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44-615: In May 2010 the largest deployments DVB-MHP are in Italy ( DVB-T ), Korea ( DVB-S ), Belgium ( DVB-C ) and Poland ( DVB-S ) with trials or small deployments in Germany, Spain, Austria, Colombia , Uruguay and Australia. MHP service was also offered in Finland by Finnish Broadcasting Corporation ( Yleisradio ), but the service was shut down at the end of 2007 after technical failure. The shutdown wasn't ever officially announced. Ultimately

88-414: A cable box , receiver, or simply box , and historically television decoder or a converter , is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV tuner input and displays output to a television set , turning the source signal into content in a form that can then be displayed on the television screen or other display device . It is designed to be placed alongside or "on top" (hence

132-562: A PCMCIA -like card inserted as part of the digital signal path as their alternative to a tuner-equipped set-top box. According to the Los Angeles Times , the cost to a cable provider in the United States for a set-top box is between $ 150 for a basic box to $ 250 for a more sophisticated box. In 2016, the average pay-TV subscriber paid $ 231 per year to lease their set-top box from a cable service provider. In June 2011,

176-617: A personal identification number . Some boxes simply block all channels, while others allow the user to restrict access to chosen channels not suitable for children below certain ages. As complexity and potential programming faults of the set-top box increase, software such as MythTV , Select-TV and Microsoft 's Media Center have developed features comparable to those of set-top boxes, ranging from basic DVR-like functionality to DVD copying, home automation , and housewide music or video playback. Almost all modern set-top boxes feature automatic firmware update processes. The firmware update

220-433: A satellite dish , a coaxial cable (see cable television ), a telephone line (including DSL connections), broadband over power lines (BPL), or even an ordinary VHF or UHF antenna . Content, in this context, could mean any or all of video , audio , Internet web pages , interactive video games , or other possibilities. Satellite and microwave-based services also require specific external receiver hardware, so

264-672: A large number of slower digital streams, each of which digitally modulates a set of closely spaced adjacent sub-carrier frequencies. In the case of DVB-T, there are two choices for the number of carriers known as 2K-mode or 8K-mode. These are actually 1,705 or 6,817 sub-carriers that are approximately 4 kHz or 1 kHz apart. DVB-T offers three different modulation schemes ( QPSK , 16QAM , 64QAM ). DVB-T has been adopted or proposed for digital television broadcasting by many countries ( see map ), using mainly VHF 7 MHz and UHF 8 MHz channels whereas Taiwan, Colombia, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago use 6 MHz channels. Examples include

308-459: A mandated inclusion in new television sets . Some have also been produced to mute the audio (or replace it with noise) when profanity is detected in the captioning, where the offensive word is also blocked. Some also include a V-chip that allows only programs of some television content rating systems . A function that limits children's time watching TV or playing video games may also be built in, though some work on main electricity rather than

352-677: A report from the American National Resources Defense Council brought attention to the energy efficiency of set-top boxes, and the United States Department of Energy announced plans to consider the adoption of energy efficiency standards for set-top boxes. In November 2011, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association announced a new energy efficiency initiative that commits the largest American cable operators to

396-470: Is a COFDM transmission technique which includes the use of a Guard Interval. It allows the receiver to cope with strong multipath situations. Within a geographical area, DVB-T also allows single-frequency network (SFN) operation, where two or more transmitters carrying the same data operate on the same frequency. In such cases the signals from each transmitter in the SFN needs to be accurately time-aligned, which

440-462: Is a wireless technology utilizing the DVB infrastructure. It provides a VHF/UHF Wireless Return Channel back to the broadcaster for Interactive Terrestrial TV. It provides a data-rate of several kbit/s per user, for voting, polls, email, teleshopping, etc. If return channel is present it should provide IP with TLS support. DVB-T DVB-T , short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial ,

484-447: Is also the format widely used worldwide (including North America) for Electronic News Gathering for transmission of video and audio from a mobile newsgathering vehicle to a central receive point. It is also used in the US by Amateur television operators. Rather than carrying one data carrier on a single radio frequency (RF) channel, COFDM works by splitting the digital data stream into

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528-467: Is done by sync information in the stream and timing at each transmitter referenced to GPS . The length of the Guard Interval can be chosen. It is a trade-off between data rate and SFN capability. The longer the guard interval the larger is the potential SFN area without creating intersymbol interference (ISI). It is possible to operate SFNs which do not fulfill the guard interval condition if

572-462: Is fed with the baseband television signal from the set's tuner, and can have the television display the returned processed signal instead. This SCART feature had been used for connection to analogue decoding equipment by pay-TV operators in Europe, and in the past, it was used for connection to teletext equipment before the decoders became built-in. The outgoing signal could be of the same nature as

616-690: Is largely based on MHP. Currently, Belgium's largest cable provider Telenet is rolling out their DVB-MHP system, called DigiBox. Norway's upcoming terrestrial digital TV network NTV will also use the DVB-MHP standard. In late 2008 the Info+ channel in Greece (part of the ERT Digital platform) started broadcasting DVB-MHP info, however since standards have not been set as of February 2009 for digital television in Greece, most TV sets and DVB-T receivers sold in

660-594: Is part of the terminal software, allows the user the access to all MHP applications and other DVB services (like TV and radio). Sometimes Navigator can be also a Java program itself but that is not a requirement. The MHP is just a part of a family of specifications, which all base on the Globally Executable MHP (GEM)-Standard, which was defined to allow the worldwide adoption of MHP. MHP applications come in two flavours. The first type are DVB-HTML applications. These are not very popular, partly because

704-591: Is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in February 1998. This system transmits compressed digital audio , digital video and other data in an MPEG transport stream , using coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (COFDM or OFDM) modulation. It

748-402: Is typically provided by the service provider. With the advent of flat-panel televisions , set-top boxes are now deeper in profile than the tops of most modern TV sets. Because of this, set-top boxes are often placed beneath televisions, and the term set-top box has become something of a misnomer , possibly helping the adoption of the term digibox . Additionally, newer set-top boxes that sit at

792-744: The D-book in the UK, the Italian DGTVi, the ETSI E-Book and the Nordic countries and Ireland NorDig. DVB-T has been further developed into newer standards such as DVB-H (Handheld), which was a commercial failure and is no longer in operation, and DVB-T2 , which was initially finalised in August 2011. DVB-T as a digital transmission delivers data in a series of discrete blocks at the symbol rate. DVB-T

836-799: The UK's Freeview . The DVB-T Standard is published as EN 300 744, Framing structure, channel coding and modulation for digital terrestrial television . This is available from the ETSI website, as is ETSI TS 101 154, Specification for the use of Video and Audio Coding in Broadcasting Applications based on the MPEG-2 Transport Stream , which gives details of the DVB use of source coding methods for MPEG-2 and, more recently, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC as well as audio encoding systems. Many countries that have adopted DVB-T have published standards for their implementation. These include

880-713: The US and Europe, telephone companies use IPTV (often on ADSL or optical fibre networks) as a means to compete with traditional local cable television monopolies. This type of service is distinct from streaming television , which involves third-party content over the public Internet not controlled by the local system operator. Electronic program guides and interactive program guides provide users of television, radio, and other media applications with continuously updated menus displaying broadcast programming or scheduling information for current and upcoming programming. Some guides, such as ITV , also feature backward scrolling to promote their catch-up content. This feature allows

924-519: The air and were therefore not on standard TV receivers. Before cable-ready TV sets became common in the late 1980s, an electronic tuning device called a cable converter box was needed to receive the additional analogue cable TV channels and transpose or convert the selected channel to analogue radio frequency (RF) for viewing on a regular TV set on a single channel, usually VHF channel 3 or 4. The box allowed an analogue non–cable-ready television set to receive analogue encrypted cable channels and

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968-526: The broadcasters didn't want to upset their customers further if they had bought new expensive STBs which weren't capable of playing MHP apps, and 3) there were only a few MHP set-top boxes in the market—because Finland is such a small market, big manufacturers weren't interested in developing new MHP boxes just for Finland. MHP-capable STBs are no longer available in Finland. The U.S. cable industry has specified its own middleware system referred as OCAP , which

1012-557: The cable head-end instead of the final viewing location. However, most cable systems could not accommodate the full 54-to-890 MHz VHF/UHF frequency range and the twelve channels of VHF space were quickly exhausted on most systems. Adding any additional channels therefore needed to be done by inserting the extra signals into cable systems on nonstandard frequencies, typically either below VHF channel 7 (midband) or directly above VHF channel 13 (superband). These frequencies corresponded to non-television services (such as two-way radio) over

