Inter-Application Communications Between IPTV Clients

Abstract: The master thesis: Inter-application communication in IPTV client was conducted at the Business Multimedia Unit in Ericsson. In the IPTV client side, there is a need to control another IPTV client remotely with a low latency. This functionality can be used in playing game and remote operation in IPTV. The current solution is that clients communicate through the portal (Ericsson’s Web based IPTV system) in remote location with high latency. The focus of this thesis work is designing, building and evaluating a communication mechanism among IPTV clients in a LAN. The major contribution of this thesis is analysis and design of a solution. The comparison between an implemented solution in this project and other possible solutions is also included in this thesis. The purpose of the solution is to improve the configuration and performance of Ericsson IPTV clients. In the thesis, a prototype of inter-application communication between IPTV clients was designed. The prototype includes a proxy server (Based on Node.js), UPnP applications (Based on open source UPnP stacks), communication components in portal system and an Android client. The prototype has achieved the goals of setting up fast and convenient communication in Ericsson IPTV client side, without using the IPTV server. UPnP applications allow two devices in a LAN find each other with no need to configure IP and port. A local proxy server, a couple of communication components in portal and an Android application are used to set up communication in a LAN. Also different solutions have been analyzed and designed in the project. And some related technologies have been investigated and introduced. Measurement and test shows that the communication between IPTV clients in a LAN is fast enough to replace the way of communication through the server. Security analysis shows some possible drawbacks, like the security vulnerability and compatibility. The security can be improved by some future work, part of which is proposed and designed in the thesis. Analysis also shows the advantages and disadvantages of on different service discovery technologies.