IPTV

Continuous evolution of telecommunications networks benefits end users as they get to enjoy more advanced and sophisticated services. IP protocol television (IPTV) definitely takes standard television to the next stage: on top of live TV IPTV adds convenience through time-shifted programming and interactivity through VoD (Video on demand). IPTV (ITU-T FG IPTV) focus group of International Telecommunication Union defines IPTV as "multimedia services such as television/video/audio/text/graphics/data delivered over IP based networks managed to provide the required level of quality of service and experience, security, interactivity and reliability."

MERA’s involvement in IPTV domain dates back to 2005 when MERA developed a feature-rich end-to-end IPTV prototype (streaming live and on-demand video, advertisements, parental control, interactive program guide, interactive voting, content and subscriber management services) based on Windows technologies (Microsoft .NET, Microsoft Connected Services Framework (CSF 3.0), Microsoft Media Services, Microsoft IIS, Web Services Enhancements (WSE 3.0), ASP.NET, Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions, XML/XSLT, MS SQL Server 2005, Windows Media Center).

Since 2007 MERA has been actively involved into embedded software R&D (development, maintenance, testing and support) and Professional (integration of IPTV STB client software with middleware of various IPTV backend manufacturers) services for standard definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) IPTV set-top-boxes (STB).

MERA has accomplished the following projects for IPTV STBs:

• Integration of IPTV STB client software with middleware of various IPTV backend manufacturers,
• Interactive audio/video/graphics Web-based client,
• Complete DLNA/UPnP enabler R&D for IPTV STB from scratch,
• DLNA media player/controller with QT4-based graphic user interface,
• DLNA plug-in over generic Netscape Plug-in API (NPAPI) for different browsers,
• RTSP proxy,
• JVM integration to STB’s I/O system using DirectFB with graphics acceleration support,
• Audio/video telephony application architecture development,
• Wining STB testing support at IPTV operator’s competition,
• Test automation suite for fully automated STB testing.