1056-419: The case of an MHP receiver) to start and stop an application. The MHP set-top boxes may provide a backchannel for applications that wish to communicate with the outside world, for example a voting or shopping application. Typical upstream backchannels are phone line or broadband Internet connection ( ADSL , or 56k in Italy, using a modem included in the set-top box). DVB-RCT (Return Channel Terrestrial)

1100-543: The cost of launching new services, increases speed to market, and limits disruption for consumers. As examples, Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) set-top boxes allow traditional TV broadcasts, whether from terrestrial (DTT), satellite, or cable providers, to be brought together with video delivered over the Internet and personal multimedia content. Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB) launched its first hybrid DTT/IPTV set-top box in 2005, which provided Telefónica with

1144-520: The country do not feature DVB-MHP. The MHP specifies an extensive application execution environment for digital interactive TV, independent of the underlying, vendor-specific, hardware and software. This execution environment is based on the use of a Java virtual machine and the definition of generic APIs that provide access to the interactive digital TV terminal 's typical resources and facilities. The interoperable MHP applications are running on top of these APIs. A so-called Navigator-application, which

1188-478: The digital TV platform for its Movistar TV service by the end of that year. In 2009, ADB provided Europe's first three-way hybrid digital TV platform to Polish digital satellite operator n , which enables subscribers to view integrated content whether delivered via satellite, terrestrial, or internet. UK-based Inview Technology has over 8   million STBs deployed in the UK for Teletext and an original push VOD service for Top Up TV. In IPTV networks,

1232-416: The edge of IP-based distribution networks are often called net-top boxes or NTBs, to differentiate between IP and RF inputs. The Roku LT is around the size of a pack of cards and delivers Smart TV to conventional sets. The distinction between external tuner or demodulator boxes (traditionally considered to be "set-top boxes") and storage devices (such as VCR, DVD, or disc-based PVR units) is also blurred by

1276-592: The incoming signal, or RGB component video , or even an " insert " over the original signal, due to the "fast switching" feature of SCART. In case of analogue pay-TV, this approach avoided the need for a second remote control . The use of digital television signals in more modern pay-TV schemes requires that decoding take place before the digital-to-analogue conversion step, rendering the video outputs of an analogue SCART connector no longer suitable for interconnection to decryption hardware. Standards such as DVB 's Common Interface and ATSC 's CableCARD therefore use

1320-463: The increasing deployment of satellite and cable tuner boxes with a hard disk , network or USB interfaces built-in. Devices with the capabilities of computer terminals , such as the WebTV thin client , also fall into the grey area that could invite the term "NTB". In Europe, a set-top box does not necessarily contain a tuner of its own. A box connected to a television (or VCR) SCART connector

1364-595: The most popular flavour is DVB-J ( DVB-Java ) applications. These are written in Java using the MHP API set and consist of a set of class files that are broadcast with a service. DVB-Java applications are known as " Xlets ". These are a concept similar to applets for Web pages that has been introduced by Sun in the JavaTV specification. Like applets, the xlet interface allows an external source (the application manager in

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1408-511: The name) of a television set. Set-top boxes are used in cable television , satellite television , terrestrial television and Internet Protocol television systems, as well as other uses such as digital media players ("streaming boxes"). Alternatives to set-top boxes are the smaller dongles , or television sets with built-in TV tuners that hence won't require a separate device such as a set-top box. The signal source might be an Ethernet cable,

1452-836: The professional broadcast audio/video industry. They are designed for more robust field handling and rack mounting environments. IRDs are capable of outputting uncompressed serial digital interface signals, unlike consumer STBs which usually do not, mostly because of copyright reasons. Hybrid set-top boxes, such as those used for Smart TV programming, enable viewers to access multiple TV delivery methods (including terrestrial, cable, internet, and satellite); like IPTV boxes, they include video on demand , time-shifting TV, Internet applications, videotelephony , surveillance, gaming, shopping, TV-centric electronic program guides , and e-government. By integrating varying delivery streams, hybrids (sometimes known as "TV-centric" ) enable pay-TV operators more flexible application deployment, which decreases

