MASTER THESIS HAVi COMPONENTS IN DIGITAL TELEVISION

Digital television broadcast started in Finland on 27 th of August 2001. A new period in this entertainment field has already begun. Because of the importance of television in the society, the shift between analogue and digital has to be done with the viewers in mind. The User Interface of any application provides the user the means to communicate with the system. Since it is what the viewer can see and interact with, it is a critical issue to provide a television friendly Graphical User Interface for digital television applications. A Graphical User Interface framework provides a set " ready made " screen widgets. It facilitates the work of the developers, since they do not have to deal with the underlying system. In addition, these widgets could be implemented specifically for the purpose at hand (e.g., for digital television in this case). The aim of the thesis is the implementation of a GUI framework, based on HAVi specification, for digital television. HAVi was followed because it is included in DVB-MHP, the digital television standard in use in the European countries. This thesis is divided into two main parts. The first one studies the main aspects of digital television. The second part explains the implementation of the GUI framework, including a case study done in a digital television environment already developed. Pablo Cesar: HAVi components in digital television iii The theoretical background focused on the development of digital television applications. First, the set-top box is studied, since it is the device needed at home. Then, the new services digital television provides are explained. Followed by the definition of a home network. After, the different standards and organisations involved in digital television are determined. Finally, how applications are implemented following DVB-MHP is studied. The practical part explains the implementation of the GUI framework. The case study shows some benefits of this approach over using a general-purpose framework or developing application specific widgets. The use of a digital television oriented framework minimised the storage memory needed. Developing applications becomes more efficient, since the widgets are already done. Moreover, the visual presentation and the behaviour of the widgets are TV-friendly. Finally, it is important to highlight another conclusion. The number of non-PC devices used for interactive applications is increasing. These devices have different needs. For this reason, a key idea is to determine a unified GUI framework and provide different implementations for each device …