Controlling digital TV set-top box with mobile devices via an IP network

Digital TV is rolling on with full force recently. Within its capability of transmitting data along with the audiovisual contents, TV program providers can serve their viewers interactively, by offering the customized applications, which run at their viewers' set-top boxes. However, the traditional remote controller, with limited signal transmission distance and designed functionality, restricts the usage scope of applications on DTV within a specific space. In order to defeat this limitation, we devise a novel solution which allows mobile appliances in an IP network, e.g., mobile phones and laptops, to control set-top boxes. Through our special designed system collaborating with a media center responsible for complex multimedia tasks, (such as transcoding and broadcasting digital content), viewers can remotely command their own set-top boxes to record the DTV programs and to watch pre-recorded ones, respectively, by using numerous mobile appliances with the ability to access an IP network. Finally, the experiments proved that our implemented system is very efficient and effectively to control set-top boxes to execute multiple commands in the heterogenous environment combining the DTV network with the IP network