CMD2014 – Multimedia System and Technique

Assignment 1

Video On Demand.

Overviewing these chapter, video-on-demand or VOD is a system that allows user to select
and watch or listen to video or audio content on demand. VOD system stream through a magnetic
disk drive, allowing viewing in real time. VOD is much similar to ITV(Interactive Television). This VOD
system is very acceptable in hotel, cruise ships, hospital and educational segments business. There
were many examples of VOD such as the ordering the PPV(Pay-Per-View) movie, video kiosks, game
selection, the channel changer and instructional laserdiscs is a consist of VOD.

How do VOD function? Download and streaming video on demand systems provide the user
with a large subset of VCR functionality including pause, fast forward, fast rewind, slow forward, slow
rewind, jump to previous/future frame and many more. These functions are called trick modes. For
disk-based streaming systems which store and stream programs from hard disk drive, trick modes
require additional processing and storage on the part of the server, because separate files for fast
forward and rewind must be stored. Memory-based VOD streaming systems have the advantage of
being able to perform trick modes directly from RAM, which requires no additional storage or CPU
cycles on the part of the processor.

There were 4 characteristics of VOD;

 Near VOD (NVOD)

 Instantaneous VOD
 Live Interactive VOD
 True Interactive VOD

Near VOD, pay-per-view video technique used by multi-channel broadcasters using high-
bandwidth distribution such as satellite and cable television. Multiple copies of a program are
broadcast at short time intervals providing convenience for viewers, who can watch the program
without needing to tune in at a scheduled point in time. The navigational function also include video
menu screens, keypad set-top devices, printed schedules, and many more. By using digital storage
and transmission technology, this transition in NVOD give better quality by eliminating noisy satellite
feeds. System will offer a larger selection of programming, more reliable, and lower costs. In turn, the
same satellite transponders would then be open to offer live programming because the media library
will already be on site, digitally stored on the server for near-instant retrieval.

Instantaneous VOD, is a subset of NVOD. Instantaneous VOD offering no predetermined

start times with a limited number of other options. Such options are VCR-like function, such as pause,
replay or fast-forward. The system can start out modest and then grow as capacity demands or
feature dictate. The level of quality will be scalable, providing various resolutions depending upon
program content.

Live Interactive VOD, is a media delivery that is expected to provide a user feedback. This
service requires a special type of server and is intend for such programming as live interactive
shopping and other special venues such as remote ticket orders or vacation tour planning.

True Interactive VOD, is the most advance of all VOD system. In this service, each
client/viewer has control overall the programming material. Nothing will be time slotted, as interactive
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CMD2014 – Multimedia System and Technique
Assignment 1

VOD that provide instantaneous and random delivery of media such as forward, backward, restarted
or paused in real time.

In terms of structure, many hybrid system composed of services bridging any of these
described systems and services.

In VOD, there comes two way responding rendered systems that will incorporate
sophisticated database and demographic tracking capabilities. The system eventually have
advertising for the specific viewer, in the same fashion that you’ll have program selectability. The
commercial will be more targeted to the viewer interest.

Software and delivery packages consist in distribution networking will enable the creators of
content to directly serve the audience they wish to target. It is possible that the desktop applications
now being used for interactive content creation will be further expanded or customized to particular
VOD system so that producers can develop applications specific for client demographics.

Interactive Television.

Interactive television represents a continuum from low interactivityto moderate interactivity

such as simple movies on demand without player controls, and high interactivity in which an audience
member affects the program being watched. The most obvious example of this would be any kind of
real-time voting on the screen, in which audience votes create decisions that are reflected in how the
show continues.

As new products in videotape technology formed such as the DVCPRO, DV-CAM, DV,
BetacamSX and other, broadcaster continued to discover how far they must continue to explore,

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CMD2014 – Multimedia System and Technique
Assignment 1

evaluate and define where their business might be headed. Video Server seemed to be the answer.
Expensive, changing too fast, and mired in a mixture of formats and other digital frustrations. The new
player was the PC, video is watchable but it still cannot replace the old fashioned family room TV set.
The Web-TV emerged, trying to be the first link between television viewing and the internet. Web-TV
also wasn’t successful as it hoped to be.

