the digital home with
DLNA. The IPTV operator believes that support of DLNA within the digital home is
an important key to attracting customers. Consumer Electronics (CE) manufacturers
are implementing DLNA support in their products and DLNA is becoming widespread.
The IPTV operator sees DLNA as a good opportunity to strengthen the bond with their
customers. By having DLNA support themselves they neutralize possible competition
for the consumer market that could come from competitors offering DLNA support.
DLNA increases the cooperation between the IPTV operator and the CE manufacturers.
(Horowitz, 2011) A road map over different implementation scenarios was the result of
the study. It was based on a Pugh decision matrix (explained in Section 4 on page 19)
and practical experience with building the prototype (see Section 5.7 on page 35).
1.3 Problem Description
IPTV delivery is by no means simple for many different reasons. The process of distributing media all the way from the content provider through the network down to
the customer contains many challenges, such as: Copyright Protection, Quality of Service(Bandwidth Reservation), User Interface Design, Sparse Resources in the STB.
The DLNA guidelines are also non-trivial. Several hardware manufacturers and service providers with different interests and target audiences are trying to reach a unified
way to obtain interoperability in the digital home. The guidelines need to be thought
through and clear to avoid misunderstandings that break the interoperability.
Since the components themselves are tricky, a combination of IPTV and DLNA is not
straight forward. The design needs to be planned and evaluated, especially when you are
3
launching it as a service to your customers. Whenever the IPTV operator launches a new
service, they make a promise to the customer that the service will work as advertised.
If the service does not work, the IPTV operator is breaking that promise. This could
lead to losing customers (also known as churn), and an increase in expensive help desk
calls. To easier define the scope and direction of the thesis, I posed a few questions to
be answered:
• In what way can DLNA link the digital home and a managed IPTV platform
together? What steps should the IPTV operator take to utilize DLNA in their
future releases? Short term and long term.
• In what ways is an IPTV provider affected by redesigning the IPTV infrastructure
to comply with the DLNA guidelines (advantages/disadvantages)?
• Limitations: What services are unsuitable for a DLNA solution?
• In what ways can a managed IPTV service provider help the customer to overcome
possible shortcomings of off the shelf DLNA solutions? Propose how to handle
limitations in the use scenarios if possible to minimize unhappy customers.
1.4 Scope
The scope of this report is rather wide. While the focus was on what is technically feasible
when combining DLNA with a managed IPTV service, other areas are considered as well.
Business considerations and usability are two very important factors when evaluating
DLNA, and they are not directly technical.
• While features that do not work well in a DLNA solution are brought up, no energy
was wasted on finding alternative solutions for them.
• Regarding the scenarios investigated in the report: For any limitations that can
affect a customer negatively, mitigating actions need to be proposed (but not
carried out or tested).
• In the unlikely event that time permits, more steps of implementation would be
carried out.
• I did not evaluate the IPTV service as a whole, other than to draw conclusions on
how DLNA and IPTV can be connected.
• I did not suggest improvements to the IPTV Operators services unless they are
directly related to DLNA-functionality.
• I did not evaluate the future of IPTV. I have no insight into how it will evolve. I
do not pretend to know how the customer base will look like in the future, both
regarding the size and the knowledge of the average customer.
• It is clear that there is healthy competition going on within the TV industry, and
forces such as Over the Top-services online that threathen the IPTV industry.
However, this falls outside the scope of the thesis.
4
1.5 Report Target Audience
This thesis reports main audience is the TeliaSonera employees working with IPTV at
Farsta. It could also be of interest to students at CSC KTH or anyone that is working
with the digital home, IPTV or DLNA.
1.6 Participants
• Daniel Ignat, thesis writer to carry out the project at TeliaSonera, Farsta .
• Annika Kilegran, supervisor at TeliaSonera.
• Trille Fellstenius, supervisor at Royal Institute of Technology.
• Alex Jonsson, examiner at Royal Institute of Technology.
5
2 Theory
This chapter explains the theory researched in my literature study that I consider relevant
to my thesis work. It also brings up a few currently available products and/or services
that connect DLNA and IPTV in some way.
2.1 Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA)
As mentioned in Section 1.1.3 the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), which consists of over 200 corporations, drew up a set of guidelines to ease the connectivity between
network home devices inside the digital home. To become DLNA certified you are required to implement certain mandatory standards all the way from network connectivity
up to media format sets. As of May 2010 over 7.000 devices have been DLNA Certified.
These include PCs, television sets, music players, mobile phones, and more. (DLNA,
2010b) The amount of products on the market with DLNA is somewhere between 200
million and 300 million. (ABI Research, 2009) January 27th 2011 the first DLNA compatible software got certified, Skifta for Android3 . (DLNA, 2010c)
2.1.1 Legacy: Universal Plug and Play
According to Allegro Software Development Corporation (2006), the UPnP Forum was
formed in 1999 by 14 major PC and Consumer Electronics (CE) manufacturers. The
goal was to use existing industry standards to achieve interoperability between devices
for a number of different purposes: examples include Audio/Video, Internet sharing,
Printing, Scanning, and Controlling lights. The Audio/Video device category guidelines
turned out to be important enough to launch a new organization, DLNA.
In the same spirit as UPnP, DLNA aims to simplify connectivity between devices using
existing technologies. The mandatory core of DLNA makes use of the same protocols as UPnP: Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP), HyperText Transfer Protocol
(HTTP), HyperText Markup Language (HTML), eXtensible Markup Language (XML),
and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). All of these protocols work on top of IP,
with Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP) or Realtime Transport Protocol (RTP) as the transport protocol. More on these in Appendix
A. Version 1.5 of the DLNA guidelines contain three standards by the UPnP Forum:
• Device discovery: UPnP Device Architecture 1.0.
• Media management: UPnP Audio/Video 1.0 (UPnP AV 1.0) and UPnP Print
Enhanced 1.0.
(Alan Messer, 2010)
3
See http://www.skifta.com for more information.
6
2.1.2 The Layers of DLNA
For an in depth explanation of all the layers of DLNA (going from connectivity to media
formats and extensions) see Appendix A.
2.1.3 DLNA Device Categories and Classes
DLNA has a set of Device Classes which define a certain use, and these Device Classes
are divided into three Device Categories. The categories are: Home Network Devices
(HND), Mobile Network Devices (MND), Home Interoperability Devices (HID). It is
important to note that a device class is purely logical, a physical device can implement
several of these to make use of all of their features.
Home Network Devices The Digital
Media Server (DMS) provides media content over the home network. A DMS
could be a Personal Computer (PC) or
a Network Attached Storage (NAS) unit.
The content can be consumed directly
by a Digital Media Player (DMP) which
finds the content on the network and provides playback and rendering capabilities.
Examples include Television sets, game
consoles, and Personal Digital Assistants
(PDA).
There are also rendering devices that are
not capable of locating content themselves, or have chosen to delegate that Figure 1: The HND and MND Categories.
The device classes inside the gray
functionality. These devices are called
box are unique for the device cateDigital Media Renderers (DMR). The degory.
vice setting up and controlling media
streams between server and renderer is
called a Digital Media Controller (DMC). By using a DMC on your smart phone you
can control playback between your TV and NAS, for example.
There is also a device class intended for printers, the Digital Media Printer (DMPr).
See Figure 1 for an overview of the Home Network Device classes.
(DLNA, 2007)
Mobile Network Devices This category was mainly introduced due to different requirements regarding media formats and network connectivity in the small and computationally weak mobile devices. See Appendix B for a list of mandatory and optional format
7
sets. An example of a network connectivity technology is Bluetooth. The first four
Mobile Device Classes map one-to-one with Home Network Device Classes: M-DMS,
M-DMP, M-DMR, M-DMC.
There are two device classes that are new, the Mobile Digital Media Uploader (M-DMU)
and the Mobile Digital Media Downloader (M-DMD). They upload or download content
from a DMS or M-DMS.
Example: Angela has just come home from a party, where she took some pictures with
her cell phone. When connecting to the home network, she uploads her photos to the
home server with a simple command.
See Figure 1 for an overview of the Mobile Network Device classes.
(DLNA, 2007)
Home Interoperability Devices This
category contains two Device Classes: The
Mobile Network Connectivity Function
(M-NCF) and the Media Interoperability
Unit (MIU). They provide functionality to
bridge any gaps between the Home Network Devices and the Mobile Network Devices regarding network connectivity and
media format support respectively.
The MNC-F has the responsibility of Figure 2: The two device classes within the
bridging network connectivity between a
HID category.
mobile device using a network connectivity technology specific to the MND class and the home network.
Example: Bob has a mobile phone with DLNA support, but it lacks both Ethernet and
Wi-Fi, all it has is Bluetooth. To be able to connect to his home network using Bluetooth
he needs a M-NCF, which in his case is software located on his Bluetooth enabled laptop.
The MIU is there to allow media consumption between home network devices and mobile
network devices, if they do not share any common media format support for a resource.
The reason behind this could be resource constraints. It could also be a cost based
decision.
Analogies: An interpreter enables people speaking different languages to communicate
indirectly. A signer enables a blind man and a deaf man to communicate, by speaking to
the blind man and signing to the deaf man. A programmer who does not speak machine
code is able to command a computer using a programming language which is translated
by the compiler.
See Figure 2 for an overview of the Home Interoperability Device classes. The picture
illustrates in what way they connect the Home Network Devices with the Mobile Network
Devices.
8
(DLNA, 2009)
Mandatory and Optional Formats A big part of achieving interoperability is to specify
a manageable set of media formats that everyone can speak and understand. Maritime
communications solve their interoperability problem much the same way by deciding
through an international treaty that communication will be in English. (IMO, 2010)
See Appendix B for a list of mandatory and optional format sets.
2.1.4 The Certification Process
According to Allegro (2006) the certification process consists of an informal and a formal
part. The first step is for the vendor to pass the DLNA Conformance Test Tool (CTT)
tests, which is a test suite run on a Windows PC. The CTT is run by the vendor, and
if the device passes the tests and has a UPnP certificate the vendor can contact DLNA
to initiate the formal step of the certification process. The formal testing is done at
one of the vendors considered to be suitable to perform independent certification tests.
A specified Certification Test Plan is followed involving the device being tested against
reference devices, three devices per device class it will operate with.
Example: When certifying a DLNA Media Server it is tested against three reference
DLNA Media Players and three DLNA Media Controllers since as a server you can
interact with both players and controllers.
2.1.5 Problems With DLNA
Here I will go through the shortcomings surrounding DLNA.
Media Formats When a consumer buys DLNA certified products he or she expects
interoperability across all use cases thrown at the devices. One big obstacle for this is
media format support. The HND category has only one media format listed as mandatory. If one device supports a subset of the optional media formats and another device
doesn’t, interoperability is not achieved in many use cases.
Many popular formats used today such as DivX and XviD are not even listed in the the
optional media format list4 . Even if interoperability is achieved in the sense the DLNA
envisions, the content will have to be made available using one of the listed formats. A
possible reason for this is that DivX and XviD could be considered strongly interlinked
with piracy, and that supporting or even encouraging support of the formats would
endorse piracy.
4
See Appendix B.
9
This could be solved by having transcoders in the Digital Media Servers (DMS) or a
Media Interoperability Unit (MIU) but it requires decisions to be made locally by the
manufacturers leading to different solutions.
According to Johannesson (2011) from Motorola, another solution used by some manufacturers is supporting unnamed formats using MIME-type5 . This is not documented in
the DLNA specification and does not ensure compatibility between any DMP/DMS. If
the IPTV Operator provides both the DMP and the DMS this could be viable though.
Presentation The menu systems provided by different DLNA device manufacturers
look very different from each other. This could hurt usability since the experience is not
the same for every device. A solution to this would be to make use of the Remote UI
extension of DLNA using CE-HTML to describe the UI (see page 4 for more information)
or to use the RVUAlliance Pixel Perfect Remote UI solution6 . Both technologies require
server and client side support, and are not widely adopted yet.
Delay is also a concern:
“Loading the pictures from a DLNA server takes forever but [looking at
pictures using] Windows file sharing works just fine.”
- Quote from TeliaSoneras internal testing (TS Broadband R&D, 2010)
It is unclear what causes the delay.
Technological Limitations Multicast needs to be supported on the home network for
the devices to discover each other using UPnP. Multicast being supported is not always
the case, since it is not mandatory for IPv4 (it is mandatory for IPv6). (De Goyeneche,
1998) Also, according to Lawton (2009) the default setting for IPv4 is to have multicast
disabled. The IPTV Operator provides the residential gateway and they can activate
multicast remotely so for the reference case this is not an issue.
As mentioned before, UPnP A/V 1.0 thumbnail support could prove to be a problem.
It is not possible to request the picture in a custom size and the DLNA server is not
required to provide a thumbnail resource for a picture. If a server provides only large
resolution pictures memory usage by the STB could become very high.
Extensions Considered Essential When extensions of DLNA are considered essential
to some vendors and/or users problems with interoperability arises. The guidelines that
each vendor agrees with no longer match one-to-one. The users will not understand why
different DLNA certified units will not cooperate and are likely to be disappointed.
