An Aggregate Functional Software Architecture on Android for End-2-End Real-Time Interactive Content Management to Cater IPTV Services on Digital Handheld Devices

Abstract

Digital Video Content is now pervasive and services like IPTV are gaining traction on hand held devices too. Android, a software platform from Google, pioneering middleware and applications for handheld devices does not offer support for content management services by design. Motivated by these observations, we propose an aggregate model software platform to offer content management and value added services (VAS) like IPTV on android. The outline of paper is as follows: First, we discuss few related works to investigate and analyze industry-wide content management and delivery practices. Second, we discuss few characteristics of android architecture and detail the constraints associated with middleware to offer such VAS. Consequently, we describe the proposed software platform which addresses key inherent challenges like Efficiency, Extendibility and Security while achieving efficient content delivery. The Module Interconnection Architecture can be visualized to be constituted by three basic building blocks, namely: VAS Content Management framework, IPTV framework and Application Services framework. The architecture employs a different perspective of classifying content based on applications. We point out the need and rationale behind such a classification to correlate in an end-2-end IPTV architecture. We show the benefits of using the Application Services framework to ensure smooth and swift portability onto various flavors of android. Finally, we conclude by detailing some use-cases indicating content management services like Electronic Service Guide (ESG) on Android.