ESG data generator and interactive browser for mobile TV

Abstract

Recently there has been major advancements in mobile digital video broadcasting that is transmission of television channels to be viewed on mobile TV. In this area, the DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-HandheldI is the latest and currently the most advanced standard. Developed by DVB and endorsed by ETSI(European Telecommunications Standards Institute). The DVB-H standard for mobile television is based on the existing DVB-T terrestrial digital video broadcasting standard. As the standard was developed, different companies started developing their own implementations with proprietary enhancements. On one hand this was good news for mobile television users as the companies introduced some extra features that were lacking in the basic DVB-H standard. But on the other hand it was not good a news for the service providers and the users as the terminals were not fully compatible. The main difference between the different versions of the DVB-H is in the way of transmitting and receiving the ESG (Electronic Service Guide) in the form of data stream. The efficient receiving of ESG and the audio-visual content in the current heterogeneous broadcast environment is the topic of this research. The thesis investigated the different versions of the ESG in the DVB-H standards for mobile television data transmission and analyzed the differences between them. The thesis also included the generation and streaming of the ESG data files through a currently available software system and receiving it with an extended interactive generic browser which is meant to be used with the DVB-H system but it can also use other wireless networks like WLAN to implement interactivity.