Examples: A television that does not support Link Protection will not get access to DRM
protected content from the Bluray player.
5
6
For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME
More information: http://www.rvualliance.org/
10
Problems With Link Protection Unfortunately some vulnerabilities have been demonstrated in DTCP. According to Tian and Wang (2006) it is vulnerable to several welldocumented Man-in-the-middle attacks7 . In short the attacks break full authentication:
The DTCP-IP clients can not be sure that they know who they are talking to. In most
cases the content remains secure, but it is possible to strip the certificate revocation list
check by using a receiver mismatch attack. DTCP-IP is mandatory if Link Protection
is implemented in the DLNA solution.
WMDRM-ND has had problems with exploits as well. A tool called Fairuse4WM was
released in 2006, that stripped content of the copy protection as long as you had the
DRM license available. This enables copying the content to your portable music player
for instance. Over the years windows has patched and changed WMDRM-ND to break
FairUse4WM, and it kept cracking the new changes. (unDRM, 2007)
Digital Rights Management is a case of trusted client security, where you leave a trusted
client (the device) in the hands of an untrusted third party (the user). Schneier (2000)
believes this to be fundamentally weak:
“Against the average user, anything works; there’s no need for complex
security software. Against the skilled attacker, on the other hand, nothing
works.”
If one person breaks the security, it could easily be copied by everyone.
2.1.6 Alternative Solutions
There are some alternatives for connecting the digital home, here I will briefly go through
them.
Apple Bonjour is Apples implementation of zeroconf. Zeroconf is similar to UPnP, it
enables automatic IP assignment and service discovery without needing a central server.
It also offers decentralized DNS services. The main difference according to Cheshire
(2010) is that zeroconf is simple and flat, the developer builds what is needed on top of
the small but steady foundation. For example Apple uses something called AirPlay to
stream music from iTunes onto other devices. UPnP is an organization that continously
works on defining device specific protocols. They decide how a device type should
communicate over UPnP. It should be noted that Cheshires views are possibly biased
and should be critically reviewed before being accepted as absolute truths.
Windows File Sharing is also known as Server Message Block/Common Internet File
System (SMB/CIFS) and is the standard protocol used in Windows operating systems
for network file systems (eg. file sharing). SMB version 2 was released in 2006 to
decrease the complexity and number of variations that SMB version 1 allowed. While
SMB is proprietary the specifications have been released to help third party developers
to implement the protocol on other platforms such as Unix. The same way as Apple
7
Reflection, Wiener’s Attack, Lowe’s Attack, Sender/Receiver Mismatching
11
Bonjour SMB/CIFS is flat and relies on the expertise of the developers.
2006)
8
(Navjot,
Squeezebox is a popular wireless music streaming product from Logitech that offers
home network streaming of multiple music file formats as well as several Internet based
radio/music services such as Pandora, Last.fm and Spotify. It is unclear what protocol
Squeezebox uses. Sonos Multi-Room Music System works similarly.9
Verizon FiOS, a service provider in the United States, has released a multi-room digital
video recorder (DVR) which enables the consumer to watch the recorded content on any
Verizon STB in the home. They have also released a feature called Flex View, which is a
video on demand (VoD) store available on multiple platforms10 including smart phones.
(Verizon, 2010a) (Verizon, 2010b) It is unclear what protocol Verizon FiOS multi-room
uses.
2.2 Internet Protocol Television (IPTV)
Unlike my lengthy explanation of DLNA, this section will briefly explain IPTV as a
whole and bring up the technology relevant to my thesis work. I will explain the main
differences between IPTV and Traditional Broadcast TV, what work the Open IPTV
Forum (OIPF) is doing, and lastly some information on how TeliaSoneras IPTV service
works.
If you want to get information on the history of television I recommend Chapter 1 in
the book Next Generation IPTV Services and Technologies by Gerard O’Driscoll.
2.2.1 IPTV Versus Analog Broadcast TV
IPTV and Analog Broadcast TV work similar regarding Live TV. For Analog Broadcast
TV all channels were broadcast over the air simultaneously, on different frequencies. The
television sets filtered out the channel to watch by receiving from the right frequency.
The filtering was performed in the home. See Figure 3.
IPTV transmits Live TV channels digitally inside the IPTV providers Internet infrastructure with the use of IP multicast11 . The packets get duplicated on the way down to
the consumer where needed, making the stream follow a spanning tree going from the
source down to every customer. Multicast, unlike unicast12 which goes from one sender
to one receiver, scales well for the service provider. (Microsoft, 2003) The multicast
stream only reaches you if you request it, and bandwidth limitations lead to you only
8
A GNU GPL implementation of SMBv1 is Samba: http://www.samba.org/
More information at http://www.logitech.com/en-us/speakers-audio/wireless-music-systems
and http://www.sonos.com.
10
Verizon FiOS TV, Personal Computers, Smart phones.
11
12
Explanation of unicast: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicast
9
12
Figure 3: Visualization of how Live TV is broadcast using analog broadcasting versus
IPTV broadcasting.
being able to get a few channels simultaneously in a home13 . There is one multicast
group for every TV channel, identified by the multicast group address14 . The filtering of
channels is now done in every node (routers and switches supporting IGMP snooping)
on its way to the customer. See Figure 3.
The IPTV infrastructure uses two way communication to “prune” the spanning trees
of TV channel streams. The upstream communication can also be used to enhance
functionality and introduce features that were impossible with one way broadcasting.
(O’Driscoll, 2008)
Examples: Television shows and movies streamed on demand. Live TV recorded by
the IPTV provider on behalf of the consumer. Interactive Internet and Email services
(games, social network integration, widgets, additional statistics in sports games).
13
14
Telias customers get 1-2 channels with ADSL and 5 channels with LAN.
In the IP address range 224.0.0.0-239.255.255.255.
13
Figure 5: Set Top Box Overview.
Figure 4: TeliaSonera Customer Devices.
2.2.2 Open IPTV Forum Standardization
Many IPTV solutions exist on the market today. Things such as meta-data delivery (for
example the Electronic Program Guide, the EPG), DRM protection and compression
are handled differently. In an effort to accelerate and streamline IPTV deployments,
the Open IPTV Forum (OIPF) was created. The goal is to standardize end to end
IPTV delivery, using open standards and existing technologies. (OIPF, 2011) Instead
of re-designing the end to end IPTV solution an IPTV provider can make use of the
expertise and experience that is contained within the OIPF. In the future a consumer
could theoretically subscribe to several different IPTV services using a single Set Top
Box, given that OIPF is followed.
2.2.3 TeliaSoneras IPTV Structure
TeliaSoneras IPTV platform is managed, meaning that TeliaSonera has full control over
the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and the content is never transferred over anything
but TeliaSoneras own network infrastructure. TeliaSonera only delivers its IPTV service
to their own broadband customers to be able to ensure good end-to-end Quality of
Service.
There are two devices in the customers home which are used when receiving IPTV
services: The Residential Gateway (RGW) and the Set Top Box (STB). The RGW
connects the STB with the IPTV service. See Figure 4.
Live TV broadcasts are distributed using multicast, and are therefore stateless. Since
the transmission is a continuous stream it has no support for pausing or time shifting.
For it to be possible the customer needs local buffering, or a switch-over to unicast. Both
solutions are represented in TeliaSoneras IPTV solution.
2.2.4 TeliaSoneras Set Top Boxes
TeliaSoneras customers have a range of different Set Top Box (STB) models with different
capabilities, all of them Motorola. The model numbers are 1910, 1903, 1963, 1003.
14
The weakest STB is 1910, which is older, has a less powerful CPU and less memory.
1903, 1963, and 1003 have almost identical specifications. 1003 is smaller and has fewer
connectors on the back. The only STB with a built in hard drive and Personal Video
Recorder (PVR) functionality is 1963. See Table 1 for a summary of the models.
Model
Personal Video Recorder?
Comment
Motorola
1910
No
450 MIPS, 128 MB RAM
Motorola
1903
No
Motorola
1963
Yes
Motorola
1003
No
800 MIPS, 256 MB RAM,
Smaller dimensions
Table 1: TeliaSoneras Set Top Box Models.
The STB runs Linux as its operating system, with a web browser running the GUI. Many
advanced features (such as Spotify, Media Player and DLNA Support) need hardware
access and/or functionality not available through Javascript. To get around this, function calls are made to browser plug-ins through Javascript interfaces. These Javascript
wrappers are provided by the STB manufacturer along with a detailed Application Programming Interface (API) describing how to use the plug in. See Figure 5 for an overview
of how the STB is structured.
See Table 2 for a list of supported media formats in the STB.
Media Class
Supported Formats
Imaging
GIF, Animated GIF, JPEG, PNG
Video
MPEG2, MPEG4/H.264 (Not all container
formats), WMV9
Audio
AC3, AAC, MPEG1 layer 1/2, MP3, WMA, LPCM
Table 2: Media formats supported by TeliaSoneras Set Top Boxes.
Since all the streams are encrypted (both the streams coming from the network and the
recordings), resources need to be decrypted before playing them back. It is estimated
that the STB can handle 4-5 streams (50-60 Mbit/s) coming into the box or leaving it.
Today at most 2 streams are used for a single STB (recording while watching something
else).
A customers possible IPTV subscriptions depend on the Internet connection bandwidth
15
available. The high speed customers can have as much as five concurrent STBs in the
home. More typical is to have 1 or 2 STBs, that can watch one channel each, and
possibly recording capabilities in one of them. (Svensson, 2011)
See Table 3 for approximations regarding bandwidth use for video.
Video Quality
Bandwidth Used
Standard
Definition
Approximately 3.5 Mbit
High
Definition
Approximately 8.5 Mbit
Table 3: The bandwidth used for different video streams in the IPTV service, using the
media format MPEG4. (Svensson, 2011)
2.2.5 TeliaSoneras Residential Gateways
TeliaSoneras IPTV-customers currently have three different Technicolor (previously named
Thomson) models: 784, 787 and 789. The 789 started being distributed January 2011
and has DMS support as well as SMB/CIFS support (enabling the customer to populate
the DMS via the home network). It is part of the prototype use case.
2.3 Currently Available Products and/or Services
There are some products and services out today that connect IPTV with the digital
home, but not many. Verizon FiOS (mentioned on page 12) allows recorded shows to be
viewed in any STB in the home, is an example of a product connecting IPTV with the
digital home that does not involve DLNA.
There are 39 STBs that are DLNA Certified according to DLNA (2010c). Which device
classes they have chosen to implement vary, but only STBs from Panasonic have both
server and player support. One of Broadcoms STBs is the only one that has MoCa
support. I have not found any information that suggests these STBs bridge IPTV
content onto DLNA.
Open IPTV Forum (2009, p.194-204) has suggestions on how IPTV and DLNA should
be integrated (sharing IPTV content with DLNA devices). The chapter is self-labeled
as informative.
16
3 Detailed Problem Description
In this chapter I will bring up new details regarding my problem description that were
discovered after conducting my literature study. I recommend that you read Section 1.2
(page 3), 1.3 and 1.4 before reading this chapter.
As mentioned in Section 1.2 (on page 3) the purpose with this thesis was to see how to
link IPTV and the digital home with DLNA. A road map over different implementation
scenarios was the result of the study. It was based on a Pugh Matrix (explained in
Section 4 on page 19) and practical experience with building the prototype (see Section
5.7 on page 35). It is important to note in what way the resulting Pugh matrix was used
to form the road map.
Since DLNA is static (in the way that Telia has very little power over steering the
direction of the DLNA guidelines) it is Telias IPTV service that will have to be adapted
if a scenario solution doesn’t fit well into the current IPTV service. Most of the scenarios
connecting Telias IPTV to the digital home are mainly loyalty-building and will not
directly increase revenue (possibly indirectly by attracting customers), which means that
the advantages and disadvantages of adapting the IPTV service for the new functionality
need to be considered. This led to some of the scenarios being rejected.
3.1 Interesting Questions to be Answered
When answering the questions posed in Section 1.3 (on page 4) a number of sub-questions
need to be answered first. The literature study was needed before these could be pinpointed.
• In what way can DLNA link the digital home and a managed IPTV platform
– Is it possible to share content to the digital home? Is there Link Protection
available inside the STB and in home devices?
– Is it possible to play content available in the digital home on the STB? Will
codecs be an issue?
• In what ways is an IPTV provider affected by redesigning the IPTV infrastructure
• Limitations: What services are unsuitable for a DLNA solution?
– What are the limiting factors?
• In what ways can a managed IPTV service provider help the customer to overcome
17
– Are the user interfaces provided by third party manufacturers on their DLNA
enabled devices good enough?
– Is DLNA Remote UI mature enough to be an option?
18
4 Approach
This chapter describes in detail what approach used to research the problem area and get
a solution to my problem statement.
I started with an introductory literature and market scanning, to become acquainted with
the subject areas. Since the IPTV operator is a member of the Digital Living Network
Alliance I got access to the guidelines. My mentor also provided details on UPnP as well
as the thesis reports made by previous thesis workers at the IPTV operator. I searched
for new information at the KTHB Electronic Library and Google Scholar, as well as
the reference lists on Wikipedia articles. Search terms used include: “IPTV”, “DLNA”,
“Digital Home”, “Remote UI”, “CE-HTML” etc.
