TABLE OF CONTENTS IPTV means television that is delivered over an IP network, primarily to home viewers. Any discussion of a video transport technology would not be complete without an analysis of the impact of that technology on video delivery to the home. In the case of video over IP, this discussion is particularly important because of the emergence of new technologies and market forces that are making IP technology more and more appealing for delivering video to consumer homes. Indeed, for new deployments, IP is becoming the technology of choice for more and more service providers.
In this chapter, we will start out by looking at three examples in which IP technology is used to deliver video to the home. We'll look at the reasons for using this technology. Then, we will examine some of the key technologies that support IPTV. We'll conclude with an example of a real deployment of IPTV technology.
Many readers of this book are aware of the rich variety of technologies that can be used for video delivery into the home. Several different technologies have already proven themselves to be reliable and economical means to deliver content, including terrestrial broadcast, cable television (CATV), and satellite direct-to-home (DTH) broadcast. These systems were originally built for the sole purpose of delivering content to the home. With IP networks, the situation is different, because most of these networks were originally built to deliver data to the home or business. With this in mind, let's look at three different...