1496-519: The reason for the shutdown was that MHP never gained "critical mass". The main reasons for its lack of success in Finland were: 1) 50% of the Finnish households use the terrestrial network, where broadcasting of MHP applications can be really expensive, 2) TV broadcasters never told TV viewers about the MHP services—because the digitalization of the TV networks got extremely negative publicity in Finnish media,

1540-539: The receiver to shift a portion of the UHF-TV spectrum onto low-VHF channels for viewing. As some 1960s-era 12-channel TV sets remained in use for many years, and Canada and Mexico were slower than the US to require UHF tuners to be factory-installed in new TVs, a market for these converters continued to exist for much of the 1970s. Cable television represented a possible alternative to deployment of UHF converters as broadcasts could be frequency-shifted to VHF channels at

1584-566: The self-interference is properly planned and monitored. With reference to the figure, a short description of the signal processing blocks follows. The receiving STB adopts techniques which are dual to those ones used in the transmission. DVB-T/T2 is switched off in Switzerland and the Flemish part of Belgium. The EU plans to switch off DVB-T/T2 in its member states by 2030. Set-top box A set-top box ( STB ), also known as

1628-576: The set-top box is a small computer providing two-way communications on an IP network and decoding the video streaming media . IP set-top boxes have a built-in home network interface that can be Ethernet , Wireless (802.11   g,n,ac), or one of the existing wire home networking technologies such as HomePNA or the ITU-T G.hn standard, which provides a way to create a high-speed (up to 1 Gbit/s) local area network using existing home wiring ( power lines , phone lines, and coaxial cables ). In

1672-427: The specification for DVB-HTML was only completed with MHP 1.1 , and partly because many broadcasters, box manufacturers and content developers find it too complex and difficult to implement. DVB-HTML applications are a set of HTML pages that are broadcast as part of a service. The spec is based around a modularized version of XHTML 1.1, and also includes CSS 2.0, DOM 2.0, and ECMAScript . The second, and by far

1716-556: The use of set-top boxes of various formats has never completely disappeared. Set-top boxes can also enhance source signal quality. Before the All-Channel Receiver Act of 1962 required US television receivers to be able to tune the entire VHF and UHF range (which in North America was NTSC-M channels 2 through 83 on 54 to 890   MHz ), a set-top box known as a UHF converter would be installed at

1760-692: The user is out. The user still needs to program the VCR or DVD recorder. Some models have controls on the box, as well as on the remote control . This is useful should the user lose the remote or if the batteries age. Some remote controls can also control some basic functions of various brands of TVs. This allows the user to use just one remote to turn the TV on and off, adjust volume, or switch between digital and analogue TV channels or between terrestrial and internet channels. The parental lock or content filters allow users over 18 years old to block access to channels that are not appropriate for children, using

1804-432: The user to choose preferred channels, making them easier and quicker to access; this is handy with the wide range of digital channels on offer. The concept of favourite channels is superficially similar to that of the " bookmark " function offered in many web browsers. The timer allows the user to program and enable the box to switch between channels at certain times: this is handy to record from more than one channel while

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1848-555: The video signal. The transition to digital terrestrial television after the turn of the millennium left many existing television receivers unable to tune and display the new signal directly. In the United States, where the analogue shutdown was completed in 2009 for full-service broadcasters, a federal subsidy was offered for coupon-eligible converter boxes with deliberately limited capability which would restore signals lost to digital transition. Professional set-top boxes are referred to as IRDs or integrated receiver/decoders in

1892-460: Was a prototype topology for later date digital encryption devices. Newer televisions were then converted to be analogue cypher cable-ready, with the standard converter built-in for selling premium television (aka pay-per-view ). Several years later and slowly marketed, the advent of digital cable continued and increased the need for various forms of these devices. Block conversion of the entire affected frequency band onto UHF , while less common,

1936-720: Was used by some models to provide full VCR compatibility and the ability to drive multiple TV sets, albeit with a somewhat nonstandard channel numbering scheme. Newer television receivers greatly reduced the need for external set-top boxes, although cable converter boxes continue to be used to descramble premium cable channels according to carrier-controlled access restrictions, and to receive digital cable channels, along with using interactive services like video on demand , pay per view, and home shopping through television. Set-top boxes were also made to enable closed captioning on older sets in North America, before this became

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