To form my road map I decided to use a slight variation of the scientific method called
the Pugh method (aka decision-matrix method, Pugh Concept Selection) with interviews
and questionnaires as supporting methods. I discovered the Pugh method in Fredrik
Vretblads thesis that he carried out at the IPTV operator, see Vretblad (2010). It
seemed like a solid scientific method and I decided to base my approach on the Pugh
method.
The Pugh method was invented by Stuart Pugh as a way of comparing different design
ideas for comparison over many different criteria. It is most powerful when used to
iteratively improve the design of a product. The end result is a score for each of the
design ideas which is an indication of how much of an improvement or decrease related
to the baseline solution (the datum). The datum could be either the current solution or
the best solution from the previous iteration of the Pugh method. (Youssefi, 2006)
Youssefi (2006) explains the Pugh method as a four step method: Creating criteria (weights optional), Forming ideas for comparison, Generating scores (the decisionmatrix) and finally calculate the sum of each ideas column in the matrix to get the final
score. See Figure 6a.
19
(a) As illustrated by Youssefi (2006)
(b) The variation I used, based on picture by Youssefi (2006).
Figure 6: The Pugh Method
The structure I decided to use is illustrated in Figure 6b.
Unlike the traditional use case of the Pugh method my scenarios are not competing
suggestions in the same way, choosing to implement one scenario solution is unlikely
to dispel the usability of the other scenarios completely. I did not use it to decide on
one solution and throw away others. I did not use a datum as the basis for generating
the scores. I evaluated to what extent the criteria is fulfilled: Poorly/Not at all (-1),
Acceptable (0), Good (+1).
Another difference is that I decided to formulate “Ideas for comparison” as my first
step instead of second. My view was that step 1 and 2 could be done independently in
parallel, and therefore the order should not affect the results.
For a detailed step-by-step explanation of the work flow I used, see Appendix C.
20
4.1 Road Map
Once the Pugh Method has been carried out and a decision matrix is available, work
with constructing a road map for the IPTV operator began. It was based on the decision
matrix, my literature study and market analysis, as well as my practical experience.
21
4.2 Prototype
This chapter describes in detail the work that needed to be done on the prototype.
The goal with the prototype is two-fold: To perform a hypothesis test showing that
connecting IPTV with the digital home is possible, and to gain practical experience
which may affect the road map proposed.
4.2.1 Detailed Use Case
Example: Eric wants to show his friends the photos he took while on vacation in Paris.
He copies the photos onto a USB memory stick using his laptop and plugs it into the
Residential Gateway (RGW). With a few presses on his remote control he brings up the
photos on his flat screen TV, they have been discovered through the home network by the
Set Top Box (STB).
The IPTV operators Smart RGW has a USB interface where a USB memory stick
containing photos can be attached to enable the server functionality of the RGW. The
RGW then acts as a DLNA Digital Media Server (DMS), advertising the content on
the memory stick to the home network. The IPTV operators Set Top Box (STB) acts
as a DLNA Digital Media Player (DMP). The RGW shows up automatically in “Mina
bilder” and the user can browse the server. Browsing is consistent with browsing the
cloud based storage (called Storegate) using “Mina bilder”.
4.2.2 Implementation Plan
The following components were used when constructing the prototype:
• Set Top Box: Motorola VIP 1003 with kernel v4.1.
• Residential Gateway: Thomson/Technicolor TG789vn with DMS support.
• Apache Web Server running on Ubuntu 10.10 run in VirtualBox supplying the
boot image and GUI.
If possible thumbnails of the pictures would be offered in a grid before the user decides
to view a picture. Consistency with the feature “Mina bilder” was the ambition.
22
5 Results
This chapter presents the results of my research work.
5.1 Survey: Consumer Interest
The survey about consumer interest was sent out to 153 participants in the IPTV operators Pilot Testing Program using an internal online survey system at the company. The
participants consist of employees at the IPTV operator from many parts of the company,
geologically spread all over Sweden. The group was chosen because of convenience and
time considerations. Out of the 153 asked to answer, 88 responded.
Interest was generally high, with a few exceptions. Watching recordings on other units
while not at home and using the RGW as a server streaming content (especially music)
were both relatively uninteresting according to the survey.
When asked about the most basic case (STB acting as a DLNA Digital Media Player) the
participants were most excited about streaming movies over the home network, followed
by pictures and lastly music.
There seems to be a mismatch between the media format support specified in the DLNA
guidelines versus the media support expected by the consumer to achieve practical
interoperability. Over half (25/46) of the participants that answered the video media format question mentioned one or several video formats not supported by DLNA
(mainly DivX/XviD). Regarding music, 27 % (12/44) mentioned unsupported music
formats (mainly FLAC15 ), and for pictures the same number was 24 % (12/51, mainly
RAW/BMP). See Table 4 for a summary.
Media type
Answers
Unsupported format
Expectation mismatch
Video
46
25
54 %
Music
44
12
27 %
Pictures
51
12
24 %
Table 4: Summary showing the expectation mismatch between what media formats the
consumer expects to work with DLNA and the formats supported by DLNA. The
expectation mismatch is the percentage of answers in the survey mentioning a
format not supported in the DLNA guidelines.
See Appendix B for a list over the supported optional and mandatory formats (look in
the home device category). See Appendix E for the survey results.
15
Free Lossless Audio Codec, http://flac.sourceforge.net/
23
If TeliaSonera provides both client and server other media formats could be supported
by identifying the media format using MIME-type16 instead of DLNA video profile tagging. This is successfully used in practice according to Johannesson (2011) at Motorola.
This method is reliable between the IPTV Operators own devices, but since it is not
a commonly agreed upon method interoperability with a third party DLNA device is
unlikely regarding the formats not officially supported.
5.2 Scenario Solutions
As mentioned in Section 6.5 (on page 1) each scenario could have several technical
solutions, different methods to reach the same (or similar) functionality. I refer to each
technical solution as a scenario solution. After conducting the literature study, criteria
interviews and interest survey I sat down and drew up a set of scenario solutions that
I thought were of interest to the IPTV operator and its customers. See Appendix F
for these scenario solutions. Not all of the scenario solutions listed in Appendix F were
evaluated, and a few of the scenario solutions were split into two:
• STB as a Player was evaluated differently for Video vs Audio/Images, due to the
expectation mismatch regarding media format support (mentioned in Section 5.1).
• PVR Sharing in the Home was split into sharing with another STB, or sharing
with any DMP.
• Channel Sharing in the Home was split into sharing the current channel versus
sharing any channel.
All Scenario Solutions are listed under Section 5.5.
5.3 Interview: Important Criteria
When coming up with the criteria, discussions were had in one session with two employees at the IPTV operator. The result was 9 criteria, that were used to draw up and send
out the first survey about criteria weights. After some valuable feedback from the participants of the survey a new meeting with the same employees was held to make revisions
to the criteria, dropping the final number to 7 criteria. The criteria were formed with
the IPTV Operators interests in mind. The goal with the new scenarios were to build
loyalty with the customers and to attract new customers. Below follows the completed
list of criteria, see Appendix D for a more detailed description of the criteria:
1. Contractual Relationships (DRM content)
2. Implementation Cost
3. Ease of Use
4. Hardware Capabilities (1 year from now)
16
For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME
24
5. Software Capabilities (1 year from now)
6. IPTV Operator Business Strategy
7. Consumer Interest
5.4 Survey: Criteria Weights
To establish the importance of each criteria a survey was sent out to experts (employees
that work at the IPTV operators Product Development department).
After the first survey had been handed out and feedback about it was received it was
obvious that some revisions were needed. Some criteria needed clarification and some
were too hard to evaluate (and were dropped). To correct this a supplementary survey
was mailed out. The changes made were done in collaboration with the interview subjects
mentioned in Section 5.3.
The first survey was handed out in print and the participants expressed that they would
rather have had the survey in electronic form. Therefore the supplementary survey was
mailed out instead.
The survey was sent out to 14 employees at the IPTV operators Product Development
department, 12 answered the initial survey and 10 of them also answered the supplementary survey. The resulting criteria weights were the average of the survey answers,
see Table 5.
Criteria
Weight (1-5)
Contractual Relationships (DRM content)
3.5
Implementation Cost
3.17
Ease of Use
4.75
Hardware Capabilities (1 year from now)
3.6
Software Capabilities (1 year from now)
3.6
IPTV Operator Business Strategy
2.92
Consumer Interest
3.75
Table 5: The criteria weights as a result of the two questionnaires handed to employees
at the IPTV operators Product Development department.
Ease of Use is considered extremely important, 8 out of the 11 responding rated this
criteria as a 5, the remaining three as a 4.
“It has to be easy to use otherwise it will fail.”
- Employee, Product Development, TeliaSonera
25
Consumer Interest is considered important...
“Important that the customer wants the service.”
...but not according to everyone.
“[..] on the other hand it can be hard for the customer to imagine how to use
a new service.”
Least important is following the IPTV Operator Business strategy.
“Of course important, but we need this type of work to be done anyway.”
5.5 Final Pugh Matrix
In this section the evaluation results will be presented for each scenario, followed by the
Final Pugh Matrix in Section 5.5.11 (on page 33).
5.5.1 #1: RGW as a Server (all)
Contractual
Implementation
Relationships
Cost
Not applicable
(+1)
Good (+1)
Acceptable (0)
Consumer Interest
Software
TS Business
Capabilities
Strategy
Acceptable (0)
Good (+1)
Ease of Use
Hardware
Capabilities
Good (+1)
Acceptable (0)
Table 6: Evaluation score for Scenario 1, RGW as a Server (all). Score can be
Poorly/Not at all (-1), Acceptable (0) or Good/Not applicable (+1). Note that
the criteria weight is not yet considered.
As you can see in Table 6, this scenario solution did fairly well. The cost of implementing
is low because most of the work is already done, either by the IPTV operator or by myself.
It is fairly easy to use but it is a bit impractical to have to move the USB stick back
and forth between the PC and RGW. Using SMB/CIFS to populate the USB stick over
the home network is faster, but it requires a little more knowledge from the user. Due
26
to a lack in format support the software capabilities are considered Acceptable instead
of Good. Consumer interest was as mentioned in Section 5.1 (on page 23) not too high,
but still not non-existent. The fact that the IPTV operator controls both the server and
client in this scenario is a plus, since it can help reduce the number of errors caused and
help desk calls generated.
5.5.2 #2: STB as a Player (music/images)
Contractual
Implementation
Relationships
Cost
Ease of Use
Not applicable
(+1)
Good (+1)
Acceptable (0)
Software
TS Business
Consumer Interest
Capabilities
Strategy
Acceptable (0)
Good (+1)
Hardware
Capabilities
Good (+1)
Good (+1)
Table 7: Evaluation score for Scenario 2, STB as a Player (music/images). Score can
be Poorly/Not at all (-1), Acceptable (0) or Good/Not applicable (+1). Note
that the criteria weight is not yet considered.
As you can see in Table 7, this scenario evaluation follows that of Scenario 1 (Section
5.5.1) closely, since they are very similar. Instead of having the RGW as the server it
is assumed that the DMS can be any device, most likely in the form of software on a
PC. Installing such software can be a challenging tasks for some of the customers and
therefore Ease of Use does not score the highest mark. Consumer interest, according to
the survey, is high.
27
5.5.3 #3: STB as a Player (video)
Contractual
Implementation
Ease of Use
Relationships
Cost
Not applicable
(+1)
Acceptable (0)
Acceptable (0)
Software
TS Business
Consumer Interest
Capabilities
Strategy
Poor (-1)
Good (+1)
Hardware
Capabilities
Good (+1)
Good (+1)
Table 8: Evaluation score for Scenario 3, STB as a Player (video). Score can be
Poorly/Not at all (-1), Acceptable (0) or Good/Not applicable (+1). Note that
the criteria weight is not yet considered.
The difference between Scenario 2 and Scenario 3 is the type of media shared and consumed. The reason for this split was due to the expectation mismatch shown in Section
5.1 (on page 23). The amount of consumers mentioning formats they want supported
that are not mentioned in the DLNA guidelines is staggering (54 %). Implementation
of video would also be a bit harder than the case for music/images.
See Table 8 for the evaluation scores.
5.5.4 #4: Smart Phone DMS + STB DMP (images)
Contractual
Implementation
Ease of Use
Relationships
Cost
Not applicable
(+1)
Poor (-1)
Good (+1)
Software
TS Business
Consumer Interest
Capabilities
Strategy
Good (+1)
Acceptable (0)
Hardware
Capabilities
Good (+1)
Good (+1) [guess]
Table 9: Evaluation score for Scenario 4, Smart Phone DMS + STB DMP (images).
Score can be Poorly/Not at all (-1), Acceptable (0) or Good/Not applicable
(+1). Note that the criteria weight is not yet considered.
To make it easy to share your smart phone pictures over DLNA to the STB a branded
app should be released by the IPTV operator. By covering both the server and client
28
in another use case the functionality which is supported is broader. By making the
application as simple as possible, help desk calls are reduced.
