A TV gateway (also called network TV tuner) is a television headend to a network UPnP router that receives live digital video broadcast (DVB) MPEG transport streams (channels) from terrestrial aerials, satellite dishes, or cable feeds and converts them into IP streams for distribution over an IP network. TV gateways allow users to stream broadcast live TV content to connected devices on the IP network, including tablets, smartphones, computers, gaming consoles and smart tvs. They also allow multiple users to watch and record different channels at the same time. The device offers multi-platform, multi-screen broadcast television with rich live TV content and high quality HD channels.

Digital TV signals used in TV gateways

Most TV gateways support

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

(FTA) television services found in many countries. These include services such as Freeview and

Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Everyone TV (itself owned by all of the four UK Public broadcasting, public service broadcasters, BBC, ...

in the United Kingdom, TNT in France and TDT in Spain, and basic cable packages in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and others. A few TV gateways also support third party conditional access modules (CAMs) for premium

pay TV Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...

channels, which are transmitted by using a CAM CI card provided by the broadcasters or by third party manufacturers to access their TV service.

Uses

While many first-generation TV gateways support only one channel or a limited number of channels, modern TV gateways provide multiple TV tuners that can process several channels simultaneously. The more channels a TV gateway provides the more users it can service at the same time. Modern TV gateways also allow users to record TV programs to a USB flash drive, or external hard disk and in some cases, shared folders or network attached storage (NAS).

Electronic program guide

electronic program guide Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio, and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information fo ...

(EPG) is like a traditional TV listing magazine but available online or on a TV service like aerial, satellite or cable. It allows viewers to find out what shows will air and search for programs they’d like to watch. EPG's also allow users to set reminders and record shows automatically. Most TV gateways with PVR functionality offer EPG data. This can be free of charge for data processed from the broadcaster TV stream (according to standard DVB EN 300 468 and technical specification TS 101 211) or via a paid service provided by a third party online EPG provider.

Whole house DVR

Whole house HD- digital video recorder allows users to record programs on a centralized TV gateway DVR and then watch them on any device connected to their home network. TV gateways with whole house HD-DVR require storage to record live TV programs or schedule future recordings using the EPG. Whole house DVR TV gateways use a number of storage mediums to store recordings: * Attached USB storage such as removable HDD or USB flash drives * Network Windows shared folder * Network attached storage (NAS)

Streaming protocols

Unicast (HTTP) protocols are mainly used in consumer grade TV gateways to provide a small number of simultaneous users with the flexibility to view multiple channels. Multicast (UDP), is mainly used in professional-grade TV gateways to enable efficient broadcast of a preset number of channels to a large number of simultaneous viewers. Multicast TV gateways are used primarily by

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV), also called TV over broadband, is the service delivery of television over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Usually sold and run by a Telephone company, telecom provider, it consists of broadcast live telev ...

broadcasters, hotels, hospitals, and

digital signage Digital signage is a segment of electronic signage that uses Electronic visual display, digital display technologies to present multimedia content in both public and private environments. Content may include video, images, text, or interactive me ...

applications.

Discovery protocols

Universal plug and play (UPnP) is a set of communication protocols that permits network devices, to seamlessly discover each other's presence on the network and establish functional

network service In computer networking, a network service is an application running at the network layer and above, that provides data storage, manipulation, presentation, communication or other capability which is often implemented using a client–server or pe ...

s for data sharing, communications, and entertainment. M3U - The m3u8 file format is a de facto standard playlist format suitable for carrying lists of media file URL. Advanced TV gateways use M3U in addition to UPnP to offer better application support, allowing for faster channel zapping and provide a preset channel list.

References

{{Reflist Digital media players Media players Set top box Internet of things Information appliances Digital television Interactive television Internet broadcasting Multimedia Peercasting Streaming media systems * * Television technology Television terminology Networking hardware Television time shifting technology