Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

MediaSync pp 547–564Cite as

Video Delivery and Challenges: TV, Broadcast and Over The Top

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

The TV production and broadcasting industry predates the ubiquitous computing and IP technologies of today. However, just as these advances have revolutionised other industries, they are also causing production and broadcasting to change. Here, we outline the opportunities that general computing and IP delivery offer this industry, and discuss how the precise synchronisation required by TV services could be implemented using these more generic technologies, and how this in turn could lead to newer ways of delivering TV-like services. We first discuss how today’s TV industry has been shaped by its analogue roots, and that the terminology and working practices still in some ways reflect the analogue world. We briefly cover TV history from the 1950s and the evolution of Public-Sector Broadcasting in the UK, before considering how newer services such as digital TV, satellite and video streaming have enabled services, but also throw up new issues around delay and synchronisation. We propose that some of these issues could be mitigated by moving to an IP delivery model, with media elements composed at the client device, and not globally time-locked to precise, system-wide clocks. Finally, we discuss some of the IP delivery technologies such as multicast, adaptive streaming and the newer protocols that are replacing traditional HTTP.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The Vertical Blanking Interval is a concept from the time when displays used a raster scan. It is the time allowed in the video signal for the scan to jump from the bottom back to the top of the screen. Screens of course no longer work this way.

  2. 2.

    STBs (Set-Top Boxes), although of course modern TV design makes it impossible to place them on top!

  3. 3.

    HTTP/2 strongly recommends encrypting the payload, which might displease network operators wishing to perform packet inspection or traffic shaping. However, HTTP/1 traffic is increasingly being carried over encrypted TLS links in any case, so this point may be moot.

References

  1. SMPTE.: Transport of high bit rate media signals over IP networks. ST 2022–6:2012 (2012). https://doi.org/10.5594/SMPTE.ST2022-6.2012

  2. E.g. Raboy, M.: Public broadcasting for the 21st century, p. 610. Indiana University Press (1995). ISBN 1-86020-006-0

    Google Scholar 

  3. Kooij, W., Stokking, H., van Brandenburg, R., de Boer, P-T.: Playout delay of TV signals: measurement system design, validation and results, ACM TVX 2014, Newcastle, UK (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Boronat, F., Mekuria, R., Montagud, M., Cesar, P.: Distributed media synchronization for shared video watching: issues, challenges, and examples. In: Ramzan, N., van Zwol, R., Lee, J.-S., Clver, K., Hua, X.-S. (eds) Social Media Retrieval, Springer Computer Communications and Networks Series, pp. 393–431. Springer, London, UK (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Holbrook, H.: Using internet group management protocol version 3 (IGMPv3) and multicast listener discovery protocol version 2 (MLDv2) for source-specific multicast (2006). https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4604

  6. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_queue_management as a starting point

  7. Schulzrinne, H., et al.: RTP: a transport protocol for real-time applications. Internet Standard (2003). https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC3550

  8. ISO/IEC.: Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information: systems. International Standard 5th Edition ISO/IEC 13818 1 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Sarginson, P.: MPEG-2: overview of the systems layer. BBC R&D Report (1996). http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/rdreport_1996_02

  10. Nielsen, J.: Usability engineering (Interactive Technologies), chapter 5 (1994). ISBN-13: 978-0125184069

    Google Scholar 

  11. ITU-T.: One-way transmission time. Transmission systems and media, digital systems and networks, Series G (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  12. IEEE standard for a precision clock synchronization protocol for networked measurement and control systems (2008). https://doi.org/10.1109/IEEESTD.2008.45797.60

  13. Belshe, M.: Hypertext transfer protocol version 2 (HTTP/2) RFC 7540 (2015). ISSN: 2070-1721

    Google Scholar 

  14. W3Techs—World Wide Web technology surveys. https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/ce-http2/all/all data Copyright (C) 2009–2017 Q-Success DI Gelbmann GmbH. Accessed May 2017

  15. Bishop, M.: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) over QUIC. IETF draft (2017)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. British Telecommunications PLC, London, UK

    Tim Stevens & Stephen Appleby

Authors
  1. Tim Stevens
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Stephen Appleby
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tim Stevens .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Comunicaciones, Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) – Campus de Gandia, Valencia, Grao de Gandia, Spain

    Mario Montagud

  2. Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Pablo Cesar

  3. Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Fernando Boronat

  4. Departamento de Comunicaciones, Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) – Campus de Gandia, Valencia, Grao de Gandia, Spain

    Jack Jansen

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Stevens, T., Appleby, S. (2018). Video Delivery and Challenges: TV, Broadcast and Over The Top. In: Montagud, M., Cesar, P., Boronat, F., Jansen, J. (eds) MediaSync. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65840-7_19

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65840-7_19

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-65839-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-65840-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation