IPTV on set-top box

What is IPTV?

From a TV watcher's point of view, IPTV is very simple: instead of receiving TV programs as broadcast signals that enter your home from a rooftop antenna, satellite dish, or fiber-optic cable, you get them streamed (downloaded and played almost simultaneously) through your Internet connection. Not the kind of connection you have today, which can probably handle only 1–10 Mbps (million bits per second—roughly the amount of information in an average novel entering your computer every second!), but a broadband line with about 10 times higher bandwidth (information carrying capacity) of maybe 10–100Mbps. You watch the program either on your computer or with a set-top box (a kind of adapter that fits between your Internet connection and your existing television receiver, decoding incoming signals so your TV can display Internet programs). From the viewpoint of a broadcaster or telephone company, IPTV is somewhat more complex. 
You need a sophisticated storage system for all the videos you want to make available and a web-style interface that allows people to select the programs they want. Once a viewer has selected a program, you need to be able to encode the video file in a suitable format for streaming, encrypt it (encoding it so only people who've paid can decode and receive it), embed advertisements (especially if the program is free), and stream it across the Internet to anything from one person to (potentially) thousands or millions of people at a time. 
Furthermore, you have to figure out how to do this to provide a consistently high-quality picture (especially if you're delivering advertising with your programming—because that's what your paying advertisers will certainly expect).

What is Set-top box ?

A set-top box is a device that enables a television set to become a user interface to the Internet and also enables a television set to receive and decode digital television (DTV) broadcasts. DTV set-top boxes are sometimes called receivers. A set-top box is necessary to television viewers who wish to use their current analog television sets to receive digital broadcasts. It is estimated that 35 million homes will use digital set-top boxes by the end of 2006, the estimated year ending the transition to DTV.

Set top box and IPTV subscription

An IPTV service, typically distributed by a service provider, delivers live TV programs or on-demand video content. An IPTV system may be used to provide video content over a private network in an enterprise, although such implementations are far less common than subscriber-based models due to complexity and scaling issues.

How does IPTV work?

IPTV content is often delivered over a managed or dedicated network. Compared to the public internet, a private network gives network operators more control over the video traffic and, by extension, the ability to ensure quality of service (QoS), uptime and reliability.

In traditional television delivery, all programming is broadcast simultaneously. The available program signals flow downstream, and the viewer selects a program by changing the channel.

An IPTV service, by contrast, sends only one program at a time. Content remains on the service provider's network, and only the program the customer selects is sent to the residence. When a viewer changes the channel, a new stream is transmitted from the provider's server directly to the viewer. Like cable TV, IPTV requires a set-top box other

IPTV providers

IPTV providers include a wide range of companies from large network operators like Verizon with its FiOS services and massive companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft, to vendors that include Sony, and a wide variety of smaller or niche companies sometimes specializing in certain types of content delivered over a broadband IP connection.

 Read how install IPTV ?