Detailed Course Modules

Television Architecture

Colour Television; NTSC, PAL, SECAM; Digital Video Broadcasting; Formats:4:2:2, 4:2:0, CIF, QSIF; The Signals; Analog Television; Teletext, captions and sub-titles; Digitally-Compressed Television; Digital Modulation :MPEG Hierarchy, MPEG1, MPEG2; Digital Video Broadcasting; Cable Networking Protocols; Over-the-air broadcasting

Television Distribution Technology

Digital vs Analogue; Head-ends; Signal Reception; Head-end Signal Processing; Head-end Operation; Delivery Mechanisms; Broadband Distribution Systems; Coaxial RF Technology; Coaxial Distribution Design

Transmission for Digital TV Systems

Wavelength-Division Multiplexing; Linear Microwave Signal Transportation; Digital distribution Systems; Linear Fiber-Optic Signal Transportation; Fiber Optic Transmission; Passive Optical Fiber (PON); Wavelength Division Multiplexing: CWDM and DWDM; End-to-End Performance; Upstream Issues; Digital Fiber Modulation and Fiber Architectures: SONET/SDH; Optical Carrier Ethernet

TV Distribution Systems

Terrestrial UHF/VHF Broadcast Delivery; Satellite Television Delivery; Cable Television Delivery; IPTV Deliver; From head-end to viewer; Back-Channel; Set-Top Box Issues; Next Generation Media Players; IPTV Service Features; Encoder Classification: MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264; ETSI Digital Video Broadcast Standards; DVB-C, DVB-S/S2, DVB-T, DVB-H, DVB-IPI

MPEG Encoding

Source Encoding; MPEG Compression Concepts; Prediction and Interpolation; Reordering; Motion: Prediction, estimation and compensation; I, P and B Pictures; MPEG Levels and Profiles; Audio Compression; Framing Formats; Multiplexing of Signals; Pacetised Element Stream(PES); Decode Time Stamp (DTS); Presentation Time Stamp (PTS); System Clock Reference (SCR); Quantization of Program and Transport Streams

MPEG Transport Streams and Packets

Transport stream format; MPEG Packets and headers; Service Information (SI), Program Specific Information (PSI); Data Broadcasting DSM-CC; MHP Signalling; Program Allocation Table (PAT); Program Map Table (PMT); Conditional Access Table (CAT); NIT, SDT & EITs; Effect on STB Behaviour; Channel Coding and Forward Error Recovery; Energy Dispersal; Reed-Solomon Coding; Convolutional Coding; Interleaving; Trellis Decoding; Temporal Spreading

MPEG-4 and H.264 Standards

Related standards: JPEG and JPEG2000; Video Objects (VO); Video Object Plane (VOP); I-VOP, P-VOP, B-VOP; Short Header Mode; Motion Vectors;Video Packet Structure; Interlacing; Motion Compensation of VOP; Static Sprite Coding; Advanced Coding Efficiency (ACE); Advanced Audio Coding (AAC); Dolby Digital (AC3); Audio Codec 3, Advanced Codec 3, Acoustic Coder 3; ATSC A/52; Texture Coding; Studio Quality Encoding

MPEG4 Part 10 and H.264

Syntax of Encoding; H.264 Modes: I, P, B, SP and SI; Slices and Macro Blocks; Macro Prediction; Intra Prediction; Luma, Chroma and Signalling prediction; Deblocking Filter; Transform Quantization; Reordering; Entropy Coding; Main Profile; B Slices and Reference Pictures; Weighted Prediction; Context-based Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding (CABAC); Extended Profiles; H.264 Transport; Transmission and Storage of NAC units; MPEG-2/MPEG-4/H.264 Comparisons

Conditional Access

Conditional Access Mechanisms; CA Standards;DVB-CSA; Simulcrypt & Interoperability; Common Interface; Encryption; Entitlement Management Messages (EMM); Entitlement Control Messages (ECM); Encoding ECM and EMM into the transport stream; Subscriber Management Systems (SMS); Smartcards and how do they work; Pay-Per-View (PPV) & Impulse-Pay-Par-View (IPPV)

Encryption Mechanisms

Symmetric and Asymmetric Key Systems; Public Key Infrastructures; RSA Encryption; Key Distribution; Security Issues; Authentication; MD5 and SHA

IPTV Network Architecture

Applications and their service needs; TV Program Distribution; Satellite vs Cable delivery; Components of IPTV Service Network; Video Head End; Streamers; Encoders; Routers and Switches; Distribution Networks; Core Networks; Access Networks: Wired vs Wireless; DSL Technology: ADSL, VDSL; Fiber and Copper Loops; Set-top Boxes; Service Types and Issues; Channel Zapping; Media Player Applications; Video-on-demand; Near Video On Demand; Integration with Telephones and Internet Access: Triple Play

IPTV Delivery Protocols

DVB-IPI; UDP/IP; RTP; RTCP; Quality of Service; Layer 2 and Layer 3 QoS compared; The Quality of Service Alphabet Soup:802.1P/Q, RSVP, WFQ, DiffServ, DSCP, MPLS; Pro-MPEG Error Recovery

Multicasting

Deploying Multicasting for network delivery of video; Multicast routing approaches; Multicast extensions to Routing protocols; Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM); Selecting Mode of operation: Dense or Sparse; IGMP; Protocol exchanges to build tree; Protocol exchanges to prune tree; Potential failures and fixes

Set-Top Boxes

STB architecture; Main chipset vendors; Inside a digital STB; STB middleware; Functions of middleware; Middlewares:MHEG5, goals, features, certification and limitations; MHP, goals, features, certification and limitations; OpenTV, goals, features, certification and limitations; MediaHighway, goals, features, certification and limitations; NDS Core , goals, features, certification and limitations; STB software stack

Customer Interface Issues: Set-top Boxes

Analog Video Reception; Digital Video Reception; Migration issues from Analogue to Digital; Consumer Electronics Interface; Equipment Compatibility; Networking Interfaces; Decoding Mechanisms; Personal Video Recording Interfaces; In-Home Networking; Protected and Conditional Access Key interfaces; Protected Broadcast Driver Architecture; Digital Rights Management; Watermarking

Who the players are in this industry

Chip-set Manufacturers; STB Manufacturers; Middleware; Applications Vendors; Carriers; Broadcasters

Industry Trends

Transmission innovations; HDTV and Improved Quality; Connected Home; Convergence Protocols