SET TOP BOX

-EMBEDDED SYSTEM
BY
ABIRAMI E
312215401001
ME(Applied electronics)
 INTRODUCTION OF SET TOP BOX

 A digital Set Top Box is a consumer electronics device that

convert an incoming digital signal to Audio/Video formats
interpreted by current televisions and audio devices.
 A Set Top Box is typically connected between a television and
a content provider such as
 Direct Broadcast Satellite operator,
 Cable operator or Terrestrial operator.
 INTRODUCTION OF SET
TOP BOX
 The device provides digital audio and video sources after
decoding the incoming digital signals.
 It then separates audio and video data streams for presenting
them to respective displays.
 The function of Set Top Box is to provide more TV channels
on the same limited number of frequencies.
 BASIC FEATURES AND
FUNCTIONS OF STB
 Basic Features and Functions of STB are to

 Receive,
 Demodulate,
 Demultiplexer and

 Decode the incoming Digital signal and convert it into analog

format.
 BASIC FEATURES AND
FUNCTIONS OF STB
 Input digital stream to STB may be from
 Satellite,
 Cable or Terrestrial medium.
 It can also descramble the received signal and thus provide
the conditional access to the STB.
 Conditional Access is key feature for Pay TV system. Input
digital Signal contains
 audio,
 video
 A High speed and low speed data contents, which is
reproduced by the Set Top Box.
 BASIC FEATURES AND
FUNCTIONS OF STB
 In future the STB will have features like Internet on cable,
interactive TV, VOD (Video On Demand), music on demand

etc.
 BASIC OPERATION OF STB
 STB Set Top Box can be operated using either front panel
switches or using Remote control.
 The various functions which can be operated, using front panel
control or remote control are
 tuning of particular channel,
 feeding frequency,
 symbol rate and
 other useful data,
 generating test patterns,
 DIGITAL SEQUENCE control.
 BASIC OPERATION OF STB
 User can feed type of
 Modulation,
 error rate-FEC ( forward error correction), and
 convolution rate and
 choice of decryption .
 All the functions available in the Set Top Box are displayed on
the TV screen using On Screen Display (OSD).
 It is Graphical User Interface (GUI) for ease of operation.
 Remote control and front panel switches are the main input
console for Set Top Box.
 BASIC OPERATION OF STB
 Input to the Set Top Box is RF signal and its range and type of
Modulation depends upon its application.

 If Set Top Box is used for Satellite application then Input

frequency range is 950 to 2150 MHz and Modulation
technique used is QPSK.

 For Set Top Box for cable application the input frequency
range is 110 to 862 MHz and type of Modulation is QAM.

 While frequency range for Set Top Box for terrestrial is 47 to

860 MHz and type of Modulation use for it is COFDM.
BLOCK DIAGRAM OF STB
HDMI
 HDMI
• HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is
a audio/video interface for transferring uncompressed video
 data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from
an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a 
display controller, to a compatible computer monitor, 
video projector, digital television, or digital audio device.
• HDMI is a digital replacement for analog video standards.
SPDIF CVBS
 S/PDIF

• S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format) is a type of

digital audio interconnect used in consumer audio equipment
to output audio over reasonably short distances.
• The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable with RCA
connectors or a fibre optic cable with TOSLINK connectors
 CVBS
• CVBS stands for Composite Video Blanking Sync.
• At this level, the color, luminance and synchronization
information are combined in one signal.
• The audio signal is transferred separately.
• Y/C offers better signal quality than CVBS.
 STB Decoder

  STB Decoder is heart of the whole system.

 In current generation STBs most of the features required by

STB system are integrated in STB decoder chips.
 This level of integration is called System On Chip (SoC).
 STB SoCs contain a large number of blocks ranging from de-
multiplexer to decoders and peripherals like USB, SATA
(Serial Advanced Technology Attachment )etc.
 Front End
  Front End part of STB is responsible for
 receiving the broadcasted signal,
 demodulating the signal and
 outputing digital data output for STB decoder chip.

 Depending upon broadcasting environment terrestrial or

satellite or cable front end will be used .
 Front End
 Front end unit consist of 3 main blocks
 tuner to tune correct frequency,
 demodulator to demodulate as per standard
 forward error correction (FEC) unit for data recovery.
 Power Supply

 This is the main power source for board.

 This unit generates different voltage required by various
components on board.
 Input to this unit can be main line AC (220/110) or DC 12V

via standalone power adapters.

 Flash
  This is used to store boot loader, main application
and other user specific non volatile data.
 Different STBs uses different sizes of flash ranging
from 8MB to 64MB.
 RAM
 RAM is used to store all intermediate data (such as
decoded video/audio buffers) and application
variables.
 In many cases main application is also copied to
RAM and is executed from RAM to speed up the
operation (as RAM is faster compared to Flash).
 RAM size ranges from 32MB in standard definition
STBs to 256MB in some top end Full HD STBs
 Video Interfaces
 STB decoder chip outputs video data in analog or
digital format.
 In some cases high quality DACs are used to convert
digital data into analog format.
 Digital data is also transmitted in digital format using
SPDIF standard.
 Storage
• Few STBs also work as digital video recorders.
• To aid storage of programs some storage device (HDD) is
added via any of the interfaces (SATA, eSATA, ATAPI or
USB) provided by decoder chip.
• In a personal computer, a hard disk drive (HDD) is the
mechanism that controls the positioning, reading, and writing
of the hard disk, which furnishes the largest amount of data
storage for the PC.
 Front Panel
 This is STBs interface to external world.
 Front panels are different for different boxes.
 But most of them provide IR input/output, Status
LEDs, 7 segments or LCD and few switches to
configure set top box.
 DVB-CI Slot
  DVB Digital Video Broadcasting Common-
Interface (DVB-CI)
 DVB-CI defines an interface between a DVB receiver (TV set,
Set-Top-Box, Bluray recorder etc.) and a PC-Card module
(Conditional Access Module, CAM). It consists of a transport
stream interface and a command interface.
 This slot is provided to support various conditional access
schemes.
 Conditional Access providers provide compatible DVB-CI
cards to be used with STB.
 The DVB-CI card decrypts the channels encrypted by
Conditional Access provider as per user’s subscription
policies.
 Smart Card Slot
•  This slot is provided to use smart card for
Conditional Access implementation.
• Unique subscriber ID is stored on each card.
• Smart card is also used in decrypting the
channels.
 RF Modulator
  This is used to modulate Audio and video into RF
signal.
 This is mainly to be used with older TVs which have
only RF input and no composite (CVBS) input.
 APPLICATION
• Up converter HPA Encoder Modulator
• DVB-S Receiver Television
• V/A input STB for Satellite Application
 REFERENCE
• http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/bha
vinpatel13-446506-set-top-box-presentation/
• http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/definiti
on/set-top-box
• http://www.semtech.com/applications/
• http://www.itvdictionary.com/set-top_box.html