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 PRESENTATION

TECENOLOGY USED IN SET-TOP BOX

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CONTENT:

Introduction
STB HARDWARE COMPONENTS

Antenna

Power supply

Front panel

Front end

Digital decoder

CPU

Digital storage

CA module

Return path

Other peripherals
FLOW OF DATA
Memory
Conclusion
Reference

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INTRODUCTION
With the advent of digital television set-top box (STB) has become a buzzword. Transmission
of television signal has gone digital most TV are still analogue. Therefore an STB is required
to convert the digital signal to analogues signal so as to enable a viewer to watch digital
content on the TV set. However an STB is not merely a digital to analogous signal convert it
also provides a host of other services to enhance the TV viewing experience-provision of
electronic programmed guide to keep track of the content is one such example.

STB HARDWARE COMPONENTS

The STB mainly consists of following components,

Antenna
The antenna is not essentially the part of a set-top box, as it is fitted outside an STB. It
contain low-noise block (LNB) that receive the satellite with a frequency of approximately
12Ghz and perform a down conversion to a frequency range to 950 to 1450 MHZ.
subsequently the signal is passed on to the front end inside the set-top box.

Power supply
Power supply provides the requirement voltage to run various peripherals inside an STB. In
some cases, it can be used to power mechanized antenna to alien them in various direction in
order to receive different signals.

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Front panel
It is a small microcontroller based hardware peripheral inside an STB that receives the user
input and interacts directly with the main CPU control (processor). It contains an IR receiver
to listen to remote control input. Also it directly linked to some input buttons or keys present
on the outer frame an STB.

Front end
It is also known as network interface module (NIM). Front end is a peripheral device that
interfaces with the antenna to receive the down converted signal and send it to digital decoder
in the form of transport stream. Basically the front end consists of two major components
turned and demodulator. The turner listens to single received from the antenna and passed it
on to the signal received from the antenna and passes it on to the demodulator for generating
the transport streams. Different types of NIMs are satellite QPSK, cables QAM, terrestrial
COFDM, 8-VSB and Telco ADSL.

Digital decoder
A digital decoder receiver the transport streams sent by the demodulator inside the front end
and then demultiplexes and decompresses the requested video by the user. It then converts
the digital stream to an analogue signal which is sent to RF port. The task of the
demultiplexer or a demux is to separate the entire data stream packaged together by Head
End in the specified format. The data contain audio video and DVB (digital video
Broadcasting) specified data like SI/PSI tables. After the demuxing, decompression is done
by a specified format like MPEG-2 or MPEG-4. The specific Data or information is given to
CPU for processing for advanced features and memory storage and to be used in graphics.

CPU (processor)
Just as in a regular PC the processor inside the CPU takes care of interaction of all the
hardware peripherals and software modules inside a set-top box. It manages the real time
operation system (RTOS). The processor also takes care of memory devices and other forms
of digital storage like hard disk or flash drivers.

Digital storage
Digital storage is another optional compound inside a set-top box. It need for persistent
storage of any kind of data including audio/video. It communicates with the processor and it
controlled by STB software module and storage drivers. In facts it is a hard disk which acts as
a digital storage media inside an STB.

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CA modules
The conditional access (CA) modules can be considered as the most important component of
a set-top box. This module is virtually the lifeline of all the leading set-top box solution
provides. This peripheral called integrated condition access modules (ICAM) is placed before
the demultiplexer to be used for descrambling the encrypted signal and also provide a smart
card interface for various security features.

Return path
This is an optional component. Return paths are used by an STB to communication back
with the head end and send data packed. The return path can be present in various forms like
a PSTN line connection a cable modern in case of case STBs or an Ethernet jack in IP set-top
box using ADSL brad band modern. For example a return path become a necessary
compound is a user needs to purchase PPV events directly from the set-top box using credit
card.

Other peripheral
There are other optional peripherals present inside an STB like RS-232 port USB port, wifi
enablers, and Bluetooth devices. These peripheral are used inside an STB for enhanced
interactivity with the consumer and provide better user experience. Basically there
components or peripheral can be used for creation advance features like file sharing and
plugging in external devices.

FLOW OF DATA
As you must have understood the roles of various hardware modules inside an STB let moves
on to the next level where we will go through the flow of data between this hardware while
we turn an STB to a particular channel.

The tuner receives modulating digital transmission from the antenna and passes it on to the
demodulator. This demodulator takes in to account the type of demodulator and forward error
correction to give out a transport streams which is a digital stream of bytes known as data
packers. According to DVB standards a transport streams is of the size of 188 bytes. It then
goes into the demux where the content is separated in audio/video packetized elementary
stream.

(PES) and data packed known as section as per DVB standard. PES is mechanism to carry
audio/video elementary steams in packer’s format inside an MPEG-2 transport stream.
Section is the data packers containing information regarding audio/video content and other

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media data. Once the demux does its job audio/video is sent to MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoder
which gives the output to the RF port to display the video on television.

The packets are sending to the processor user by the STB software to enable viewing. This
data can be persistent or kept in RAM as per the needs and performance. Any kind of user
request is it turning or a purchase goes through the CPU. In between the most important
functionality of descrambling is performed by a descramble embedded inside the ICAM part
of the chipset. In some several of STBs a descramble can be a part of a decoder or it can exist
independently. The descramble takes care of decryption the encrypted transport stream using
the control world technique. Generally these descramble and control word algorithm are
closely guarded secrets with CA solution provide to prevent hacks from decrypting the signal.
These are developed in conjunction with chipset vendors in much secured environment.

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MEMORY
Moving on further let discuss some of the memory types used inside an STB. It contains
various memory types for different roles.

DRAM (dynamic random access memory) is used to store all the software needs and volatile
working area like static variables.

Video DRAM is used in an STB for storing the decoder video image that is being output to
television or video recorder.

NVRAM (non volatile random access memory) is needed for persistent memory needs of the
STB. Generally STB configuration is written into NVRAM to keep the setting persistent
during power cycle and provide consistent user experience. There are two types of NVRAM
used inside a set-top box namely electrically erasable programmable read only memory
(EEPROM) and FLASH, EEEPROM is phasing out slowly as it is very expensive to perform
frequent read and write whereas FLASH uses batch mode for read and write and enhances the
life of NVRAM. Also FLASH can be used for storing parts of code segment for software
performance reasons.

ROM/OTP (read only memory/ one time programmable) as the name suggests this is the
memory written on to once in a lifetime of set-top box. It contains some crucial software
pieces like boot loader and other security related code. The book loaders enable the STB to
check the integrity of the software and let it work only if it contains authentic software. This
is only of the key memory areas which protect the STB from hackers to write illegal software
into the box.

As mention earlier the most important part in an STB design in ICAM or CA module which
is responsible for viewer access to the content available on air. It maintains all the transition
and perform validation to check the entitlement. ICAM module consist of entitlement control
message (ECM) and entitlement management message (EMM) acquisition and management
descramble and smart card interface.

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CONCLUSION
The set-top hardware architecture is very similar to architecture of any recorder and
replay devices. But its unique lies in its security model and the enhance interactivity with
viewers enabling them to perform various action during live video and also pay only for the
content they watch.

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REFERENCE

www.wekipedia.com

www.efymagzine.com

www.ehow.com

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