Recent IPTV Advances
We are coming to a success. With some help and lots of work we are hammering problem after problem. We have stable playback on our set-top-boxes. Some modules are still rough around the edges, but the whole system is shaping up. Anyway, we can present Telco/ISP oriented, prototype IPTV system, capable of Multicast and Unicast video distribution. What is more important, flexible enough to adapt to the needs of any Internet Service Providers or Telecoms.
Our IPTV design currently consists of several layers and a number of modules:
- Video Data Acquisition
- Media Library
- User Management
- Load-balanced Content Distribution
- Theme-able User Interface
- HD-enabled Customer Premises Equipment
Basic prototypes of all of the above are present and working. Our work is focused on what I can describe as “commercialisation” of the particular products. We are fixing bugs, adding relevant features. Making devices and appliances user-friendly and intuitive is a main goal. We understand that the packaging sells. We want our customers happy.
But it is not all bells and whistles. We are fighting every day with the lack of standardisation in IPTV. Many protocols exist. Many hardware and software vendors. And all of them usually interpret every protocol in different way. Which is worse, many IPTV related protocols make room for disambiguations. It is usually, up to the implementor to decide how te deal with this. And most implementors do so they favour particular device or manufacturer. Which breaks compatibility, which requires dirty workarounds in the code.
Well, the RFCs give you freedom. They actually let you create unique product. When we speak of IPTV, they even let you break compatibility with proprietary extensions. But please, do know what you are dealing with, and please, do it right. One of my recent findings was that a big IPTV company “extends” particular IPTV related protocol with encapsulation of XML data in the payload. And I can find some logic in this. XML is, de facto, the standard for data representation these days. XML is well understood. XML is wide-spread. Many libraries exist to work with XML content.
What I don’t understand is how you can ship a product that works with malformed XML. And further more, why would this product refuse to work with correct XML ?!
Please, make all our lives easier. Obey the standards !