Information about Set Top Box
A set-top box (STB) or set-top unit (STU) is a device that connects to a television and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen.
A set-top box does not necessarily contain a tuner of its own. A box connected to a television (or VCR) set's SCART connector is fed with the baseband television signal from the set's tuner, and can ask the television to display the returned processed signal instead.
The SCART feature is used for decoding Pay TV in Europe, and in the past was used for decoding teletext, before decoders became built-in.
The outgoing signal can be of the same nature as the incoming signal, or RGB component video, or even an "insert" over the original signal, thanks to the "fast switching" feature of SCART. In case of Pay TV, this approach avoids the need for a second remote control.
In the United Kingdom, digital set-top boxes (often referred to as digiboxes, after Sky Digital's trademark for their unit) are usually for digital terrestrial television through services such as Freeview, a service operated by the Freeview Consortium, or through digital satellite with BSkyB and also with digital cable. They are used to access television as well as audio and interactive services through the "Red Button" promoted by broadcasters such as the BBC with BBCi or Sky with Sky Active.
In Australia set-top boxes are the principal means of receiving high-definition television terrestrial broadcasts as comparably few television sets have in-built HDTV tuners. The Foxtel set-top boxes (including the Foxtel iQ unit) however are not HDTV-ready as of late 2007.
Globally, some boxes also have a built-in digital video recorder (or DVR) which often utilises the electronic programme guide scheduling data and records content to an internal hard drive.
History
Before cable-ready TV sets, a set-top box known as a cable converter box was used to receive analog cable TV channels and convert them to video that could be seen on a regular TV. Nowadays, cable converter boxes are used to descramble premium cable channels and to receive digital cable channels.Many TV signal sources
The signal source might be an ethernet cable (see triple play), a satellite dish, a coaxial cable (see cable television), a telephone line (including DSL connections), Broadband over Power Line, or even an ordinary VHF or UHF antenna. Content, in this context, could mean any or all of video, audio, Internet webpages, interactive games, or other possibilities.Ambiguities in the definition
With the advent of flat panel televisions set-top boxes are now deeper in profile than the tops of most modern TV sets. Because of this set-top boxes are often placed beneath televisions and the term set-top box has become something of a misnomer.A set-top box does not necessarily contain a tuner of its own. A box connected to a television (or VCR) set's SCART connector is fed with the baseband television signal from the set's tuner, and can ask the television to display the returned processed signal instead.
The SCART feature is used for decoding Pay TV in Europe, and in the past was used for decoding teletext, before decoders became built-in.
The outgoing signal can be of the same nature as the incoming signal, or RGB component video, or even an "insert" over the original signal, thanks to the "fast switching" feature of SCART. In case of Pay TV, this approach avoids the need for a second remote control.
Digital television
Special digital set-top boxes are available for receiving digital television broadcasts on TV sets that do not have a built in digital tuner. In the case of direct broadcast satellite (mini-dish) systems such as SES Astra, Dish Network, or DirecTV, the set-top box is an integrated receiver/decoder (or IRD).In the United Kingdom, digital set-top boxes (often referred to as digiboxes, after Sky Digital's trademark for their unit) are usually for digital terrestrial television through services such as Freeview, a service operated by the Freeview Consortium, or through digital satellite with BSkyB and also with digital cable. They are used to access television as well as audio and interactive services through the "Red Button" promoted by broadcasters such as the BBC with BBCi or Sky with Sky Active.
In Australia set-top boxes are the principal means of receiving high-definition television terrestrial broadcasts as comparably few television sets have in-built HDTV tuners. The Foxtel set-top boxes (including the Foxtel iQ unit) however are not HDTV-ready as of late 2007.
Globally, some boxes also have a built-in digital video recorder (or DVR) which often utilises the electronic programme guide scheduling data and records content to an internal hard drive.
