EP2801211A1

EP2801211A1 - Addressing of terminals within the framework of an interactive application associated with a stream broadcast in nonconnected mode

Info

Publication number: EP2801211A1
Application number: EP13701830.5A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Antoine TRANNOY; Christophe BOSSE; Hugues MARTY
Original assignee: Locatel France
Current assignee: Hoist Locatel France
Priority date: 2012-01-05
Filing date: 2013-01-04
Publication date: 2014-11-12
Also published as: FR2985630A1; WO2013102744A1; FR2985630B1

Abstract

The invention relates to the processing of television data for communication of differentiated multimedia contents (CMMj) to a plurality of respective terminals, connected to a computing entity. A database (DDB) of identifiers (TVj) of the terminals is accessible by the entity with, in correspondence with each identifier (TVj), a specific multimedia content (CMMj) associated with this identifier (TVj). The computing entity generates in a first stream (Φ1), for example in the DVB format, at least one association table, a declarative of table and/or as interactive application table, which are related to at least one given identifier (TVj) by adding at least one pointer to a multimedia content (CMMj) associated with this given identifier. There is then delivered to the terminals a second stream (Φ2) comprising: * television data, specific to several television services, * terminal identifier data, and the multimedia contents (CMMj) associated respectively with said identifiers (TVj), and * the declarative tables of said television data, with said generated tables, each terminal being able, on its side to: - refer itself to the generated tables related to the identifier (TVj) of this terminal, and - thereby retrieve, from the second stream, a multimedia content (CMMj) declared on the basis of said tables generated for a reading of the retrieved multimedia content, said multimedia content (CMMj) retrieved then being a content specific to this terminal. (Figure 8)

Description

The invention relates to access to a differentiated service from a television set that is a member of a network of television receivers. a flow of undifferentiated services.

The broadcasting of audiovisual services via digital transmission increases the possibilities of developing these services. The services can offer new features such as the distribution of videos, music tracks, video games, internet pages, etc.

The broadcast of a set of services is intended for at least one compatible television set in order to render the content of one or more services to a user of the television set.

The services are conventionally transmitted via broadcast transmitters capable of transmitting digitally the data relating to the services. The broadcasting of the set of services is generally intended simultaneously for a set of television sets reproducing the content of the services broadcast by the aforementioned broadcast transmitters. Such a set of television sets can be distributed in different isolated sites or be part of the same site. Where television sets are part of the same site, it has been proposed to use a local network to broadcast the services to the television sets of the site.

For example, in a hotel or hospital setting, a local network of the institution is used to provide access to services for room occupants. The services broadcast can be received by a central site of the local network which transmits them to the television stations members of the local network of the establishment. Here, a "local area network" will be understood to mean a computer or communication network limited to a defined group of users or to a particular geographical location.

As part of a local hotel network, it may be advantageous to provide additional services specific to the establishment. Such additional services can be implemented in the form of interactive applications allowing for example to disseminate information such as:

a program specific to the hotel,

a distinctive hospitality display of the hotel,

- a specific information page,

an addition of personalized information to the content returned (indication of the number of the room from which the occupant looks at the television set, display of the name of the occupant of the room, etc.)

access to differentiated services (video on demand, access to voice messages and / or emails to the occupant, etc.).

For the implementation of interactive applications of this type in a local network, the use of standards ("standard" in English terms) of connected applications such as MHEG (Multimedia and Hypermedia Experts Group), MHP (Multimedia Home Platform ), HbbTV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV), etc. is particularly suitable.

The MHEG standard is based on a transport according to the MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) standard. The MHP and HbbTV standards are conventionally based on the use of the DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) transmission stream for the signaling of interactive applications to a television set or to a set of television sets. An application is broadcast-related if it is reported in a DVB transmission stream and is broadcast-independent when it is directly downloaded. from an internet-type network regardless of a television service. Conventionally, for the broadcasting of broadcast-related interactive application data, these standards make use of hybrid data broadcasting methods using broadcast-type communication protocols, known as broadcast broadcast, and / or access-type communication protocols. Broadband internet, known as broadband broadcasting. As part of a broadband broadcast, one can customize the services (eg differentiation of information and interactive application features) by TV set through bidirectional data transfer. For this purpose, a central server of the site may broadcast an additional television service (of the local channel type) which may comprise differentiated contents intended for different television sets by via an interactive application. Each differentiated content of the interactive application is respectively associated with one or more television sets. Thus, in such an embodiment, when a television station sends a request for the content of the interactive application to the remote server, the latter delivers the differentiated content appropriate to the television set for example by identification of its IP address (Internet Protocol ) when server view address is unique for each television set.

