Web 2.0 for IPTV

Abstract: This master’s thesis project concerns implementing and evaluating Web 2.0 services for IPTV. This thesis project was carried out at Accedo Broadband during the period August to December 2008. Accedo Broadband is a provider of interactive applications and on-demand content for IPTV. The report will analyze, specify, create, and evaluate a solution for adding Web 2.0 functionality from the most popular sites as IPTV content. We will evaluate several different web services APIs and examine how suitable they are for implementation in the context of IPTV. An IPTV set-top box has limited CPU processing power, memory capacity, screen resolution is generally limited to 720 by 576 pixels, and only a limited set of input devices and interfaces are available. The IPTV set-top box receives digitally encoded audio and video content through IP and renders this content so it is viewable on an analogue TV and the audio is output via speakers. The goal of this project is to reduce the amount of integration work and configuration necessary for creating Web 2.0 IPTV applications by creating a general framework for Web 2.0 applications. We will present and evaluate the most common web programming technologies and see which are most suitable for our purposes. We have developed four different interactive demonstration services to illustrate the usage of an IPTV platform.