A modern end-to-end TV service

RT-RK digital TV powerhouse

A modern end-to-end TV service

RT-RK digital TV powerhouse

A modern end-to-end TV service

RT-RK digital TV powerhouse

A modern end-to-end TV service

RT-RK digital TV powerhouse
Category of: Video and multimedia
Tagged with: • •

Although being a mature and established industry, Digital TV in a broader sense (including streaming) is undergoing dramatic changes as a result of a digital transformation push by the big tech companies (Google, Netflix, Amazon, etc). It is unexpected and unnatural for a giant to move fast, which is why many issues remain open in this transformation of DTV. Most importantly, some of the key aspects of scalability are neglected: storage and encoding costs, optimal use cases of the transport channel, and standardization of the solutions.

Figure 1. Standardized Digital TV signal transmission

Figure 2. Modernized Digital TV signal transmission

This increases the complexity of the entire system for distribution of television content (more precisely, video content), and causes a series of new engineering challenges that need to be addressed:

  • Provide transparent support to all existing transport specifications: HLS, DASH, SmoothStreaming, IPTV (with standard technologies DVB-T, ATSC, ISDB)
  • Provide support for various protection systems: CAS, DRM (Widevine, FairPlay, PlayReady)
  • Support all packet formats: MPEG-TS, MPEG-fMP4, Framgented TS, ISS
  • Provide equivalent performance and stability on all transport channels
  • Ensure efficient use of all transport channels (to avoid network congestion)
  • Interoperability of all sources of video retention

In response to this extraordinary growth in complexity, the industry has responded by developing standardized operating systems focused on TV devices (Android TV, Fire TV, RDK, Apple TV, TizenOS, LG WebOS). These systems define a clear set of technical requirements for the device, a set of integration steps, and complex groups of tests for compatibility. In order to maintain competence, all active participants (TV manufacturer, Telco, Video service providers) in the video industry must ensure an efficient engineering development and support for such a complex ecosystem. Keeping up with all these technologies, partners and ecosystems, has become a huge challenge for many. In such a complicated ecosystem, companies like RT-RK, with technically strong and broad engineering capabilities, represent an ideal partner to ensure efficient and successful end-to-end TV service.

Required for a proper setup of the project:

  • Definition of the adequate software architecture
  • Selection of the right software components
  • Selection of the right partners
  • Evaluation of the timeline

To the tasks of an efficient execution:

  • Implementation of new solutions
  • Adaptation of the existing solutions
  • Offer of ready-made solutions
  • Wide range of certifications

To support after the deployment:

  • Continuous testing
  • Improvement of the existing solutions in terms of robustness and performance
  • Re-certifications
  • Harmonization of the product life cycle with technological evolutions (following OS upgrade, adding support for new technologies)

Figure 3. Full complexity of end-to-end TV service

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