For illustrative purposes only, it is desirable to display the name of an occupant of a hotel room when he / she selects a service (which is associated with an interactive application for displaying the names of the occupants for example) on the workstation. TV from his room. For such an embodiment, it is assumed that each television set is connected to the remote server by a computer network, with a unique IP address known to the server. When the occupant selects the service, for illustrative purposes, a browser on the television set sends a request to retrieve the content of the service from a remote server (by the "HTTP" protocol for example). After identification of the IP address of the television set, the server delivers in return the specific content to the occupant of the room and the television shows the name of the latter via the on-board browser.

However, as part of a broadcast broadcast, the transfer of data from interactive applications is unidirectional for all television sets, whether in the context of a local network or not. Referring to the previous example of the local network of a hotel establishment, the server of the central site of the local network broadcasts the contents to the television sets without a return path. The set of services broadcast on television sets is transmitted in an undifferentiated manner and all the data of the services is sent to all television sets. Therefore, the broadcast communication protocol does not allow the personalization and differentiation of one or more services broadcast to one or more television sets (unlike the previously described broadband broadcast network). Still referring to an example of application to a hotel, one may wish to provide customers with personalized services on the television of the room they occupy. In this context and in accordance with the aforementioned characteristics of broadcast techniques, the institution is generally required to use a broadband broadcast network infrastructure. However, hotels do not necessarily have such infrastructure and its deployment and maintenance can be complex and expensive.

The present invention improves the situation.

An object of the present invention is to provide a differentiated service to a television set of a set of television sets (all members of a local network), among a set of services of an undifferentiated flow broadcast within the network. local broadcast broadcast. Thus, a television set of a local network can display targeted information from undifferentiated data broadcast by the broadcast service and transmitted by a computer entity of the local network.

The invention aims for this purpose a television data processing method, implemented by a computer entity, for a communication of differentiated multimedia contents to a plurality of respective terminals, connected to said computer entity,

in which :

a database of identifiers of said terminals is accessible by the entity, with, in correspondence of each identifier, a specific multimedia content associated with this identifier,

said entity, from a first stream likely to comprise at least:

* television data, specific to several television services,

* declarative tables, for each service, television data specific to this service, and

at least one table, for at least one service, of an interactive application that can be executed via this service,

generates in the first stream at least one association table, a declarative table and / or an interactive application table, linked to at least one given identifier by adding at least one pointer to a multimedia content associated with this given identifier,

for delivering to the terminals a second stream comprising:

* all or part of said television data, specific to several television services,

the data of identifiers of said terminals, and the multimedia contents associated respectively with said identifiers, and said declarative tables of said television data, with said generated tables,

each terminal being able to:

refer to said generated tables linked to the identifier of this terminal, and

- From there, recover in the second stream, a multimedia content declared from said tables generated for a playback of the multimedia content retrieved, said multimedia content retrieved then being content specific to this terminal.

Thus, the present invention makes it particularly advantageous to address a specific multimedia content for a terminal (for example a television set, but also possibly a computer, laptop or other), and this, in a manner transparent to the other terminals, and without requiring:

on the one hand, of particular address of terminal (IP address or other), and

on the other hand, to substantially modify an existing format (standardized, for example) of communication to the terminals.

For example, in one possible embodiment, the aforementioned second stream, at least, is generated in accordance with the DVB standard (for example according to the HbbTV standard, details of which are given later), and the association table is for example a program association table (usually called "PAT" for "Program Association Table"), the declarative table is for example a program map table (usually called "PMT" for "Program Map Table") and the table d interactive application is for example an application information table (usually called "AIT" for "Application Information Table").