Implementation of a Smart Phone DMS could be hard, since the IPTV operator does not
have a lot of smart phone programming expertise, and writing a DMS is complex and
most likely time consuming. There are DMS applications for both iPhone and Android,
proving that the platform is capable. Therefore, Hardware Capabilities are Good. The
interest survey did not cover this scenario solution and therefore it is unclear at what
level the Consumer Interest lies, but my guess is that it is Good. More on this in Section
6.1 (on page 37).
5.5.5 #5: PVR Sharing in the Home (video, other STB)
Contractual
Implementation
Relationships
Cost
Acceptable (0)
Good (+1)
Good (+1)
Consumer Interest
Software
TS Business
Capabilities
Strategy
Good (+1)
Good (+1)
Ease of Use
Hardware
Capabilities
Good (+1)
Good (+1)
Table 10: Evaluation score for Scenario 5, PVR Sharing in the Home (video, other STB).
It is hard to evaluate, but implementation is probably not too hard. The IPTV operator
already has experience with several STBs in a single home (Twin subscriptions). If it is
possible to share encrypted media streams over DLNA, for the other STB to decrypt,
it will be easy to implement this scenario solution. My prediction is that it would
be possible to do this. Otherwise Link Protection is required, which is not trivial to
implement, making the implementation cost go up a lot.
This scenario is very similar to Verizon FiOS, brought up on page 12.
29
5.5.6 #6: PVR Sharing in the Home (video, any DMP)
Contractual
Implementation
Relationships
Cost
Acceptable (0)
Poor (-1)
Good (+1)
Consumer Interest
Software
TS Business
Capabilities
Strategy
Poor (-1)
Good (+1)
Ease of Use
Hardware
Capabilities
Good (+1)
Good (+1)
Table 11: Evaluation score for Scenario 6, PVR Sharing in the Home (video, any DMP).
As you can see in Table 11, the criteria Contractual Relationships is Acceptable. Always
when sharing content from the STB to the home network the content providers could
protest. Link Protection is required to make the recordings playable on any DMP that
supports the codec, MPEG2 or MPEG4, as well as Link Protection. Therefore implementation cost and software capabilities are Poor. All other criteria are evaluated as
being fulfilled.
5.5.7 #7: Channel Sharing in the Home (video, same channel)
Contractual
Implementation
Relationships
Cost
Acceptable (0)
Poor (-1)
Good (+1)
Consumer Interest
Software
TS Business
Capabilities
Strategy
Poor (-1)
Poor (-1)
Ease of Use
Hardware
Capabilities
Good (+1)
Good (+1)
Table 12: Evaluation score for Scenario 7, Channel Sharing in the Home (video, same
channel). Score can be Poorly/Not at all (-1), Acceptable (0) or Good/Not
applicable (+1). Note that the criteria weight is not yet considered.
Since this scenario solution is meant to work with any DMP, Link Protection is required.
Link Protection is not mature enough, not widespread, for consideration when it is required in units not provided by the IPTV operator. Possibly this Scenario Solution
could be limited to sharing only to another STB but that would not be an interesting
30
scenario. Implementation Cost and Software Capabilities are Poor due to Link Protection requirements.
5.5.8 #8: Channel Sharing in the Home (video, any channel)
Contractual
Implementation
Relationships
Cost
Poor (-1)
Poor (-1)
Good (+1)
Consumer Interest
Software
TS Business
Capabilities
Strategy
Poor (-1)
Poor (-1)
Ease of Use
Hardware
Capabilities
Acceptable (0)
Good (+1)
Table 13: Evaluation score for Scenario 8, Channel Sharing in the Home (video, any
channel). Score can be Poorly/Not at all (-1), Acceptable (0) or Good/Not
As you can see in Table 13, this scenario solution is almost identical to the previous
one, Channel Sharing in the Home (video, same channel). One difference the potential
problem regarding Internet connection bandwidth, since streaming two channels at once
is not always possible. Therefore Hardware Capabilities are a bit lower (Acceptable).
If Link Protection is overcome and some thought through restrictions and checks are
implemented to make sure enough Internet connection bandwidth is available, the scenario solution could work. The customer must be able to surf the web without being
frustrated while the service runs. This scenario solution could be seen as an extension
to the previous scenario solution. Another difference is that Contractual Relationships
are considered poor, since the consumer can watch 2 live channels at once due to this
functionality (something previously not possible without a twin subscription).
31
5.5.9 #9: STB DLNA Remote UI
Contractual
Implementation
Relationships
Cost
Acceptable (0)
Poor (-1)
Good (+1)
Consumer Interest
Software
TS Business
Capabilities
Strategy
Poor (-1)
Poor (-1)
Ease of Use
Hardware
Capabilities
Good (+1)
Unknown (0)
Table 14: Evaluation score for Scenario 9, STB DLNA Remote UI. Score can be
Poorly/Not at all (-1), Acceptable/Unknown (0) or Good/Not applicable (+1).
Note that the criteria weight is not yet considered.
The DLNA Remote UI extension is so new, it is hard to get information on how well
designed it is. If the IPTV operator ever decides to use thin clients this could be an
option, but as it is today (and likely for many years to come) both client side and server
side would have to be provided. It is unlikely that the customer has RUI Clients in the
home already. The use case is not something of interest to the IPTV operator, there
could be problems with the content distributors and consumer interest is unknown.
5.5.10 #10: STB Over DLNA, Simple Video Streaming
Contractual
Implementation
Relationships
Cost
Acceptable (0)
Poor (-1)
Acceptable (0)
Consumer Interest
Software
TS Business
Capabilities
Strategy
Poor (-1)
Poor (-1)
Ease of Use
Hardware
Capabilities
Poor (-1)
Unknown (0)
Table 15: Evaluation score for Scenario 10, STB Over DLNA, Simple Video Streaming.
Score can be Poorly/Not at all (-1), Acceptable/Unknown (0) or Good/Not
This scenario refers to taking the video stream, overlaying the GUI, and then sharing
it over DLNA. A one-to-one replica of the TV screen is therefore shared over DLNA to
any DMP. The STB acts as a DMS.
32
This scenario solution suffers from many drawbacks mentioned in Scenario 9. On top
of that Ease of Use is worse, and it is unlikely that it is possible to even implement the
scenario since the STB would need to transcode on the fly.
Implementation Cost
Ease of Use
Consumer Interest
Total
5.5.11 Resulting Matrix
RGW as a Server (all)
3.5
3.17
0
3.6
0
2.92
0
13.18
STB as a Player (music/images)
3.5
3.17
0
3.6
0
2.92
3.75
16.93
STB as a Player (video)
3.5
0
0
3.6
0
2.92
3.75
13.77
Smart Phone DMS + STB DMP (images)
3.5
-3.17
4.75
3.6
3.6
0
3.75
16.03
PVR Sharing in the Home (video, other STB)
0
3.17
4.75
3.6
3.6
2.92
3.75
21.78
PVR Sharing in the Home (video, any DMP)
0
-3.17
4.75
3.6
-3.6
2.92
3.75
8.25
Channel Sharing in the Home (video, same channel)
0
-3.17
4.75
3.6
-3.6
-2.92
3.75
2.42
-3.5
-3.17
4.75
0
-3.6
-2.92
3.75
-4.68
STB DLNA Remote UI
0
-3.17
4.75
3.6
-3.6
-2.92
0
-1.33
STB Over DLNA, Simple Video Streaming
0
-3.17
0
-3.6
-3.6
-2.92
0
-13.28
Channel Sharing in the Home (video, any channel)
Table 16: The final Pugh matrix, where each scenario solution is evaluated against each
of the criteria. The resulting score is a*b, where a is a score on how well the
scenario fulfills the criteria and b is the criteria weight.
As you can see in Table 16 the different scenario solution scores vary a lot, some scenario
solutions even got a negative score. Every cell in the Pugh decision matrix is the eval-
33
uation on how well a scenario solution satisfies a criteria, weighted with how important
the criteria is considered.
To summarize, all scenarios where something in the digital home was shared to and
consumed by the STB suffered mainly from ease of use and software capability (format
support) concerns. The strength was the high consumer interest and lack of DRM
issues. The scenarios where a recording or a channel was shared from the STB out into
the digital home did have some problems with possible DRM issues, but ease of use
for them was considered good. As a side effect of the DRM issues, Link Protection is
required for most of the scenarios, the Implementation Cost and Software Capabilities
were evaluated as poor. PVR Sharing in the Home (video, other STB) does not require
Link Protection, which explains why it scored so well.
5.6 Resulting Road Map
As expected, the prototype use cases (Scenario Solution #1/#2) ranked high in the
Pugh decision matrix.
Figure 7: The resulting road map, showing which scenario solutions should be prioritized the highest. The further up on the picture the scenario solution is, the
higher priority. The arrows represent a dependence, or a natural order suggesting that one scenario solution should be implemented before another. Some
scenario solutions need Link Protection to be present in the STB and in the
customers home before they should be seriously considered. Five of the ten
scenario solutions were discarded for various reasons explained below.
34
As you can see in Figure 7, PVR Sharing in the Home (other STB) was the most
interesting scenario solution according to the Pugh decision matrix, with STB as a
Player (music/images) not far behind followed by RGW as a Server. This falls in line
with the conclusions I have drawn after doing the literature study, the market analysis,
and the “hands on” experience gained from programming the prototype.
Since the IPTV operator is very concerned with reducing the number of help desk calls
I do not recommend releasing STB as a Player (music/images) without simultaneously
releasing RGW as a Server, Ease of Use is much easier to achieve when you control all
devices involved (both server and player). This is signified with a double pointed arrow
between the two scenario solutions.
Due to the survey about consumer interest being carried out before the forming of scenario solutions, the questions unfortunately did not cover all scenario solutions. For
Smart Phone DMS + STB DMP (images) this was the case. I predict that the interest for this service is high, but to be sure further research is needed. If interest is
high I recommend that this scenario solution is released along with STB as a Player
(music/images) or shortly thereafter.
There are two scenario solutions that can be viewed as extensions to other scenario
solutions:
• PVR sharing not only to other STBs, but to any DMP.
• The STB should be able to act as a DMP for video as well, as long as the codec
demands coming from the customers can be met to a satisfactory level. If they can
not be met, the scenario risks reducing customer satisfaction instead of increasing
it.
As you can see in Figure 7 five of the ten scenario solutions were discarded. All scenarios
rely on sharing content (live or recorded) from the STB onto any DMP in the home
using DLNA with Link Protection. The IPTV operator has expressed that this is not
something they are interested in doing at this moment since control over where the
content is played back is lost. The features compete with the IPTV operators twin
subscription solution (one home having several STBs and paying extra for that) and
releasing the features may lead to lost revenue. There are also concerns about use of
VPN enabling several households to easily share one IPTV subscription. The bottom
line is that the IPTV operator does not want to share any content to an unknown device
(any non-STB-device).
5.7 Implementation of the Prototype
Implementation of the prototype went surprisingly smooth due to several reasons. The
documentation and sample code provided by Motorola was detailed and to the point.
By choosing to do a prototype sharing images, headaches over file formats were avoided.
While integrating the prototype into an existing solution (“Mina bilder”/”My Pictures”)
was difficult due to the shear amount of code to familiarize with, once everything went
35
in place the whole look and feel was already done (for example the GUI elements and
the slide show functionality).
Implementation of the prototype was carried out using PlayStation Media Server v1.20.412
on a PC running Ubuntu 10.10 (32 bit edition). Once the prototype was functional I
tried running the setup using the Digital Media Server on the IPTV operators Residential Gateway and after some minor bug fixes everything ran smoothly with this setup as
well.
36
6 Discussion
This chapter discusses how the thesis work has gone and in what ways things could have
been implemented differently. Conclusions drawn from the results will be presented as
well as suggestions for further work in the area.
6.1 Work Methodology
Consumer Interest Questions The survey about consumer interest should have been
carried out after the proposed scenarios had been thought through , not before. The
reason is so that the generalized questions cover all the scenarios in a good way. If you
carry out the survey about consumer interest (like I did) you can end up with knowledge
gaps, not being able to determine the interest in a scenario. I do believe that it is a
good idea to have generalized questions instead of mapping questions one to one with
the scenarios. This means avoiding technical talk when possible as well as buzz words
irrelevant to the interest (DLNA).
Consumer Interest Scale Having a scale of five steps for the consumer interest survey
made it hard to analyze the interest, and if redone I would most likely use a three step
answer scale instead (Uninterested/Neutral/Interested).
Consumer Interest Survey Participants As mentioned briefly in Section 5.1 the Consumer Interest Survey participants consisted of 153 employees participating in the IPTV
operators Pilot Testing Program, where they are required to test the IPTV service at
home with the upcoming releases in exchange for free channels and Video on Demand.
The participants are spread all over Sweden and are approximately divided as follows:
“[..] 30 % are pure technicians. Another 50 % are qualified developers of
Telias services but not pure technicians and 20 % other (customer support,
administration, economy).”
