OpenTV Projects

OpenTV Applications

Electronic Program Guide for China

A 9 man month project to specify and produce surfer and setup menu apps for a digital satellite settop box with support for english and chinese. Key issues were:

Data driven architecture, to simplify changes to specifications
Support for multiple languages, including automatic display scaling to match chosen language
Architecture and implementation optimised for speed and size
Flexible gadget set, used a special gadget customisation method

Asteroids for OpenTV STBs

Investigating OpenTV SDK API for the implementation of Arcade Games. Some key components of this project where:

Optimal use of OpenTV gagets and shapes for fast arcade games
Use of audio samples, including interrupted sounds
User input using a standard remote vs games paddle/controller
Use of an games engine (OpenTV extension) for movement and collision detection of game sprites

2D Scrolling platform games for OpenTV STBs

Investigating OpenTV SDK APIs for the implementation of pixel perfect scrolling arcade games. In fact we produced a Pacman varient with large panning maps. During the course of this project we investigated the following:

Synchonisation of MPEG and OSD planes from OpenTV applications
Double buffering on the MPEG and OSD planes (EN2 and 1.2)
Tile based design using MPEG slices
PC based host development tools for Map creation

OpenTV Application Bootloader

Introduced the idea to dynamically use STB storage to reduce broadcast bandwidth requirements for OpenTV application whilst maintaining a low application startup latency. The generic methodoligy required no change to the STB and very little to the application. The idea is that new applications can be broadcast using minimal bandwidth (less cost) whilst determining if they are financially viable. Once demand is great enough the application can be moved to a fully broadcast model freeing up space in the STB storage for newer applications.

OpenTV STB Projects

Develop OSD and Kernel API drivers for the DCT2000

As the title suggests, developed driver shims for OpenTVs EN2 OSD and Kernel API onto the GI/Motorola firmware APIs.

Complete OpenTV EN2 STB for a Major Customer

Two man month project to complete EN2 OpenTV reference ports for a customer's production STBs. It included simple menus and surfer applications for service scanning and browsing freeTV from Astra and Eutelsat. Support for cable and satellite front-ends.

A fast port of OpenTV EN2 ontop of an OpenTV 1.2 driver set

A 1 man month project to produce an EN2 reference platform. We took an existing 1.2 reference tree and added stand alone EN2 shim layers (more or less). In fact it was a little more complicated than this but we did get a reference platform in no time at all. Plus the bonus of the much requested EN2 OSD driver shim.

OpenTV 1.2 reference platform

As part of the development work for BSKYBs launch I was contracted by BSKYB to debug, fix and optimise their manufacturers settop box driver software. This included finalising the implementation of the kernel API and vastly optimising/rewriting the OSD drivers.

OpenTV Manufacturers Porting Kit

As system integration manager I developed the MPK, this was a collection of software and debug information designed to help manufacturers through the most common problems with OpenTV STB development. It included:

OpenTV Surfer Application
OpenTV Control Task and Initialisation (sources)
Sample test streams and reference platform debug log
Some sample drivers (sources)

Italtel reference platform

Moved the ST reference drivers to run on an Italtel manufactured STB. This then became the standard OpenTV reference and demonstration platform. Produced drivers to support IR keyboards and varying peripherals.

ST TP1&TP2 reference platform

Created a full set of OpenTV drivers to run on the ST microelectonic TP1 and TP2 reference boards. This was the first STM port of OpenTV.