The books and web pages listed here are some of the stuff that I’ve found to be useful to me while developing MHP applications, developing MHP receivers and generally trying to work out what this funny MHP thing was, anyway.
These are in no particular order, so take a look at them and see which one suits you best. More online information can also be found via the links page.
General guides to digital TV
- The Essential Guide to digital set-top boxes and interactive TV (Gerard O’Driscoll, pub. Prentice Hall, ISBN 0130173606)
A good introduction to interactive TV and the various systems that are currently available, both open and proprietary.
- A guide to digital TV and MPEG-2 from Aberdeen University in the UK
Introductions to MPEG-2
- A glossary of interactive TV terms from Vidiom
- An MPEG-2 tutorial at www.bretl.com
- The guide to MPEG fundamentals from www.tektronix.com
- Digital Video: An introduction to MPEG-2 (Barry Haskell, Atul Puri and Arun Netravali, pub Chapman & Hall, ISBN 0412084112)
A good general guide to MPEG-2 for anyone who needs it, talking about the basics of transport streams.
DVB TV systems
These are mostly the standards documents from the DVB project. DVB standards can all be downloaded from the download area of the ETSI web site. Searching the archive by standard number will allow you to download them.
- Specification for service information in DVB systems (ETSI Technical Specification EN 300 468)
The guide to service information tables and descriptors in DVB environments.
- Allocation of service information codes for DVB systems (ETSI technical report ETR 162)
Lists the currently registered values for broadcasters and bouquets in the DVB service information. The web version is more up-to-date.
- The DSM-CC specification (ISO standard ISO/IEC 13818-6)
This is the complete specification for DSM-CC. It covers more than is necessary for MHP systems, and is not very readable. Refer to this only if you can’t find an answer in the DVB implementation guidelines for data broadcasting. As an ISO specification, this is not available for download. Paper copies may be ordered from ISO, but I wouldn’t bother unless you absolutely have to.
- DVB specification for data broadcasting (ETSI Technical Specification EN 301 192)
The specification of how DSM-CC is used in a DVB environment. It’s not significantly more readable than the DSM-CC specification, but it does contain some valuable information for MHP implementers.
- DVB implementation guidelines for data broadcasting (ETSI technical report TR 101 202)
Implementation guidelines for people using DSM-CC in DVB. These are almost a re-written version of the specification, and they are a lot more readable than the actual specification. This document describes most of what you will ever need to know about DSM-CC for working with MHP. Unlike the actual specification, this can be downloaded, and is generally more useful.
MHP and associated APIs
- Multimedia Home Platform Specification 1.0.3 (ETSI Technical Specification TS 101 812)
The full MHP specification. It contains much more detailed information about MHP than I intend to ever write in these pages, and is probably the best source of information about MHP currently available. Be warned, though, it’s over 1000 pages long. As with other DVB specifications, this can be downloaded from the ETSI web site
- Globally Executable MHP (GEM) 1.0.1 (ETSI Technical Specification TS 102 819)
A subset of the full MHP 1.0.x platform that forms the basis of OCAP, ACAP and other standards.
- Multimedia Home Platform Specification 1.1.2
The latest version of the MHP 1.1 specification. Most people are still implementing MHP version 1.0.2 for current receivers instead of version 1.1.x.
- Javadoc documentation for the MHP 1.0.3 APIs
The single most useful piece of documentation relating to MHP for application developers.
- The DAVIC 1.4 specification, part 9
The DAVIC specification is the source of some of the MHP APIs, especially the low-level MPEG access APIs, the tuning API and some of the extensions to JMF. This can be downloaded from the DAVIC site, although it is password protected. Given that DAVIC has closed its operations, getting the password may be interesting. And no, I don’t know the password so don’t bother asking me. However, the specifications can be ordered on CD-ROM from the DAVIC web site.
- The PersonalJava specification
The specification of the PersonalJava platform and how the APIs have been changed from Java 1.1.
- The JavaTV specification and other documents
The specification for the JavaTV APIs, plus other technical documents relating to JavaTV.
- Programming with the Java Media Framework (Sean Sullivan, Loren Winzeler, Jeannie Deagen and Deanna Brown, pub. Wiley, ISBN 0471251690)
A good introduction to the Java Media Framework, and how it can be used. It has a few minor errors, but it’s still worth a read for its overview of how JMF actually works.