- Kilegran, 2011
The reason for choosing this group for the survey was mainly due to time constraints
and convenience, I did not realize early on that the Pilot Testing group consisted of such
a high percentage of employees with technical background. It is likely that the survey
results do not represent the interest of the entire customer base. If this is the case, then
the skewed results have a direct (albeit minor) effect on the decision matrix score of the
scenarios. Before the IPTV operator releases any new functionality mentioned in this
report more consumer feedback is recommended (preferably when a scenario prototype
is ready for testing).
Another concern is the ratio between participants offered to take the survey and the
amount that actually responded, more on that in Section 6.3.
37
Forming Criteria It is important to always consider your own capabilities (given the
time constraint) when forming the criteria to evaluate your scenarios over. Are you
capable of evaluating this criteria on your own? With external help?
Pugh Decision Matrix Order In Section 4 I claim that step 1 and 2 of the Pugh decision
matrix can be carried out independently in any order. The reasoning behind this was
that the two steps are carried out using expertise from different parts of the company.
In practice this was not the case. The expertise came from the same people and the
order which steps 1 and 2 are carried out most likely would affect the results. I do not
think that any “damage” was done but it is wrong to assume that the order does not
affect the result. In either case, I am involved in every step and the order which I carry
out the steps can affect the results as well.
Participants Deciding Criteria Weights When selecting the participants to decide the
criteria weights I concluded that expertise and insight into the IPTV operators directions
and values was needed. Therefore I selected 14 employees working at the IPTV operators
Product Development department. I feel that this was a solid decision.
Scenario Solution Evaluation When evaluating the scenario solutions against the criteria it was unclear what to do when a criteria was unapplicable. For example when
presenting pictures on the STB (as a DLNA Player) DRM is a non-issue. I decided that
if a criteria is unapplicable it is a non-issue, and therefore equally good as fulfilling the
criteria fully (+1 Good).
6.2 Conclusions
DLNA has a lot of corporations behind it, and is not a bad way of achieving interoperability when it comes to audio and images. The number of media units supporting DLNA
is high, and increasing fast. (ABI Research, 2009) When it comes to video however, the
amount of formats neglected is too big. A consumer wanting to watch a video encoded
as for example XviD or DivX will not be able to, and will be disappointed by the claim
of interoperability. What I call The Expectation Mismatch is unacceptably high when
it comes to video (see Section 5.1). If the IPTV Operator wants to implement DLNA
Video support it could try to support DivX/XviD by indicating the media format with
MIME-type, getting it to work with their own product offerings and possibly third party
clients/servers as well.
The prototype further showed that using DLNA for pictures is a good idea.
Out of the ten scenario solutions presented in Section 5.5, five were considered worth
implementing: The scenarios with the STB acting as a player, a smart phone acting as
a picture server, as well as the STB sharing its recordings to another STB. Sharing live
TV or even the whole STB functionality was evaluated to be hard and expensive, with
38
the added risk of competing with the IPTV operators twin subscription service resulting
in lost revenue. See Figure 8 for the five scenario solutions of interest.
Figure 8: The interesting portion of Figure 7, with the discarded scenario solutions removed. The higher up a scenario is the higher it should be prioritized. The
arrows represent dependencies, some scenarios are natural extensions to other,
and some scenarios rely on each other.
Since the IPTV operator is very concerned with reducing the number of help desk calls
I do not recommend releasing STB as a Player (music/images) without simultaneously
releasing RGW as a Server, Ease of Use is much easier to achieve when you control all
devices involved (both server and player). This is signified with a double pointed arrow
between the two scenario solutions.
Due to the survey about consumer interest being carried out before the forming of scenario solutions, the questions unfortunately did not cover all scenario solutions. For
Smart Phone DMS + STB DMP (images) this was the case. I predict that the interest for this service is high, but to be sure further research is needed. If interest is
high I recommend that this scenario solution is released along with STB as a Player
(music/images) or shortly thereafter.
In what way can DLNA link the digital home and a Managed IPTV platform
There are two ways the IPTV service can be connected to the digital home: consuming
content on the home network and sharing content to the home network. Consumer
interest is there for both categories. The most interesting use cases are the following:
watching pictures and listen to music shared on the home network, sharing recorded
content from the STB onto another STB. For more information see Section 5.6.
It is technically possible to share content to the digital home, there are however a few
obstacles. Link Protection is deemed to be required for the service to be allowed by the
content providers. I consider getting Link Protection support in the IPTV operators
STB/RGW as an easy task, but that is enough only for a few scenarios (STB to STB
sharing). The big problem lies with having Link Protection support outside of the IPTV
39
operators solution (in DMPs such as the Television, Smart Phone, or Laptop). Link
Protection is not widely adopted yet.
The other way around, playing content available on the home network using the STB,
is problematic due to a different reason. The problem here is playback support for
video. The codec support required by the customer in order to credit the service with
interoperability is not likely to be met. Read more on the expectation mismatch in
Section 5.1 (on page 23). Playing music and watching pictures shared on the home
network has some expectation mismatch problems as well according to the consumer
interest survey. In my opinion the consumer dissatisfaction is not likely to get in the
way of these scenarios though.
In what ways is an IPTV provider affected by redesigning the IPTV infrastructure
The IPTV provider will not be affected much by redesigning the “IPTV infrastructure”. The change comprises of three components: Link Protection, General implementation, STB resources. The disadvantages (implementation cost and resource use
in the STB) have to be weighted against the advantages (customer loyalty, customer
happiness, DLNA certification generating new customers). I am of the opinion that the
advantages are well worth it, providing a service which competitors do not is what the
IPTV operator needs to attract customers.
Limitations: What services are unsuitable for a DLNA solution?
As can be seen in Section 5.6 any scenario that shares the STB functionality and/or
picture to the home network is unsuitable for a DLNA solution. Expensive implementation and uncertain interest and hardware capabilities are the reason. Another reason
is contractual relationships, even if Link Protection is present in the STB and the home
media devices (which it is not) the content distributors could still protest against the
functionality. There are many other scenarios unsuitable for a DLNA solution at this
time, see Section 5.6.
In what ways can a managed IPTV service provider help the customer to overcome
The IPTV operator should provide both the server and the client to all scenarios they
wish to release. For example when releasing DMP functionality in the STB, the DMS
functionality in the RGW should be released simultaneously. If DMS functionality is
implemented in the STB, it is recommended to release a DMP, be it PC software or for
a smart phone. This is recommended because of the flora of DLNA devices out on the
market. The IPTV operator can not afford to support all combinations of equipment,
40
even though all combinations should work (if the DLNA guidelines are followed). The
IPTV operator needs one or several reference setups that they provide support for. Every
other hardware/software combination is not supported and works only as “best effort”.
I have not evaluated third party manufacturers DLNA UIs, but it can be assumed that
they come in many different styles. At most, the IPTV operator could familiarize with
a specific set of devices to provide support and endorse to the customers. As said in
the previous chapter I recommend that any devices not provided by the IPTV operator
should not be supported more than “best effort”, that is, by trying to follow the DLNA
guidelines.
Another option would be to make use of DLNA Remote UI. There are several reasons
why this is not a good idea at this point:
• DLNA RUI is not mature.
• The IPTV operators GUI is not adapted to DLNA RUI.
• Expensive implementation.
• This would shut out all non-RUI-devices.
6.3 Validity and Reliability
Validity and Reliability are considered important in the academic world. Therefore I
will evaluate the Validity and Reliability of my work by answering related questions.
6.3.1 Validity
Are we measuring what we are supposed to be measuring?
For the most part, yes. I feel like the method used in this thesis answers the questions
posed, due to what I believe to be a strong method backed up with a detailed literature
study. There is one exception, which I have discussed in Section 6.1 (on page 37), and
that is the consumer interest survey. The group selected did not represent the consumer
base as a whole to the extent I first believed it to, when selecting the group. Another
problem with the consumer interest survey was that the questions didn’t cover all of the
scenarios later formed.
Another concern is survey participation, only 88 of the 153 asked responded to the survey.
For the supplementary questions about media formats expected the participation drops
even lower.
Can the method be generalized and reused? (Transferability)
I am confident that the method can be generalized and applied to many different problems. As mentioned before the methodology weaknesses discussed in Section 6.1 (on
page 37) should be considered.
41
6.3.2 Reliability
If the method described in this thesis is redone (by me),
will the results be the same? (Test-retest Reliability)
For the most part, I predict that if I redid my thesis work right away the results would
be the same or similar. However what I am evaluating is under constant evolution,
both in the sense that new guidelines are specified but also the market penetration of
DLNA as a whole (and its extensions). On top of that consumer habits are ever-changing
and unpredictable. In its current form some parts of the method rely on opinions and
expertise of a few select people (mainly the criteria forming). A small change in this
group could lead to in changes to the results. It is important to note that I don’t
recommend redoing my method without first evaluating the changes to the method
proposed in Section 6.1 (on page 37).
If the thesis was carried out by someone else using my approach,
would the results be the same? (Inter-rater Reliability)
Unfortunately I think the inter-rater reliability is hard for me to evaluate. Since a lot
of the method relies on my expertise and knowledge gained from the literature study
the results could differ a lot if someone else carried out the thesis work. I would like to
think that my literature study was conducted in an objective manner (as far as that is
possible) and that the conclusions I reached would closely match the conclusions reached
by someone else doing the same work. The results could be colored in many ways for
example via leading questions, improper priorities, and personal values. It is up to the
reader to decide if that is the case.
6.4 Further Work and Research
Keep An Eye On Link Protection It is in the IPTV operators interest to keep an eye
on DLNA Link Protection, to see when it enters the market for real. Six out of ten
scenario solutions could benefit in some way from having Link Protection available. All
scenarios where content is being shared from the STB to the digital home could benefit.
The IPTV operator should open dialogs with their STB providers about the possibility
of Link Protection being delivered with the STB software. Investigations into the use of
Link Protection without certifying for it should be conducted, is it allowed? Old STBs
could get Link Protection added via software updates (if the appropriate keys have been
provisioned) and not having to re-certify DLNA would be a big boon. At first glance
this seems to be the case.
Link Protection is mainly a tool to please the content distributors, which could end the
channel contracts with the IPTV Operator if they do not trust that their content is
handled in a safe way.
42
Consumer Interest I would recommend that the IPTV operator conducts an in depth
investigation on what scenarios the customers want. A good start would be to demo the
proof of concept prototype coupled with surveys.
Stress Test Before releasing the prototype use case as a product several tests need to
be done. Informal testing has been conducted to verify the proof of concept but stress
testing needs to be carried out in detail to make sure that the new functionality does
not introduce instability into the IPTV service, and to see how the STB reacts when
overloaded with images.
RGW Requirements The requirements regarding the DLNA Media Server (DMS) located on the RGW needs to be described in detail to make sure a good user experience
is possible.
Expectation Mismatch The conclusions in this thesis regarding the Expectation Mismatch, the mismatch between expected media format support and actual media format
support, does not take into consideration what formats the customer demands. Statistics on what formats would actually be used in the home would be helpful as well when
deciding if the expectation mismatch will pose a problem.
6.5 Epilogue
DLNA is here to stay, and it has a lot of industry support. With over 200 million devices
shipped spanning over 7000 device models, the market penetration is vast. While there
are problems with the guidelines and their implementation, which I have highlighted,
the benefit of having industry wide standards is great. Both the manufacturers and
the customers benefit from this. Even if some manufacturers decide against DLNA
certification they can find inspiration regarding media interoperability solutions in the
DLNA guidelines.
43
Abbreviations
AB Swedish: Aktiebolag, Joint-stock company.
ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
AJAX Asynchronous Javascript and XML
API Application Programming Interface
AV Audio/Video
CE Consumer Electronics
CE-HTML Consumer Electronics Hypertext Markup Language
CIFS Common Internet File System (see SMB)
CSC School of Computer Science and Communication
CSS Cascading Style Sheets
CTT Conformance Test Tool
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
DLNA Digital Living Network Alliance
DMC Digital Media Controller
DMP Digital Media Player
DMPr Digital Media Printer
DMR Digital Media Renderer
DMS Digital Media Server
DNS Domain Name System
DRM Digital Rights Management
DTCP-IP Digital Transmission Content Protection over IP
DVR Digital Video Recorder
EPG Electronig Program Guide
GUI Graphical User Interface
HID Home Interoperability Devices
HND Home Network Devices
HTML Hypertext Markup Language
HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol
IGMP Internet Group Management Protocol
44
IP Internet Protocol
IPv4 Internet Protocol version 4
IPTV Internet Protocol Television, Television over IP.
KTH Swedish: Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm,
Sweden.
KTHB Swedish: KTH Biblioteket, KTH Library.
M-DMC Mobile Digital Media Controller
M-DMD Mobile Digital Media Downloader
M-DMP Mobile Digital Media Player
M-DMR Mobile Digital Media Renderer
M-DMS Mobile Digital Media Server
M-DMU Mobile Digital Media Uploader
MIU Mobile Interoperability Unit
M-NCF Mobile Network Connectivity Function
MND Mobile Network Devices
MoCA Multimedia over Coax Alliance
NAS Network Attached Storage
OIPF Open IPTV Forum
Oy Finnish: Osakeyhtiö, stock company.
