Design of the L4 Microkernel Based Broadcasting Middleware for IPTV STB

The technologies for the digital broadcasting over a network are an emerging technology that provides a more function-rich, user interaction form of TV to the customer. This represents a change from low interactivity to moderate interactivity and high interactivity. The important thing is a IPTV set-top box (STB) which is a embedded system providing two-way communications using Internet Protocol over a network, and decoding the video streaming media. Recently, due to the rapid development on the hardware and software, it is available for not only video services but also data services such as web, email or network game that is similar with a PC. However, these applications are often too heavy and complex. These are also subject to spamming, spoofing, content theft, and other hacking attacks, like many other IP-based solutions. The result of these can cause serious distress to the STB. In addition, because most of STB has its own RTOS, reusability and migration of various applications are restricted. With our increasing IPTV services, their reliability and security become more and more of an issue. Therefore, in this paper, we will propose a design of L4 microkernel based broadcasting middleware which supports the IPTV application platform and Linux-like common environment.