Comparing the TV and PC, the evolution of entertainment delivery devices shows a marked
and different prespective. Changes occurred in a short time frame of just over 30 years from the mid
1970’s. For example the CD players had replace the phonograph, the merge of laserdisc, Screen
Projector, and DVD. But still internet becoming the success, but the biggest different is in ‘how you
view the medium. We can view and enjoy TV set from most every position in the living room, but you
can’t really play Myst from eight-feet away on a 15inch monitor.

Television Audio hasn’t moved much also since the 80’s. The SAP (Secondary Audio
Program) channel never really caught on. In conjunction of marketing, some of the manufactures took
a shortcut and mixed SAP and the primary stereo channel together, rendering the broadcaster’s
attempts to provide additional information virtually worthless.

If interactive TV needs to be successful, one of the necessary and essential elements must
be navigational feature set. The TV set has two basics control such as the volume and channel
changer, but the PC is different altogether. The PC offering a keyboard, a mouse, and a joystick as a
control of interface set. Will the user of ITV be satisfied if these element of computer being combined
to improve the quality of ITV? These are the items that is being researched as it get closer to ITV’s
rebirth.

The explosion of the internet has changed direction for many media related to delivery
platforms. It has and still is a tremendous proving ground for what the consumer accept is what they
willing to pay for. The internet offers more interactively than ITV, but the internet still suffers from a
bandwidth clogging and a one-to-one visual interface. Television has always offered these two
significant differences.

In year 2000, a set top box is still an experiment. Most interaction that one can achieve with a
set top is the electronic program guide built into the direct home satellite broadcasters. Through a land
line connection, pay-per-view near VOD at least provides the end user with some feeling of
interaction.

If these element such as games, quiz shows, video-on-demand, viewer voting or pools for
determining on a mass basis the outcome of a program, can made ITV to be more ‘interactive’. There
are also a third form of ITV called ‘internet TV’, where the specific web-pages are accessible direct
from the internet that have been specifically designed and formatted for the larger screen size and
limited interface of the television receiver. The example of internet TV is WebTV, OpenTV, Liberate
(AOL-TV), and many more.

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CMD2014 – Multimedia System and Technique
Assignment 1

The Advanced Television Enhancement Forum, an efforts toward content specifications for
ITV was formed in 1999. They are making transport recommendations and providing
recommendations for bindings between conventional DTV, enhanced and interactive/internet TV.

The drive technology PVR is develop by Quantum and called the ‘QuickView’ hard drive,
allowing the viewer to take advantage of feature sets the broadcasters have used for years. Viewers
can now record and have instant access to programs, skip and repeat segments, have instant
recording and playback, plus pause program viewing for personal breaks and resume viewing them
without missing a single segment of the program. Stunt features such as instant rewind or fast forward
and slow motion are built in. When PVR entered the market, it is striving for acceptance from the
consumer and from the broadcaster.

Question 2. ( Define Cryptography. Explain two kinds of cryptosystems; Symmetric and Asymmectric.)

There are many aspects to security and many applications, ranging from
secure commerce and payments to private communications and protecting
passwords. It is also the practice and study of hiding information. In modern
times cryptography is considered a branch of both mathematics and computer
science and is affiliated closely with information theory, computer security and
engineering. Cryptography is used in applications present in technologically
advanced societies such as the security of ATM cards, computer passwords and
electronic commerce which all depend on cryptography.

Before the modern era, cryptography was concerned solely with message
confidentiality conversion of messages from a comprehensible form into an
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incomprehensible one and back again at the other end, rendering it unreadable
by interceptors or eavesdroppers without secret knowledge (namely the key
needed for decryption of that message). In recent decades, the field has
expanded beyond confidentiality concerns to include techniques for message
integrity checking, sender/receiver identity authentication, digital signatures,
interactive proofs and secure computation, among others.

Cryptography is the science of writing in secret code and is an ancient art

of the first documented use of cryptography in writing dates back to circa 1900
B.C. when an Egyptian scribe used non-standard hieroglyphs in an inscription.
Some experts argue that cryptography appeared spontaneously sometime after
writing was invented, with applications ranging from diplomatic missives to war-
time battle plans. It is no surprise, then, that new forms of cryptography came
soon after the widespread development of computer communications. In data
and telecommunications, cryptography is necessary when communicating over
any untrusted medium, which includes just about any network, particularly the
Internet.

There are two kind of cryptosystems. The figure 1.0 below shows the
cryptosystem.

