OpenMAX AL - Digital Television (DTV) Extension

The OpenMAX AL Digital Television (DTV) Extension enhances the multimedia functionality provided by OpenMAX AL by adding digital TV functionality specifically tailored for the diverse needs and requirements of mobile and embedded devices.  The DTV Extension has been designed by leading industry experts in audio, video and mobile TV to provide a broad range of digital TV-related media functionality, including:

  • Technology-neutral access to Broadcast, Unicast and Multicast delivery methods for Digital TV
  • Compatibility with all major mobile TV standards (e.g. DVB-H, ISDB-T, T-DMB, etc.)
  • Modularized software design: separate objects to represent each part of a complete Digital TV implementation.
    • Digital TV Source – Communicates with the reception hardware and streaming servers.  This object can handle broadcasts, multicasts and unicasts.
    • Service Object – data source for the player.  Uses the Digital TV Source to retrieve data.
    • Electronic Program Guide Manager – Handles queries on the program guide, and provides service information to the application.

The Electronic Program Guide Manager is the only optional object, but it is highly recommended to implement all three objects to get a full, feature-rich Digital TV implementation.

In addition to these three new objects, a number of extension interfaces have been added to the OpenMAX AL player and recorder objects.

OpenMAX AL DTV at a glance

The OpenMAX DTV specification and header files are available in the Khronos Registry

The Digital TV Extension requires conforming to the Media Player profile of the OpenMAX AL specification. If Digital TV recording capabilities are to be implemented, then the Media Player/Recorder profile is mandated on the corresponding OpenMAX AL implementation.

The figure below gives the overview of the objects in the DTV Extension and how they interact with existing OpenMAX AL constructs.

Figure 1: Overview of objects in the DTV Extension

The OpenMAX AL DTV Extension (provisional) specification is immediately available for download and may be used royalty-free by implementers and developers.  The DTV Extension specification has been released in provisional form to allow developers and potential adopters to get an early look at it and provide feedback.  A discussion forum has been set up to facilitate developer feedback.