Inaris Media Player
For TV devices a reliable and robust media player is mandatory. With the Inaris Media Player, we designed a flexible player framework that supports multiple types of media sources for a high-quality TV experience for DVB, IPTV as well as OTT streaming. Well-known TV features like EPG, Teletext, subtitles, PVR, but also HbbTV is supported for all transport stream based sources, both for DVB reception via tuner or OTT reception via IP networks. The media player is deployed on TV devices based on Linux, Android TV and also RTOS based systems. For best playback performance it uses the system’s audio/video decoders in the most efficient way.
High-quality content needs protection, therefore, our player supports well-known conditional access (CA), and digital rights management (DRM) systems. Media playback is an end-to-end solution. All involved parts need to work together for a seamless playback experience. The player supports deep analysis of the received streams and playback quality, collecting all this data via cloud-based services. With our long-term experience in the development of software for embedded TV devices, we are furthermore able to create tailor-made player solutions for our customers.
Software Architecture
Media playback is complex. Different types of media sources and AV codecs need to be handled. The platform may already support a media player which can be used for media playback. A platform provided media player can be registered with our Inaris Media Player to provide a unified API to the application, independently of the platform. However, even if the platform supports some types of media playback, the quality and/or performance may not be sufficient for product use. In these cases, the Inaris Media Player replaces and/or supplements platform supported media players.
All kinds of media sources, like DVB sources via tuner, IPTV sources via IP multicast, but also OTT sources like HLS are supported by our Media Player. These different types of media sources can be registered with the Media Player as plugins. The Inaris Media Player connects the registered media sources with the audio and video decoders provided by the platform. This clear separation between media source and decoders allows high flexibility in the supported playback scenarios. The architecture allows highly optimized and robust video playback using the full performance of the underlying decoder hardware in the most optimal way. For all the different constellations the Inaris Media Player provides a unified API to the user application.
Media Sources
- Tuner to receive transport streams via DVB-C/C2/T/T2/S/S2.
- SAT>IP Client distributes the DVB transport stream from a remote tuner in the home network.
- RTSP/RTP media source supports the reception of unicast RTP streams with RTSP to control video playback.
- Multicast RTP media source is used when only basic support for RTP multicast streaming is needed.
- IPTV – VQE Client uses the Cisco (now Synamedia) VQE client. The VQE client supports multicast RTP streaming (IGMP V3), fast channel change (FCC), and forward error correction.
- HLS media source is used for HTTP live streaming. For a detailed description see the Inaris HLS Media Player.
- MPEG-DASH realises the playback of MPEG-DASH sources. The supported feature set is aligned with the ISOBMFF Live Profile. A potential use in the product has to be evaluated against the required features and targeted platforms.
Media Player
- Service Manager is used for playback of DVB streams. The streams can be received via local tuner (DVB-C/C2/T/T2/S/S2) or remote tuner (SAT>IP). Besides this, also IP media sources like IPTV, multicast RTP, or unicast RTSP/RTP can be registered. The Service Manager supports all features available for DVB playbacks, like Teletext, Teletext Subtitles, DVB Subtitles and HbbTV.
- Platform Player: SoC used for TV/set-top box platforms most often also support generic media playback functionality. In this case, media playback capability is part of the hardware platform and a hardware-specific player can be registered with the Inaris Media Player.
Inaris Abstraction Layer enables a flexible solution running on different platforms. It consists of a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) and an OS Abstraction Layer (OSAL).
DRM/CA System Support
We and our customers have integrated several CA systems:
Supported Operating Systems
Selection of Supported Platforms
Inaris Success Stories
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