Virtual set-top box
AssigneeDISH Technologies L.L.C.
InventorsGeraint Jenkin, Marcus C. Liassides, Jayne L. Gilmour, Christopher G. Hooks, David F. Evans
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A virtual set-top box (vSTB) for executing a middleware component, designed originally for use with the physical STB, including emulating hardware capabilities of the physical STB to process IPTV content received over a connection for presenting the IPTV content on a display of the electronic device.
Claims20
A set-top box emulation system for presenting IPTV content to a user on an electronic device, said emulation system comprising
- i) a middleware component;
- ii) a plurality of management components arranged and configured to emulate the capabilities of a physical set-top box, wherein the plurality of management components comprises at least one of a presentation manager, a codec manager and/or a conditional access manager;
- and
- iii) a plurality of interfaces to enable communication between said plurality of management components and said middleware, wherein the plurality of interfaces comprises at least one of a graphics interface, a MUX interface, a Conditional Access interface, a Media interface, and Events Interface, a System Settings interface and/or a Persistent Storage interface.
A method of emulating functions of a set-top box so as to present IPTV content to a viewer on an electronic device, the method comprising
- i) receiving IPTV content by said electronic device from a network;
- ii) using a plurality of set-top box emulation components to create an emulated set-top box environment within said electronic device;
- iii) executing a middleware component within said emulated environment, said middleware component communicating with said emulated environment via a plurality of interfaces.
A computer-implemented method of emulating a physical set-top box (STB), comprising:
- receiving Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) content over a connection of an electronic device from an Internet Protocol (IP) closed network;
- executing by the electronic device a middleware component, designed originally for use with the physical STB, including emulating hardware capabilities of the physical STB to process the IPTV content;
- and
- presenting the IPTV content on a display of the electronic device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.