The aforementioned computer entity may for example be in the form of a central server broadcasting the second aforementioned flow to the terminals. For this purpose, it can generate (in the "create" direction) the second aforementioned flow, and thus create the association tables and / or declarative and / or interactive application with the pointer (s) to a content specific multimedia, or simply modify a pre-existing table (s) in the aforementioned first stream.

In one possible embodiment, however, the above-mentioned computer entity can add to a first pre-existing stream an additional channel (called an "additional" service) whose content is specific to each terminal. In such an embodiment, the second stream comprises:

* all or part of the television data of the first stream, specific to several television services,

the data of identifiers of said terminals, and the multimedia contents associated respectively with said identifiers,

at least one declarative table and / or an interactive application table relating to an additional service, linked to at least one given identifier by adding at least one pointer to a multimedia content associated with this given identifier, and

* in the declarative table and / or in the interactive application table associated with said supplementary service, a pointer to the identifier data of said terminals. Thus, each terminal is able to:

refer to said declarative table and / or said interactive application declarative table associated with said additional service linked to the identifier of this terminal, and

- From there, recover in the second stream, a multimedia content declared in said associated interactive application table for a playback of the recovered multimedia content, said multimedia content retrieved then being content specific to said terminal.

As previously indicated, the terminals may be television sets, or computers, or the like, and in particular are equipped or connected to processors capable of executing programs. For example, in one embodiment, each of the aforementioned terminals may be configured to recognize, among the identifier data of the terminals, an associated identifier of its own. In order not to be able to set a terminal on other services (and thereby risk of deteriorating the reception of the aforementioned services), it is possible to ensure that no table of description of said services (usually a table of type "SDT" for "Service Description Table")

- including at least one name relating to services - is broadcast in said second stream. The present invention also aims at a computer entity for processing television data for a communication of differentiated multimedia contents to a plurality of respective terminals, connected to said entity,

comprising: a connection to a storage memory of a database comprising identifiers of said terminals with, in correspondence of each identifier, a specific multimedia content associated with this identifier,

generation means, from a first stream likely to comprise at least:

* television data, specific to several television services,

at least one declarative table and / or an interactive application table, linked to at least one given identifier by adding at least one pointer to a multimedia content associated with this given identifier,

to deliver a second stream comprising:

* all or part of said television data, specific to several television services,

the data of identifiers of said terminals, and the multimedia contents associated respectively with said identifiers, and

said declarative tables of said television data, with said generated tables.

The present invention also relates to a computer program comprising instructions for the implementation of the method when the program is executed by a processor (for example a processor of the aforementioned computer entity). As such, Figure 8 for example, commented below, can represent a flowchart of the general algorithm of such a computer program, for example.

In one embodiment (described hereinafter with reference to FIG. 4), the database stores a unique identifier for each terminal and the entity generates said interactive application table, by adding pointers to the multimedia contents of the application. second stream respectively in correspondence with identifiers relating to said unique identifiers of said terminals.

In a possible embodiment (hereinafter also described with reference to FIG. 4), a MAC address having been assigned to each terminal, the database stores the addresses. MAC of each terminal and each terminal identifier of said database corresponds to a terminal MAC address.

In one embodiment (hereinafter also described with reference to FIG. 4), the database stores service identifiers of said second stream and the entity generates said interactive application table by adding pointers to the multimedia contents. the second stream respectively in correspondence of the identifiers of said services. As an example, these service identifiers may be TV channel names and each terminal is identified by a channel name.

In one embodiment (hereinafter described with reference to FIG. 7), the entity assigns each terminal a dedicated service, which is associated with at least one declarative table and one interactive application table.

The entity generates, for each terminal, the interactive application table associated with the dedicated service of this terminal, by adding a pointer to the multimedia content associated with the identifier of this terminal.

Each terminal is then configured to recognize the declarative tables associated with said dedicated service and to ignore the declarative tables associated with the services dedicated to other terminals.

So here we assign a dedicated service per terminal, with one application per terminal.

In one embodiment (hereinafter described with reference to FIG. 6), the entity assigns each terminal a dedicated service, to which at least one declarative table and one interactive application table are associated.

The first stream has at least one program declaration table including service identifiers, and the entity generates said interactive application table, by adding pointers to the multimedia contents of the second stream respectively in correspondence of the dedicated service identifiers.

