Technologies for DVB Services on the Internet

In 2004 DVB approved the first edition of the DVB IP Handbook, intended to support the first commercial deployments of Internet TV services. The specifications in the handbook standardize technologies at the receiver interface, to enable TV, radio, and general interactive multimedia services over IP-based networks. This paper gives an overview of the specifications, beginning with the reference architecture currently used by DVB. The key technologies specified are service discovery and selection, a DVB Real-Time Streaming Protocol client, MPEG-2 transport over IP, IP address allocation and network time services, receiver identification, and a network provisioning option.