Dr. Nikos Desypris
ndessipris@yahoo.com
nikolaos.desypris@bronet.gr
Feb. 2010
Postgraduate course
University of Athens
Course Outline
 Course brief description
 Television System Design (block level)
 IPTV Services and Technologies
 Public Policy Treatment and Techno-
economic aspects in Digital Television
communication markets
 Group assignments
Course brief description
 Presents commercial Television Systems
 Covers standards and issues at a basic level
 Basic concepts of digital processing desirable, but not
necessary
 Covers digital terrestrial, cable and satellite TV, together with
IPTV, including IPTV services and technologies. The topics
of digital signage systems will be also briefly presented.
 Addresses issues of public policy treatment and techno-
economic aspects in Digital Television communication markets
 Course evaluation mainly through ‘group assignments’
Convergence
 From analogue TV and data transmission as distinct
parallel paths, to complete disappearance of
distinction between data and television!
 For historical and practical reasons, in this course
IPTV is kept as a separate chapter/sector
Television Systems Design
 Video Standards: signals, formats
 The capturing system
 Digital Video Encoding (MPEG series)
 Digital video transmission and reception
(excluding IPTV)
Video Standards: signals, formats
 Committees on Broadcast Television
(at international / regional / national levels)
 Standards related to broadcast television video only
The capturing system
 The studio TV signal: SDTV, HTDV other video
formats (with relevant data rates)
 Recommendation CCIR 601-270 Mbit/s for existing
SDTV signals
The capturing system
Digital Video Encoding (MPEG)
Data reduction for image and audio compression of the digital
video signal: Redundancy reduction and irrelevance reduction
(loss of information - role of the human observer)
 MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-3, MPEG-4, MPEG-7, MPEG-21
 Audio signals to MPEG and Dolby Digital
 Teletext transmission, subtitles, VBS –video program system for
VCR control, EPG – Electronic Program Guide - applications
and the role of MHP – Multimedia Home Platform
 A comparison of digital video (encoding) standards (MPEG-1,
MPEG-2, VCD, DVD, M-JPEG and miniDV/DV
 Picture Quality Analysis of Digital TV signals
 Recent video compression methods (MPEG-4 AVC Advanced
Video Coding, DVB-T2)

DV Transmission and Reception

General (modulator / transmitter / demodulator /
receiver)

Digital Television Signals by Satellite (DVB-S)

Broadband Cable Transmission of Digital TV signals
(DVB-C)

The Terrestrial Transmission of Digital TV signals
(DVB-T)

Digital Video Broadcast for Handhelds (DVB-H)

Other Digital Terrestrial Television Systems
IPTV Services and Technologies
 Introduction
 IPTV network distribution technologies
 Real Time encoding and transportation
 Broadcasting TV programs over IPTV
 IPTV consumer devices – IPTVCD and IPTVCD s/w architecture
 IPTV Conditional access - Digital Rights Management (DRM)





systems
IPTV at home – Home Media Platform
VoD over IP
IP based HDTV (high definition TV)
Interactive IPTV applications
IPTV network administration
IPTV Services and Technologies (cont.)
 Introduction
Difference between Internet TV and IPTV
 IPTV network distribution technologies
 ‘Last Mile’ Broadband Distribution Network Types
 IPTV over: Fiber Access Network/ ADSL Network/ Next
Generation Cable TV Networks/ Wireless Networks/ the
Internet (streamed video, downloads, p2p
 IPTV Backbone Technologies (ATM and SONET/SDH; IP and
MPLS; Metro Ethernet)
 Network factors associated with deploying IPTV

IPTV Services and Technologies (cont.)
 Real Time encoding and transportation
Introduction to Real-Time Encoding
 Compression Methods (MPEG, VC1)
 Packetizing and Encapsulating Video Content (7+1 conceptual
layers)
 Broadcasting TV programs over IPTV
 Video Components of an End-to-End IPTV System
 Streaming IPTV Content
 Multicasting across an IPTV Network
 Channel Changing
 Discovering Channel Program Information
 Time-Shifting Multicast IPTV

IPTV Services and Technologies (cont.)
 IPTV consumer devices – IPTVCD and IPTVCD s/w
architecture
 IPTV Conditional access - Digital Rights Management (DRM)
systems
 IPTV at home – Home Media Platform
 VoD over IP
 IP based HDTV (high definition TV)
 Interactive IPTV applications
 IPTV network administration
Regulation & Techno-economic aspects
 The actors
 Universal Service Obligation
 Technology Neutrality
 Compatible set-top boxes specs -multimedia home
platform
 Analogue switch-off date
 Cable and IPTV vs Free-to-Air (FTA) TV
 Role of Digital Television Satellite Operators
 Development of Digital television Terrestrial (DTT)
Business models, key success factors, lessons learned, legal
context, EU role
Group assignments
 Digital Television in Europe: Current status in
European countries
 Regulatory frame on Digital Television in Greece
 Regulation issues on IPTV
 Digital Television Business models
 Digital Signage model as a case of Internet TV