Abstract

Streaming entertainment service throughout the home is being pitched as the big win for networking equipment designers. Clearly, to make this delivery come to life, designers need to build gateways that support digital TV, DVD video, MP-3 audio, and more.

Debates over the look and feel of the residential gateway have raged on for the past several years. While debates continue, set-top box developers are quickly putting together a set of specs that will 'multimediaize' their existing TV box designs.

Right now, two specs are vying to be the baseline protocol for multimedia-enabled set-top boxes. The first, adopted by ISO and commonly known as the multimedia and hypermedia information coding expert group (MHEG), is derived in part from DAVIC specifications. The second, adopted by ETSI and known as the digital video broadcast multimedia home platform (DVB-MHP), is based on contributions from the DVB consortium and the HAVi team. Let's see how these specs compare and contrast starting with a look at the MHEG-5 architecture.