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Internet on
television
How convergence works The initiative in this direction is being taken by telecom industry and cable operators who have started providing interactive contents like video on demand through cable TV. The concrete effort is being made in the form of setting up of infrastructure consisting of hybrid of fibre and coaxial (HFC) cables. This two-way infrastructure not only enables cable operators to transmit video, data and voice HFC but also lets viewer to send response from home to the server side. This adds interactivity to the functionality. In this process TV is not just a dumb terminal. Rather watching it becomes a highly interactive experience. This is so because with the two-way communication viewer gets the ability to influence the outcome of the programme. The infrastructure of fibre and coaxial hybrid is known as backbone. The backbone network is capable of being connected to the telephone networks, other capable of being connected to the telephone networks, other cable networks and also the Internet. Foreign versions Transmission over the network is guided by standards established for this purpose. The protocol called Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is used for the flow of the traffic within the regional network. Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is used when traffic flows from one network to another. Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) is innovation of Europe to ensure compatibility of equipment involved in this mission. Japan has its own version called Integrated Service Digital Broadcast (ISDB) whereas cable operators in North America use Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications (DOCSIS) for this purpose. Server side On the server side, a Web server is installed. It enables TV viewers to access Web pages. The next move is of installing application servers to provide online games on TV, commerce servers to provide facilities like online banking via TV and personalisation servers to store viewers choice and preferences. Client side Voice, video and data signal demodulation and display on the viewer’s TV requires intelligent device better known as set top box. A set-top box is placed at the top of the subscribers TV. The present day TV sets are based on analog technology and thereby are unable to understand digital signals. Set-top box converts digital signal to analog and thus integrates the digital world of the Internet analog TV. Set-top box Not only the Internet over TV but a variety of services like video teleconferencing, Internet telephony, video on demand can also be availed by using advanced set-top box. In fact, they are needed for each of 1 billion TV sets in use across the globe. As the result of this convergence, TV users shall have two options that are either to use set-top box with existing analog TV or to buy new digital TV capable of receiving digital signals of Internet and other related services. Television set-top box is
more than just a hardware component. It is equipped with necessary
software as well. It receives signals usually from cable. It has tuners
and decoders in it that process streams of digital information. A
set-top box is capable of receiving input from TV viewer either through
keyboard or remote control. Advanced set top boxes have CPU and
sufficient memory to run Web browser. Other applications Set-top boxes are already
being used in education system of developed countries wherein students
take classes by way of their television. The students can also transfer
their homework to the class teacher. This proves quite beneficial to
students living far away from education centre. |
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THE
wind of convergence is blowing. Today, the latest convergence happening
in the area of the Internet is its combination with TV. With the
integration of TV and the buying and other similar services are to
become available to TV viewer in home.