PC Personal Computer
PDA Personal Digital Assistant
PS3 Playstation 3
RGW Residential Gateway
RTP Real-time Transport Protocol
RUI Remote User Interface
RUIC Remote User Interface Client
RUIS Remote User Interface Server
SMB Server Message Block
SOAP Simple Object Access Protocol
SSDP Simple Service Discovery Protocol
STB Set Top Box
45
TCP Transmission Control Protocol
TV Television
UDP User Datagram Protocol
UI User Interface
UICP User Interface Control Point
UPnP Universal Plug and Play
URI Uniform Resource Identifier
URL Uniform Resource Locator
UUID Universally Unique Identifier
VHS Video Home System
VoD Video on Demand
WMDRM-ND Windows Media DRM for Network Devices
XHTML Extensible Hypertext Markup Language
XML Extensible Markup Language
46
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Appendixes
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49
Appendix A - The Layers of DLNA
DLNA can be split up into layers, ranging
from connectivity on the hardware layer
all the way up to media formats, protecting premium content and extensions to
DLNA. See Figure A.1. Below I will go
through the layers from the bottom and
up.
Connectivity, Discovery and Control
As for network connectivity, there are several choices for the device manufacturers.
They can choose one or several of the network connectivity technologies. You can
choose to support Ethernet17 , Wi-Fi18 , or
Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA).
If Wi-Fi is used the Wi-Fi Protected Setup
Protocol, which aims to make it easier
for the user to configure a secure wireless home network, could be implemented.
The mobile network connectivity technology Bluetooth could be used as well, but if
that is the only means of communicating
with other devices a Mobile Network ConFigure A.1: The layers of DLNA. Based
nectivity Function (M-NCF) is required to
on figure from Alan Messer
connect to the home network.
(2010) and complemented with
(DLNA, 2009)
information from Allegro Software Development Corporation
Today DLNA uses IPv4 for device connec(2006)
tivity. More specifically UPnP uses IPv4
and DLNA uses UPnP as mentioned earlier. There are many reasons to choose IP as the network protocol. IPv4 is an industrywide standard that is implemented on the most common network connectivity technologies enabling them to communicate transparently regardless of underlying network connectivity technology. The DLNA compliant device is required to implement a DHCP19
Client and use that to get an IP address if possible, and use Auto-IP20 as a fallback.
There are plans to support both IPv4 and IPv6 in the future.
(Allegro, 2006)
17
Ethernet technologies supported are 10Base-T (802.3i), 100Base-T (802.3u), 1000Base-T (802.3ab)
Wi-Fi technologies supported are 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, as well as “Fast Wi-Fi” (802.11n)
19
See RFC 2131, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2131.txt
20
See RFC 3927, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3927.txt
18
1
Device discovery in DLNA makes use of UPnP Device Architecture 1.0. The discovery
protocol used is called Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP) which according to
Goland et al (1999) is based on HTTP Notify messages sent with the stateless transport
protocol UDP onto a standard multicast21 channel. When a UPnP enabled device
connects to a network it sends out a HTTP Notify containing a short description of itself:
Its UPnP type, a Universally Unique Identification (UUID) and a Uniform Resource
Identifier (URI) for access to more detailed information (the UPnP Device Description).
All UPnP enabled devices are instructed to listen to the multicast channel receiving
these messages, and can react when they discover devices they are interested in.
The UPnP Device Description, which is written by the device vendor, is in XML and it is
based on a standard UPnP Device Template provided by the UPnP Forum. It contains
information such as model name and number, serial number, manufacturer name and a
URL for presentation.
(Allegro, 2006)
Media Management Media Management in this context refers to devices and applications being able to find, manage and consume/distribute digital media content on the
home network. As mentioned briefly in Section 2.1.1 this is achieved using UPnP AV 1.0
and UPnP Print Enhanced 1.0. With these technologies you get four services: Content
Directory, Connection Manager, AV Transport, and Rendering Control (Allegro, 2006).
The Content Directory service is required on all media servers, and is used to list what
media content the server has available. Meta data is also sent for the content. Aside
from the regular meta data22 found in media files you get information about allowed
transfer protocols and data formats, on an asset to asset basis. Each item in the list
could be static content such as music, video and picture files lying physically on the
digital media server. It could also be live assets, like Live TV or Radio streams. The
digital media player does not differentiate them, it does not care whether the content is
live or recorded.
The Connection Manager manages the connections between UPnP enabled devices. It
sets up connections, manages current connections and tears them down. This service
also figures out if a server/renderer connection is compatible, if the server and renderer
has matching capabilities.
The Audio/Video Transport (AV Transport) service enables playback control expected
when dealing with recorded media: Play, Pause, Stop, Skip Forward, Fast Forward etc.
Note that this service is a control service only, it does not set up or tear down the media
streams. Information on Media Transport can be found further down in this section.
Apart from playback controls the user might also want to adjust the rendering devices
brightness, contrast, color temperature, aspect ratio etc. Adjusting these attributes
21
22
Name, Artist, Size, Creation date, etc.
2
over the home network through DLNA is accomplished by using the Rendering Control
service.
(Allegro, 2006)
Media Transport For the transfer of media two protocols are supported. HyperText
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) version 1.1, which is mandatory, and Real-time Transport
Protocol (RTP) which is optional. Note that HTTP version 1.0 is not supported. (Allegro, 2006)
There are three modes of transport defined in DLNA: Streaming Transfer, Interactive
Transfer and Background Transfer. Quality of Service is handled with priority labeling.
(DLNA, 2010a)
The Streaming Transfer mode is for content that is immediately rendered at the receiver, or is continually generated at the source. The content is not stored before it is
played/sent through the home network and therefore the bandwidth needs to handle the
load from the transfer. By default Streaming Transfer has the highest priority.
Interactive Transfer is for media that has no internal timing (images), and therefore is
not as sensitive to delay. A delay when transferring an image leads to the image loading
slower, but a delay when streaming a movie forces the picture and sound to stop.
Background Transfer is self-explanatory. This is the transfer mode used when the transfer is not time sensitive, for example when downloading content for later consumption.
This transfer mode has the lowest priority. According to DLNA (2009) you can not use
RTP for transfers in background transfer mode.
Media Formats The Device Classes defined in the DLNA guidelines have different
resources and uses. Therefore they have different media format requirements. The
guidelines define a set of mandatory media formats as well as a set of optional media
formats to support. See Appendix B for a list of mandatory and optional format sets
and read Section 2.1.3 for more information on the different device classes.
UPnP Audio/Video 1.0 specifies a number of image format profiles for each format, which
sets limitations on the size and color palette of a picture. For example the JPEG_TN
profile is used for thumbnail representation of a picture and is allowed be no larger than
160x160 pixels. A picture can have several resources of different image format profiles,
allowing the player to pick the best suited resource. It is not possible to request the
picture in a custom size and the DLNA server is not required to provide for example a
Thumbnail resource for a picture.
Link Protection Content providers do not want their content broadcast unencrypted
over any link, because of the risk of third party recording.
3
DLNA Link Protection has two DRM protection schemes, Digital Transmission Content
Protection to IP (DTCP-IP) which is mandatory and Windows Media Digital Rights
Management for Network Devices (WMDRM-ND) which is optional.
DTCP was created by five big companies in 1998: Intel, Hitachi, Panasonic, Sony, and
Toshiba. It is a proprietary specification which is not available unless certain fees are
paid. DTCP can be used over several connectivity technologies such as USB, Bluetooth
and IP. DLNA Link Protection requires DTCP to IP. Secret unique keys are inserted
into each device and used to establish encrypted links between the devices. It could
prove challenging to insert the secret DTCP keys without physhical access to the device.
WMDRM-ND, is the second of the two Link Protection schemes in the DLNA guidelines.
It is optional to implement and also involves licensing fees.
(DLNA, 2009)
Extensions Apart from Link Protection, there are several other interesting extensions
to DLNA. Three of these are Remote User Interface (RUI), Content Synchronization
and Smart Media Management.
Remote UI enables a device to share a
consistent user experience over DLNA,
by containing the same look and feel between devices. This is accomplished by using CEA-2014-A23 , aka Web4CE. (DLNA,
2009) There are three device types in
CEA-2014-A: Remote UI Server (RUIS),
Remote UI Client (RUIC) and UI Control
Point (UICP). See Figure A.2. The server
provides RUIs. Connections are set up by
the client itself or by a control point. After Figure A.2: The device types of CE-HTML
the client reports its capabilities the server
(CEA-2014-A)
sends the UI, which can be customized to
the clients capabilities24 , to the client.
The UI that is delivered is in the form of CE-HTML. CE-HTML consists of XHTML25 ,
JavaScript26 , DOM level 2.027 , CSS TV Profile 1.0 (superset of CSS Mobile Profile), the
XMLHttpRequest JavaScript object (AJAX) as well as a number of extensions unique
for CE-HTML. These extensions include:
23
Revision B is out but not yet adopted by DLNA.
Resolution, Color depth etc.
25
XHTML 1.0 Transitional or Strict
26
More precisely ECMA-262, which is implemented in browsers under a number of names (JavaScript,
JScript, ActionScript etc.).
27
Only 5 of the 14 DOM level 2.0 modules needs to be supported (Core, Style, Events, HTML, Views).
24
4
• Spatial control, navigate naturally with the arrow keys on your remote control.
The browser calculates which objects to change focus to based on the positioning
of the elements.
• Direct access to forms with JavaScript.
• A new HTML-tag (<op>) that maps to abstract keys on remote controls (eg.
VK_ENTER which could be the physical OK button).
• Multi-tap writing (classic mobile phone text messaging technique).
• Third party notifications, for example the RUI server can push updates to the RUI
client.
• Audio/Video integration that persists across pages.
Session migration, allowing the user to save a state and restore it at another time and/or
place, is implemented on the RUI server but is optional.
(CEA, 2010)
Content Synchronization allows the user to synchronize files between different DLNA
devices. (Access, 2010)
Example: Using DLNA Content Sync, Eric always has an updated version of his working
directory both on his laptop and on a server in the home. He also uses it to automatically
upload new music to his music player, and download photos of his digital camera.
The DLNA extension Smart Media Manager brings benefits in two ways. The smart media manager allows control using a web browser, which allows for more advanced searches
to be expressed due to keyboard and mouse control (in contrast to TV-remote control).
The other benefit brought is access control (aka parental control). It allows the consumer to create filters towards individual Digital Media Players, blocking inappropriate
content. (Access, 2010)
5
Appendix B - Mandatory and Optional Format Sets
Media Class
Device
Category
Mandatory
Format Sets
Optional Format Sets
Imaging
Home/Mobile
JPEG
GIF, TIFF, PNG
Audio
Home
LPCM (2
channel)
MP3, WMA9, AC-3, AAC,
ATRAC3plus
Mobile
MP3, MPEG4
AAC LC
MPEG 4 (HE AAC, AAC LTP,
BSAC), AMR, ATRAC3plus, G.726,
WMA, LPCM
Home
MPEG2
MPEG1, MPEG4, WMV9
Mobile
MPEG4 AVC
(AAC LC audio)
VC1, H.263, MPEG4 part 2, MPEG2,
MPEG4 AVC (other audio codecs)
Video
Table B.1: Mandatory and optional media format sets, by device category. (DLNA,
2009)
1
Appendix C - The Pugh Decision Matrix Method
See Figure C.1 for an overview over the work flow I planned. The steps are described in
detail later in the text.
Figure C.1: My work flow.
Step 1: Forming Scenarios
The goal was to draw up scenarios involving DLNA and IPTV that the customers found
interesting, to be investigated further. I decided to form a number of scenarios myself,
based on the information compiled in my theory chapter as well as discussions with
employees and mentors at the IPTV operator. A survey was filled out by existing
IPTV customers generating feedback on the interest for different use cases. The survey
contained general questions, avoiding the technicalities and specifics, since asking about
every single scenario would require too much effort and expertise from the participants.
The results from the survey were mapped by me onto each scenario in Step 4 (see Section
6.5).
The technical details were added to the scenarios only after the scenarios which seemed
viable in the eyes of the customers were identified. I will refer to these “technical”
scenarios as scenario solutions. Since a scenario could have several technical solutions
with different benefits and disadvantages, I generated a score for each scenario solution.
1
Step 2: Forming Criteria
Interviews were conducted together with employees at the IPTV operators Product
Development department in Farsta. The goal with the interviews were to draw up
which requirements are of interest when deciding how viable and desirable the scenarios
are. After all interviews were done the full list of criteria was mailed to all interview
subjects for possible feedback.
The interview subjects were expected to have good knowledge about what criteria are
important when evaluating new functionality concepts for the IPTV service. Therefore,
the interviews were unstructured with collaborative note taking.
Step 3: Generating Criteria Weights
When generating the criteria weights a survey was used, since the goal was to have well
defined weights. Having a large number of participants reduces the individuals ability to
affect the results by making biased decisions. The result will be closer to what Hansson
(2003) refers to as inter-subjectivity. It will be closer to a collective truth of what the
criteria weights are when implementing new features into a managed IPTV service.