Figure 1.0 Cryptosystem (Symmetric and Asymmetric)

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CMD2014 – Multimedia System and Technique
Assignment 1

Symmetric cryptography also known as secret key cryptography, a single

key is used for both encryption and decryption. As shown in Figure 1.0, the
sender uses the key (or some set of rules) to encrypt the plaintext and sends the
ciphertext to the receiver. The receiver applies the same key (or ruleset) to
decrypt the message and recover the plaintext. Because a single key is used for
both functions.With this form of cryptography, it is obvious that the key must be
known to both the sender and the receiver; that, in fact, is the secret. The
biggest difficulty with this approach is the distribution of the key.
Secret key cryptography schemes are generally categorized as being
either stream ciphers or block ciphers. Stream ciphers operate on a single bit
(byte or computer word) at a time and implement some form of feedback
mechanism so that the key is constantly changing. A block cipher is so-called
because the scheme encrypts one block of data at a time using the same key on
each block. Generally, the same plaintext block will always encrypt to the same
ciphertext when using the same key in a block cipher whereas the same
plaintext will encrypt to different ciphertext in a stream cipher.
Stream ciphers come in several flavors but two are worth mentioning here.
Self-synchronizing stream ciphers calculate each bit in the keystream as a
function of the previous n bits in the keystream. It is termed "self-synchronizing"
because the decryption process can stay synchronized with the encryption
process merely by knowing how far into the n-bit keystream it is. One problem is
error propagation; a garbled bit in transmission will result in n garbled bits at the
receiving side. Synchronous stream ciphers generate the keystream in a fashion
independent of the message stream but by using the same keystream
generation function at sender and receiver. While stream ciphers do not
propagate transmission errors, they are, by their nature, periodic so that the
keystream will eventually repeat.
The Data Encryption Standard (DES) and the Advanced Encryption
Standard (AES) are block cipher designs which have been designated
cryptography standards by the US government although DES's designation was
finally withdrawn after the AES was adopted. Despite its deprecation as an
official standard, DES is still-approved and much more secure triple-DES variant
and remains quite popular; it is used across a wide range of applications, from
ATM encryption to e-mail privacy and secure remote access. Many other block

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ciphers have been designed and released, with considerable variation in quality.
Many have been thoroughly broken.
Asymmetric cryptography also known as the Public-key cryptography is a
cryptographic approach, employed by many cryptographic algorithms and
cryptosystems, whose distinguishing characteristic is the use of asymmetric key
algorithms instead of or in addition to symmetric key algorithms. Using the
techniques of public key-private key cryptography, many methods of protecting
communications or authenticating messages formerly unknown have become
practical. They do not require a secure initial exchange of one or more secret
keys as is required when using in symmetric key algorithms. It can also be used
to create digital signatures.
Public key cryptography is a fundamental and widely used technology
around the world, and is the approach which underlies such Internet standards as
Transport Layer Security and PGP and GPG.
The distinguishing technique used in public key-private key cryptography
is use of asymmetric key algorithms because the key used to encrypt a message
is not the same as the key used to decrypt it. Each user has a pair of
cryptographic keys such as a public key and a private key. The private key is kept
secret, while the public key may be widely distributed. Messages are encrypted
with the recipient's public key and can only be decrypted with the corresponding
private key. The keys are related mathematically, but the private key cannot be
feasibly (ie, in actual or projected practice) derived from the public key. It was
the discovery of such algorithms which revolutionized the practice of
cryptography beginning in the middle 1970s.
In contrast, Symmetric-key algorithms, variations of which have been used
for some thousands of years, use a single secret key shared by sender and
receiver which must also be kept private, thus accounting for the ambiguity of
the common terminology for both encryption and decryption. To use a symmetric
encryption scheme, the sender and receiver must securely share a key in
advance. Symmetric key algorithms are nearly always much less computationally
intensive, it is common to exchange a key using a key-exchange algorithm and
transmit data using that key and a symmetric key algorithm. PGP, and the
SSL/TLS family of schemes do this, for instance, and are called hybrid
cryptosystems in consequence.

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CMD2014 – Multimedia System and Technique
Assignment 1

In additional, there is a third type of cryptography. Cryptographic hash

functions are a third type of cryptographic. They take a message of any length as
input, and output a short, fixed length hash which can be used in, for example, a
digital signature. Cryptographic hash functions are also typically used to provide
a digital fingerprint of a file's contents, often used to ensure that the file has not
been altered by an intruder or virus. Hash functions are also commonly
employed by many operating systems to encrypt passwords.

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