SDV sequence of operations

In this article Switched Digital Video (SDV) sequence of operation is described in details. This sequence can be used as a guideline to program SDV client-server operations. The SDV sequence of operation is classified into two main area: Set-Top-Box (STB) Auto-Discovery Process and Subscriber surfs to a switched channel. All these activities should not take more than 150ms.

For overview of the SDV architecture, see my article SDV Architecture.

STB Auto-Discovery Process
Prior to STB Auto-Discovery, STB is signed onto the SDV network

1. SDV server (a server that manages STB interactions) streams configuration information out-of-band using data PID
2. STB is powered on.
3. STB looks for data PID and gets configuration information including list of SDV frequencies.
   
4. STB scans SDV frequencies and finds TSIDs that it happens to see.
5. STB responds to SDV server with TSID list.
6. SDV Server identifies STB’s Service Group
7. SDV server reports Service Group back to STB [ACK].

Subscriber Surfs to a Switched Channel

1. Source content streams (and is encrypted) through the GigE switches as multicast SPTSs (Single Program Transport Steam)
2. Subscriber selects a switched channel
3. Client sends channel change message indicating desired channel and its TSID group. Note: If the channel is already in the mini carousel the SDV client [STB] can tune to it prior to receiving a message back from the SDV server
   
4. SDV server determines source details for the requested channel
5. SDV server requests QAM resources for the selected channel from ERM (Edge Resource Manager that manages edge QAM device) based on TSID group
6. ERM directs Edge Device to join a multicast stream and bind it to a frequency [QAM], assigning a program number determined by the ERM
7. Edge Device joins the multicast stream and sends it out the specified QAM using the selected program number
8. SDV server returns frequency and program number to the STB IP
9. STB tunes to frequency and program. Subscriber is now watching the selected program.
10. SDV server updates channel list on out-of-band mini carousel and ‘locks’ the selected channel after a MSO defined time interval
11. Every five minutes the SDV monitoring server gets raw customer behavior data from the SDV server and QAM usage from the ERM for processing into user friendly reports
    

About me
bruce atlasi is a professional computer engineer, skilled in telecomm and datacomm technologies and architecture. He has diverse working experience with many telecomm start-ups and fortune 100 companies, including Cisco Systems, IBM, and Siemens. He regularly blogs on About Hi-Tech site.