The weight scale will range from 1 to 5 (“Not important” to “Very important”).
Step 4 & 5: Evaluating Scenario Solutions
After the scenario solutions, criteria and the importance of the criteria had been defined
each scenario solution was evaluated to see how well it fulfilled the requirements. As
mentioned earlier, I did not use a datum as the basis for generating the scores. I evaluated
to what extent the criteria was fulfilled: Poorly/Not at all (-1), Acceptable/Unknown (0),
Good/Not Applicable (+1). This is similar to the evaluation system used by Vretblad
(2010), but I offset the scale to range from -1 to +1 instead of going from 0 to 2.
In my opinion this better signifies the negative impact of having poor or non-existent
compliance with a criteria.
2
Appendix D - Final Criteria List
3
Final Criteria List
Daniel Ignat
May 16, 2011
Background
This document describes the final criteria list that was a result of two interviews
with two employees here at TeliaSonera, as well as feedback from participants
in the questionnaire to determine the importance of the criteria.
1
I will investigate if implementation of the scenario is likely to be hindered by
DRM licencing issues. The content providers might not like the new feature due
to concerns over piracy and/or lost revenue.
1 - Should not affect road map, either it is possible or it is not
5 - It is very important that the content providers won’t have any problems
with the scenario
2
Implementation Cost
I will estimate the cost of implementing the scenario. This could involve buying
licences, development tools, having running fees due to technology use and also
coding time.
1 - Cost is not important, 5 - Cost is very important to consider
3
Ease of Use
I will estimate how easy to use the new scenario will be. This could differ
depending on complexity of the scenario aswell as the expected experience and
knowledge of the user.
1
Not achieving ease of use could result in unwanted calls to the help desk.
1 - Ease of use is desired, but not important when considering the scenario
5 - Ease of use is extremely important
4
I will evaluate if it is possible to get the hardware needed, within a year, to
support the scenario. This is for the devices provided by TeliaSonera.
Example: Bandwidth limitations can make a scenario unfeasible.
Example: CPU or memory intensive tasks that cannot be compensated for with
code optimization on the code base.
1 - Hardware capabilities should not affect what scenarios to pursue, something
that on the surface seems to lack hardware support can have a solution if effort
is put into finding it.
5 - Hardware capabilities are very important, value scenarios that are easily
fulfilled when it comes to hardware support.
5
I will evaluate if it is possible to have the software updates needed (within a
year) to support the scenario. This is for the devices provided by TeliaSonera.
Example: The Motorola set top boxes will have DLNA client capabilities very
soon but won’t support being a DLNA server until a software upgrade is done.
Example: The STB could possibly be programmed to support additional media
codecs.
1 - Software capabilities should not affect what scenarios to pursue, if a scenario
is interesting enough, extra resources can be put into accelerating the software
updates (in house and from external software providers such as Motorola).
5 - Software capabilities are very important when choosing scenarios, having
to rely on software updates being delivered faster than previously estimated is
likely to lead to unacceptable delays.
6
I will investigate to what extent the scenario falls within the current business
strategy held by the IPTV operator.
1 - Not important, the strategy can be changed/disregarded
5 - Very important, need to stick to the plan
2
7
Consumer Interest
I will investigate the interest in the scenario from the IPTV customers. Basis
of conclusion will be the questionnaire about interest sent out to the testers.
1 - Not important, the customers don’t know what they want
5 - Very important, the customer knows what he wants and delivering something
else is bad
3
Appendix E - Consumer Interest Survey
7
.: PROOF :.
Page 1 of 3
[TeliaSonera][Sidansvarig][Teknikansvarig][Administrera Proof]
Undersökning IPTV och Digitala
hemmet
Den här enkäten undersöker vilket intresse som finns när det gäller olika användarscenarion
som kopplar ihop Telias IPTV-tjänst med det digitala hemmet (andra mediaenheter i hemmet).
Resultaten kommer användas i ett examensarbete som behandlar området.
Svara på alternativfrågorna genom att välja i vilken utsträckning du är intresserad av nämnd
funktionalitet, där 1 är “ointresserad" och 5 är “mycket intresserad".
= Envalsfråga
= Flervalsfråga
1) Jag är intresserad av att se på film som finns i mitt hemmanätverk vid TVn.
1
3,4%
(3 of
88)
2
2,3%
(2 of
88)
3
6,8%
(6 of
88)
4
19,3%
(17 of
88)
5
68,2%
(60 of
88)
2) Videoformat:
3) Jag är intresserad av att se på musik som finns i mitt hemmanätverk vid TVn.
1
12,5%
(11 of
88)
2
5,7%
(5 of
88)
3
25%
(22 of
88)
4
13,6%
(12 of
88)
5
43,2%
(38 of
88)
4) Musikformat:
5) Jag är intresserad av att se på bilder som finns i mitt hemmanätverk vid TVn.
1
2,3%
(2 of
88)
2
2,3%
(2 of
88)
3
http://proof.teliasonera.net/titta.asp?StatVy=1&ProofTyp=Enkat&ProofID=16315
15,9%
(14 of
2011-02-04
.: PROOF :.
Page 2 of 3
88)
4
14,8%
(13 of
88)
5
64,8%
(57 of
88)
6) Bildformat:
7) Jag är intresserad av att (på min TV) se film som jag lagt på ett USB-minne och kopplat till
Telia Smart RGW.
1
13,6%
(12 of
88)
2
17%
(15 of
88)
3
15,9%
(14 of
88)
4
17%
(15 of
88)
36,4%
(32 of
88)
5
8) Jag är intresserad av att (på min TV) lyssna på musik som jag lagt på ett USB-minne och
kopplat till Telia Smart RGW.
1
18,2%
(16 of
88)
2
21,6%
(19 of
88)
3
19,3%
(17 of
88)
4
18,2%
(16 of
88)
22,7%
(20 of
88)
5
9) Jag är intresserad av att (på min TV) se på bilder som jag lagt på ett USB-minne och kopplat
till Telia Smart RGW.
1
10,2%
(9 of
88)
2
12,5%
(11 of
88)
3
15,9%
(14 of
88)
4
5
21,6%
(19 of
88)
39,8%
(35 of
88)
10) Jag är intresserad av att se mina programinspelningar som ligger i boxen på andra enheter
i hemmet, inte bara TVn.
1
6,8%
(6 of
2011-02-04
.: PROOF :.
Page 3 of 3
88)
2
9,1%
(8 of
88)
3
13,6%
(12 of
88)
18,2%
(16 of
88)
4
52,3%
(46 of
88)
5
11) Dessa enheter är av intresse
En andra STB
(Tvillingabonnemang)
65,9%
Bärbar dator / stationär dator
84,1%
Smart phone (iPhone/Android)
75%
Annat
29,5%
12) Jag är intresserad av att se mina programinspelningar som ligger i boxen på andra enheter
utanför hemmet.
1
8% (7
of 88)
2
11,4%
(10 of
88)
3
21,6%
(19 of
88)
4
19,3%
(17 of
88)
5
39,8%
(35 of
88)
13) Jag är intresserad av att se mina TV-kanaler live på andra enheter i hemmet.
1
5,7%
(5 of
88)
2
6,8%
(6 of
88)
3
12,5%
(11 of
88)
4
22,7%
(20 of
88)
5
52,3%
(46 of
88)
14) Specificera gärna vilka enheter:
Totalt har 88 personer genomfört denna enkät!
kategorisera/selektera statistiken
2011-02-04
Kommentarer gällande: "Enkät exjobb"
och RGW:n (smartboxen) verkar inte riktigt
klara av det. Har varit en hel del strul med att
få igång nätversservern och mediaspelare men
när det väl fungerar är det helt fantastiskt
och jag tror att om man får folk att inse hur
smidigt det är och säljer en enkel lösning för
det så har man möjligheter till att göra nya
affärer.
"Videoformat:"
Xvid, mpeg4 mpeg2, AVI från Fuji digitalkamera, MOV från Canon digitalkamera.
VOD, Blu ray, DVD
divx
Eeeh?
Menar du upplösning, codec, bitrate, container, ström eller filstorlek? 480i,
576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i och 1080p mpeg2,
mpeg-ts, h264, xvid, matroska, avi, vob, iso,
iso9660, udf. I princip de format som stöds
av VLC/ffmpeg Samt alla kommande format
- kompatibilitet är viktigast.
Rent generellt känns det viktigaste att vi
stödjer de vanligast förekommande formaten
som kommer från videokameror och kameror
(dvs. egenproducerat innehåll). I övrigt ett
brett stöd, t.ex. DivX, Xvid, WMV, AVI,
MPEG, MP4, MOV, AVCHD (m2ts, etc.)
Matroska files wmv avi mpg
vet ej
divx, avi, mkv. Plex liknande funktionalitet
Adobe
Flash
10.1,
FLV/On2
VP6
(FLV/FV4/M4V),
H.264
AVC
(TS/AVI/MKV/MOV/M2TS/MP4),
VC-1
(TS/AVI/MKV/WMV),
MPEG1
(DAT/MPG/MPEG),
MPEG-2
(MPG/MPEG/VOB/TS/TP/ISO/IFO),
MPEG-4 (MP4/AVI/MOV), DivX 3/4/5/6
(AVI/MKV), Xvid (AVI/MKV), WMV9
(WMV/ASF/DVR-MS)
önskas.
HD
MKV, AVI, MPEG, Blu-Ray, DVD,
mpeg
Har inte filmer på mitt hemmanätverk idag,
men skulle lägga upp ifall jag hade smidig
koppling mellan TV och hemmanät.
AVI, MP4, WMV
Alla vanliga :-)
olika
1080p mkv
MPEG, Divx
avi, mpeg, ts
avi, divx
Alla relevanta format
.avi, .mv2, .wma
N/A
divx, xvid, mkv
Jag har precis skaffad en Nätversk server
mp4, m4v
hemma och det är väldigt kul att prova
alla möjligheter med det. Tidigare har vi
i familjen exempelvis inte tittat på foton
och heminspelade filmer särskilt ofta men
nu är de bara ett klick på fjärrkontrollen
bort och det är en väldigt rolig förändring
av kvällsvanorna. Bor i ett nybyggt hus
med LAN kablar och kan tänka mig att
om man inte har det så skulle en trådlös
lösning vara intressant. Innan jag köpte
nätverksservern försökten jag använda Smartboxen som nätverksserver genom att koppla
en 2Terra USB hårddisk till USB porten.
Det funkade dock inte alls eftersom RGW:n
kräver att disken är formaterad med det
gamla FAT32 formatet och det går inte att
ha det på en så stor disk. Testade lite att använda en FAT32 men det blev aldrig stabilt
HD
Avi, mkv, AVCHD, xvid
Kan inte svar på format men primärt hand-
lar det om att se på egna filmer filmat med
videokamera, via min-dv, video8 etc. Min
ambition är att inom kort införskaffa en NAS
som jag sedan skall lagra familjens egna material som film, bilder från kamera etc. Osäker
på format.
??
DIVX, m4v, dv, mp4
h.264, avi, divx, xvid, mov, mkv
4
inlagda dvd, men även mpg, avi etc.
Allt möjligt, vill inte ha något krångel. Ska
funka lika bra som när man exempelvis
försöker spela upp musik på telefonen, det
mesta funkar.
dix xvid mest men även de som mobilerna filmar i
HD (MKV, TS), SD (MKV, AVI, TS). I MKV
mp3 wma m4a
mkv, xvid, iso
Streamad musik eller mp3
så är videosignalen oftast mpeg2, mp4, h264,
divx eller xvid.
mp3, aac, flac
mp3
alla divx, xvid, mkv, mp4
mp3 mfl
H264, DIVX, VC1, AVCHD Matroska, AVI,
WMV
MP3, AAC,
MKV, Divx, Xvid, AVI, MOV
Snarare lyssna på musik, då. Format = MPR
och Wav
MPEG2, MPEG4, Xvid, AVI, DivX, H.264,
Matroska (MKV), MOV, WMV9 HD (VC-1),
WMV
mp3, wma
avi, videokamera format
MP3, FLAC, WMA,WAV (CD-format)
ingen aning
mp3, flac
MKV, AVCHD
5.1 Dolby
De enkelt nedladdningsbara
Intresserad av att lagra alla gamla cd-skivor i
Alla vanliga
.mp3, .ogg, .m3u, .aac
mpeg, avi, mkv
mp3
mkv
flac, mp3, ogg vorbis
NAS och gör det antagligen genom att rippa
dem till mp3-format.
