The Brazilian digital television system access device architecture

Eduardo Rodrigues de Carvalho, Gil Garcia de Barros, Laisa Caroline de Paula Costa, Regis Rossi Alves Faria, Rogério Pernas Nunes, Roseli de Deus Lopes, Marcelo Knörich Zuffo
2007 Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society  
In early 2003, the Brazilian government accelerated the decision process on analog to digital transition of terrestrial TV broadcast infrastructure, naming this initiative The Brazilian Digital Television System (SBTVD). This paper describes the access device architecture we have proposed for the SBTVD, as well as related issues. We focused on several requirements among which: flexibility to support the social economical diversity enabling market implementations that can vary on cost,
more » ... and applications; digital inclusion targeting a minimal cost architecture providing a simple access device to information and services by convergent broadcast and point-to-point telecommunication means; and scalability targets incorporating state-of-the-art technology, considering emerging services and the current legacy analog TV infrastructure available in Brazil. We cover the following specific topics: an architecture overview considering scalability, interoperability and regional and international requirements, operating system and middleware interfaces, audio and video coding formats and associate standards, technical and economical analysis, usability and user interface consistency. Finally two prototypes for the outlined access device architecture are reported. Keywords: interactive Digital TV (iDTV), The Brazilian Digital Television System (SBTVD), Access Device Architecture, digital broadcasting, digital television (DTV), high definition TV (HDTV), Digital Television Services, audio and video coding. Over the past two decades there were intense research, development and standardization activities worldwide related to the analog-to-digital transition of the terrestrial broadcast TV infrastructure [1]. These efforts resulted on established standards [9] such as the
doi:10.1007/bf03192404 fatcat:zwoh6ipz35hynjli6wfpu7hue4