IPTV
In IPTV networks, the set-top box is a small computer providing two-way communications on an IP network, and decoding the video streaming media, using a new technology called POE (Power over Ethernet), which eliminates the need for any coaxial cabling. Using the new POE technology allows for instant updates to boxes, making for a more manegable and reliable system.See also
Related Technologies:- ATSC tuner
- Audio
- Cable modem
- Connectivity: RS-232, USB, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
- Digital television adapter (DTA)
- DVB
- Free-to-air
- Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting
- Interactive television
- IPTV
- MHP
- Polarization
- QAM tuner
- QPSK
- Satellite dish
- Symbol rate
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Television (often abbreviated to TV, T.V., or more recently, tv; sometimes called telly, the tube, boob tube, or idiot box in British English) is a widely used telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures
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signal is any time-varying quantity. Signals are often scalar-valued functions of time (waveforms), but may be vector valued and may be functions of any other relevant independent variable.
The concept is broad, and hard to define precisely.
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The concept is broad, and hard to define precisely.
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Content may refer to:
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- Content (media and publishing), information and experiences created to benefit audiences in contexts that they value
- Volume generalized to arbitrarily many dimensions in mathematics and physics
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display device, also known as an information display is a device for visual or tactile presentation of images (including text) acquired, stored, or transmitted in various forms.
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cable television into the house.]]
Cable television is a system of providing cocoy television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional
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Cable television is a system of providing cocoy television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional
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Television set may refer to:
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- Television, a device to display television programs
- Television studio, an installation in which television or video productions take place
- Set construction, theatrical scenery
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An analog or analogue signal is any time continuous signal where some time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity. It differs from a digital signal in that small fluctuations in the signal are meaningful.
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cable television into the house.]]
Cable television is a system of providing cocoy television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional
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Cable television is a system of providing cocoy television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional
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The term television channel generally refers to either a television station or its cable/satellite counterpart (both outlined below). Sometimes, it is confused with the term television network, which (when properly used) describes a group of geographically-distributed television
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encryption is the process of transforming information (referred to as plaintext) to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key.
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Digital television (DTV) is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound by means of digital signals, in contrast to analog signals used by analog (traditional) TV.
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Ethernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks (LANs). The name comes from the physical concept of the ether. It defines a number of wiring and signaling standards for the physical layer, through means of network access at the Media
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satellite dish is a type of parabolic antenna designed with the specific purpose of transmitting signals to and/or receiving from satellites. A satellite dish is a particular type of microwave antenna.
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Coaxial cable is an electrical cable consisting of a round conducting wire, surrounded by an insulating spacer, surrounded by a cylindrical conducting sheath, usually surrounded by a final insulating layer (jacket).
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cable television into the house.]]
Cable television is a system of providing cocoy television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional
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Cable television is a system of providing cocoy television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional
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The telephone is a telecommunications device which is used to transmit and receive sound (most commonly speech). Most telephones operate through transmission of electric signals over a complex telephone network which allows almost any phone user to communicate with almost anyone.
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DSL or xDSL, is a family of technologies that provide digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network. DSL originally stood for digital subscriber loop, although in recent years, many have adopted digital subscriber line
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Very high frequency (VHF) is the radio frequency range from 30 MHz to 300 MHz. It is also known as the meter band or meter wave as the wavelengths range from ten to one meters.
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Cycles per second: 300 MHz to 3 GHz
Wavelength: 1 m to 100 mm Ultra high frequency (UHF) designates a range (band) of electromagnetic waves whose frequency is between 300 MHz and 3 GHz, which is 300 MHz to 3,000 MHz.
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antenna is a transducer designed to transmit or receive radio waves which are a class of electromagnetic waves. In other words, antennas convert radio frequency electrical currents into electromagnetic waves and vice versa.
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Video (Latin for "I see", first person singular present, indicative of videre, "to see") is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.
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Sound is a disturbance of mechanical energy that propagates through matter as a wave (through fluids as a compression wave, and through solids as both compression and shear waves).
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A Web page or webpage is a resource of information that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser. This information is usually in HTML or XHTML format, and may provide navigation to other web pages via hypertext links.
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Interactivity. In the "contingency view" of interactivity, there are three levels: Noninteractive, when a message is not related to previous messages; Reactive, when a message is related only to one immediately previous message; and Interactive, when a message is related to a
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personal computer game (also known as a computer game or simply PC game) is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine.
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This article has been tagged since September 2007.
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