"Musikformat:" :
Spotify
mp3, wma
MP3, aac, m4a
mp3
mp3, ogg, aac, flac
Spotify
kör mest spotify men om man gör dlna så bör
mp3
man väl ta med allt
mp3, wmv
Höra på musik, menar ni väl. Jag använder
mp3 för all musik kodat med mp3pro.
vet ej
mp3, flac
MP3,
WAV/PCM/LPCM,
WMA,
AIF/AIFF, AC3/AAC, OGG, FLAC,
DTS, Dolby Digital/Dolby True HD
lyssna på musik OK men att se på musik är
mindre intressant
mp3
MP3, flac, wma
Waw, MP3
mp3
mp3
N/A
Mp3, FLAC
5
MP3, WMF
jpeg, allt från lågupplöst till högupplöst
mp3, waw
jpeg
JPG, BMP
mp3, wma, aac
raw, jpg
mp3
JPEG
Jag antar att ni menar lyssna på musik? Mp3
.jpg
FLAC, MP3 & ev OGG
Jpeg, Gif,
mp3
jpeg
mp3
JPEG och RAW
jpg
"Bildformat:"
JPEG, samt de "rå"-format (okomprimerat)
Jpeg
mina kameror ger, men mestadels JPEG!
jpeg
.png, .jpg, .gif
Jpeg
jpg
jpg
png, jpeg
jpeg klart viktigast, men andra vanligt
jpeg
förekommande format såklart intressant (t.ex.
gif, tiff)
Osäker även här på format, idag är allt lagrat
på Telia Säker Lagring och extern hårddisk.
jpeg
vet inte
Lite osäker på vad ni menar med bildformat,
JPEG, Raw
men jag har bilderna som DNG och JPEG.
Bildstorl 1*1,5.
jpg, tiff, raw
jpg, gif, tga, bmp, raw, tif
jpg oftast
jpg
ja
JPG, BMP, PNG, TIFF
jpg oftast
jpeg, raw
mpeg, jpg, gif, tif
jpeg
JPEG RAW
alla jpg, raw
integration med iPhoto tack :)
JPG, PNG
jpg, png
jpg
JPG, RAW m.fl.
Mpeg
jpg
Vet inte, förs över automatiskt
jpeg
Se ovan. Gäller samma sak som för både
jpg
bilder, TV, och musik. Ska detta sälja vill
man inte ha något krångel, alla vanliga format ska klaras av och jag ska inte behöva veta
vilket format jag egentligen använder. Tjänsten ska funka smidigt även för den som är
nybörjare eller ointresserad av teknik.
JPG, Canons & Samsungs RAW format ;-)
jpg
jpg
6
Live Tv Sharing, "Specificera gärna vilka
enheter:" :
PVR Sharing, "Dessa enheter är av intresse" :
ipad
ipad, bärbar dator
iPad
Dator, iPad
Ipad
Ipad
iPad
Primärt dator och iPad
en andra TV alt min bärbara TV
iPad och Samsung TAB
Min iPad vore bra samt min Macbook Air.
iPad
Min TAB kunde vara smutt om jag får för
mig att byta enhet =)
iPad
På pc:n
iPad
iPhone/Android över WiFi hemma nätet
Alla burkar med skärm - kalla dem vad du
iPad, PC/Mac
vill
iPad, stat. dator
Surfplatta
ipad
Surfplatta
iPad
Playstation 3 / PSP
Dator/Surfplatta
Ipad
Bärbar dator
Spelkonsol
iPad, iPhone, Mac-book
Jag vill enkelt kunna se på TV på en TV.
Ferrari
iPad
Har ingen lust att hålla på att mecka med
att slå på en dator först. Börjar jag med det
har barnen trampat ihjäl datorn innan jag ens
kommit halvägs så jag vill bara kunna trycka
på fjärrkontrollen så funkar allt. Det tror jag
gäller även de flesta andra kunder, inget krångel utan vi bör sälja sådant som är superlätt
att använda. Digitala hemmet tjänsterna ska
inte kräva att man är teknikintresserad alls
eller har en massa tid att lägga på det för då
tror jag inte att det slår till någon bredare
kundkrets.
ipad
Dumt att speca det - det kommer att finnas
En andra TV kopplad till samma box
iPad
IPAD
iPad
nya typer av enheter om x månader. Alla
enheter som klarar av det, sedan kan man
kalla dem PC, surfplatta, Ipod/Ipad, fotoram, "smart phone" eller STB. En burk med
skärm & ip - kalla den vad du vill.
iPAD
surfplatta
iPad
Bärbar och Stationär dator, Smartphone, I
framtiden surfplatta. D.v.s alla enheter som
har stöd för video.
ipad / läs platta
Azbox
bärbar/stationär dator
7
iPad, iPhone samt Macbook + PC
bärbar dator, iPhone, iPad
iPhone
Dator
iphone, ipad
Bärbar/stationär dator smartphone
Datorer, Ipad (via Wifi), Iphone (via Wifi)
iPhone, laptop
Dator
(stationär/bärbar),
(iPhone/Android)
Playstation 3
bärbar pc och phone
SmartPhone
PC, 2a TV
- bärbara/stationära datorer - Smartphones /
har inte inspelningsbar box eller rgw hemma.
iPads - spelkonsol
kör usb rätt i dvdn hemma om jag kollar via
usb.
Iphone, Dator
dator, mobil
stationär/bärbar dator
iPad, Iphone, Android (surfplatta eller
Ipad, bärbar/fast PC
Smartphone) & PC (bärbar eller stationär)
Framför allt via bärbar dator men även
Android mobiler och tabbar, laptop.
via iPhone, Android telefoner som finns hos
övriga familjemedlemmar!
Laptop och alla TV apparater (5 st)
Vill kunna streama det som finns på PVR
till datorn. Datorn skall inte behöva finnas i
nätverket utan bara ha Internetåtkomst. Precis som Canal+ Höstnöje. Gärna stöd för
smartphones också.
Bärbar dator
Bärbar dator, Smart phone
Android telefoner, Bärbar/stationär dator
Dator
Bärbara datorer
IPAD
TV (utan STB), MAC/PC
Bärbar dator
iPhone (och iPod touch) och datorer!
Bärbar dator
Barbar dator, mobil, iPad
Iphone,ipad, bärbar dator och andra dlna enheter som tex ps3
Om Telia-boxen likt Sling-player kunde
streama till Popcorn Hour eller Xtreamer så
vore det bra. Kanske även LG och Samsung
TV som har bra inbyggda mediaspelare. Det
går att ta fram Appar till dessa.
Htc-desire(tidigare testat dvb-h) Bärbar dator, "köks-dator" htpc.
8
Appendix F - Scenario Solutions, Round 1
16
Scenario Solutions
June 16, 2011
Round 1
Thesis writer: Daniel Ignat
Supervisor KTH CSC: Trille Fellstenius
Assigner: TeliaSonera
Supervisor TeliaSonera: Annika Kilegran
Period: 1 Oct 2010 - 1 Jul 2011
Contents
1 Bringing Content Into the Walled Garden
3
1.1
Audio/Video/Images: RGW as a Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
1.2
Audio/Video/Images: STB as a Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3
1.3
Images: Smart Phone DMS + STB DMP . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4
2 Third Party Control
4
2.1
Audio/Video/Images: STB as a Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4
2.2
Audio/Video/Images: STB as a Player
+ Controller App . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4
3 Sharing Content to the Digital Home
5
3.1
Video: PVR Sharing Outside the Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5
3.2
Video: PVR Sharing in the Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5
3.3
Video: Channel Sharing in the Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6
1
3.4
STB Over DLNA Using
Remote User Interface Functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7
3.5
STB Over DLNA, Simple Video Streaming . . . . . . . . . . . .
7
2
1
1.1
Bringing Content Into the Walled Garden
Audio/Video/Images: RGW as a Server
Bob visits his friend Eric who is an IPTV customer. With him he has a USB
stick containing pictures from his vacation in France that he wants to show.
Eric connects the USB stick to the Residential Gateway (RGW) and starts up
the Set Top Box (STB). The STB has automatically discovered the USB stick
and Eric is able to browse the pictures on his 40” LCD-TV.
Technical suggestion
RGW acts as a DLNA Digital Media Server (DMS) and shares the USB Hard
disk drive (USB HDD) to the STB which acts as a DLNA Digital Media Player
(DMP).
Media types
Audio, Video, Images
1.2
Bob opens up Telia Play and locates the service that plays home network media
content on the TV. Today he wants to view his vacation photos so he uses “My
Pictures”. He is able to browse his photos in a thumbnail view, fullscreen view
and also as a slideshow.
STB acts as a DLNA Digital Media Player (DMP) and consumes content on
DLNA Digital Media Servers (DMS) on the home network via the STB menu
system.
Media types
3
1.3
Images: Smart Phone DMS + STB DMP
Erica is having a friend over and wants to show her a few pictures she has taken
with her smart phone. She starts up the free Telia app gotten at the app store
and then grabs her STB remote control. After bringing up “My Pictures” she
locates her phone in the list over available servers and can immediately browse
the pictures on her phone.
STB acts as a DLNA Digital Media Player (DMP) and consumes content on a
DLNA Digital Media Server (DMS) located on a smart phone as a photo sharing
app. The DMS could be an app provided by Telia.
Media types
Images
2
2.1
Third Party Control
Audio/Video/Images: STB as a Renderer
STB acts as a DLNA Digital Media Renderer (DMR) and consumes content on
DLNA Digital Media Servers (DMS) on the home network via a DLNA Digital
Media Controller (DMC). The DMC could be an app provided by Telia for a
PC and/or a smart phone. It could also be a third party application altogether.
Media types
2.2
+ Controller App
STB acts as a DLNA Digital Media Player (DMP) and consumes content on
DLNA Digital Media Servers (DMS) on the home network. A Telia specific
smart phone application sets up the media stream by controlling the STB (not
using DLNA).
4
Media types
3
Sharing Content to the Digital Home
3.1
Video: PVR Sharing Outside the Home
Bob commutes to work every day and is an IPTV customer. He was so tired
when he got home yesterday that he didn’t have the chance to watch the latest
episode of Two and a Half Men. He connects to his home Personal Video
Recorder (PVR) with his smart phone and 4G Internet connection, using an
application provided by the IPTV operator and is able to watch the episode on
the train.
Variations
Tablet support.
Laptop/PC support.
IPhone/Android/Windows Phone 7 application that finds his STB by logging
in to a central server. After a tunnel is setup (tricking the STB that the smart
phone is located on the home network) the smart phone acts as a DLNA Digital
Media Player (DMP) and the STB acts as a DLNA Digital Media Server (DMS).
Link Protection could be required. In the case of pre-copy there could be simple
DMP-DMS communication, or a special application but no central server login
(instead a local login). 3G is probably to weak to provide this service, may be
solved with buffering/adaptive streaming1 .
3.2
Video: PVR Sharing in the Home
Bob has recorded the latest episode of Two and a Half Men and wants to watch
it, but his wife has planned a Wii game night with her girlfriends needs the
1 Adaptive streaming is a technique that adjusts the bandwidth of the content according
to the bandwidth of the connection. Worse connections result in a lower quality picture bu
reduces lag/delays. Used by SVT Play.
5
TV. It is too much work to disconnect the Set Top Box (STB) physically and
connect it to the bedroom TV (which has no STB). Since the STB has PVR
home sharing it is not necessary. Bob starts up the bedroom TV and finds the
recorded episode.
Variations
Tablet support.
Laptop/PC support.
Smart phone support.
Only another STB.
The STB acts as a DMS and makes the recordings available on the home network
as resources.
3.3
Video: Channel Sharing in the Home
Bob is watching the hockey play offs and the game drags on into over time. His
wife who has planned a Wii game night with her girlfriends needs the TV and
Bob wants to finish watching the game. There isn’t enough time to disconnect
the Set Top Box (STB) physically and connect it to the bedroom TV (which has
no STB). Since the STB has channel sharing it is not necessary. Bob starts up
the bedroom TV and continues watching the game.
Variations
Share one channel, any channel.
Multiple channels shared simultaneously.
Only share same channel that is showed on the current TV (no additional
bandwidth required).
The STB acts as a DLNA Digital Media Server (DMS) and the channels are
shared as resources to any Digital Media Player in the home (possibly requiring
Link Protection). In this case no control over the UI presented to the DMP.
6
3.4
STB Over DLNA Using
Remote User Interface Functionality
The entire STB functionality is shared over the home network using DLNA
Remote UI. Would be possible for one STB to serve two DMP RUI Clients, act
completely as two STBs (if resources and Telia allows). Another option would
be for the main TV (connected through HDMI or SCART) to have a picture
saying “In use, press <BUTTON> to release the STB”.
3.5
STB Over DLNA, Simple Video Streaming
Bob is watching the hockey play offs and the game drags on into over time. His
wife who has planned a Wii game night with her girlfriends needs the TV and
Bob wants to finish watching the game. There isn’t enough time to disconnect
the Set Top Box (STB) physically and connect it to the bedroom TV (which
has no STB, but does have DLNA Player). Bob starts up the bedroom TV and
streams the STB picture frame by frame with DLNA. He controls the menu
system on his STB with his smart phone via a remote control app provided by
the IPTV operator.
The STB acts as a DLNA Digital Media Server (DMS) and the video output
signal is shared as a resource to any Digital Media Player in the home (possibly
requiring Link Protection).
7
TRITA-CSC-E 2011:093
ISRN-KTH/CSC/E--11/093-SE
ISSN-1653-5715
www.kth.se

Utilization of DLNA in a IPTV Solution

Transcription

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