Internet TV System Illustrated - pág.27

Ending streaming
sessions can be important for saving streaming transmission fees for the
Internet TV broadcaster.

Internet TV Set Top Boxes (I-STB)

An Internet set top box (I-STB) is an electronic device that decodes the
Internet communications medium to and plays the content in a format that
is viewable by a television or other video display devise. The output of an ISTB can be a television RF channel (such as channel 3), analog video and
audio, or media signals. I-STBs are commonly called digital media adapters.

Some of the providers of retail I-STBs include Roku, Apple and Western
Digital. There are many manufacturers of generic or OEM branded Internet
set top boxes.

The I-STB must include certain protocols and configuration settings that
enable it to work with the broadcaster?s system. These are usually determined by the application platform utilized by the I-STB.

The input to an Internet set top box is a data connection which can be a
wired Ethernet, wireless local area network (WLAN), or other type of broadband access connection.

The media decoder portion of an I-STB decompresses video and audio media.
The media decoder section may be hardware or software based. I-STBs commonly contain multiple types of media decoding capabilities. Because
license fees for technology and software are usually paid for additional capabilities, I-STBs that have multiple types of media decoding capabilities tend
to be more expensive.

The I-STB may include a storage area for programs (hard disk and/or flash
memory) which can allow the device to play media even when an Internet
connection is not available.

The output of an I-STB may be in multiple formats including composite