Each terminal is configured to recognize the declarative tables associated with said dedicated service and to ignore the declarative tables associated with the services dedicated to other terminals.

Here, for example, a service identifier (or "SID") can be used to identify each terminal. In one embodiment (hereinafter described with reference to FIG. 5), the entity assigns each terminal a dedicated service, to which at least one declarative table and one interactive application table are associated.

The entity adds in the second stream at least one script of an application and this application script is pointed by the interactive application table or by multimedia content pointed by the interactive application table.

In particular, the execution of this application on a terminal generates a pointer to the multimedia content associated with the identifier of this terminal.

Here, the execution of the application by reading the script on a given identifier terminal causes the generation of a pointer to a content associated with this given identifier which may for example be a service identifier.

In this embodiment, the aforementioned script may typically include application source code to execute.

In one embodiment (hereinafter described with reference to FIG. 5), the entity assigns each terminal a dedicated service, to which at least one declarative table and one interactive application table are associated.

The entity adds in the second stream at least one list of links including at least one link. This list of links is defined in the interactive application table or by multimedia content pointed by the interactive application table.

The link list link points to media content related to the terminal identifier, and each terminal is configured to recognize the declarative tables associated with said dedicated service and to ignore the declarative tables associated with the services dedicated to the service. other terminals. Other features and advantages of the invention will appear on examining the detailed description below, and the attached drawings in which:

FIG. 1A illustrates the diagram of an example of connected television set architecture adapted to receive a transmission stream containing an interactive application signaling table, FIG. 1B illustrates the diagram of another example of a connected television set architecture connected to a "Set Top Box" type device able to receive a transmission stream containing an interactive application signaling table, FIG. illustrates the diagram of an example of the composition of a DVB transmission stream comprising multiplexed components and an interactive application signaling table,

FIG. 3 illustrates the diagram of an exemplary architecture implemented according to one possible embodiment of the invention,

FIG. 4 illustrates the diagram of an exemplary composition of the transmission stream according to the invention that can be implemented in a first embodiment, FIG. 5 represents the diagram of an exemplary composition of the transmission stream according to FIG. According to the invention, which can be implemented in a second embodiment, FIG. 6 represents the diagram of an exemplary composition of the transmission stream according to the invention that can be implemented in a variant of the second embodiment,

FIG. 7 represents the diagram of an exemplary composition of the transmission stream according to the invention that can be implemented in another variant of the second embodiment, and

Figure 8 schematically illustrates the main steps of the television data processing method in an exemplary embodiment.

The present invention will be described hereinafter in an embodiment using the DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) standard for the broadcasting of services to television sets equipped with digital tuners or connected to such a device. The invention is however not limited to this embodiment, and applies to access to services implementing other technologies or analog and / or digital standards, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art .

The services presented below are audio-visual programs with related features and applications, carried by a television data transmission stream, via one or more associated television channels.

Based on the Transport Stream standard format MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group), the DVB standard implements the transmission of information transmission streams, known as DVB transmission ". The DVB transmission stream conventionally transports one or more services with at least one associated component such as, for example, video, audio, teletext, subtitle, data, etc. components. Each component of the DVB transmission stream is an element or part of a service to be broadcast to reception apparatus, typically television sets. The service elements can be multiplexed in the DVB stream, called "DVB multiplex", to carry the information of a plurality of services in the same DVB transmission stream. For this purpose, the service elements are described according to signaling tables relating to the set of services, called "IS / PSI tables" (Service Information / Program Specifies Information) and identified, among other things, by their PID (Packet IDentifier). .

The services and service elements are broadcast within the DVB transmission stream in the form of packets identified by a PID identifier preferentially transmitted in series according to a FIFO technique (First In, First Out). Thus, the packets allow attribution and recognition of the data conveyed via the transmission stream for the implementation of services with television sets.

The PSI tables of a DVB transmission stream conventionally comprise a set of declarative tables of data relating to the services to be broadcast in the DVB multiplex including the following tables:

PAT (Program Association Table): A program association table that lists services with referencing of program map tables. The program association table further provides the PID identifier of the packets relating to a Network Information Table (NIT) comprising network information as described hereinafter;

PMT (Program Map Table): program mapping table, which lists the components of a service by identifying the PIDs of the related packets;

SI tables of a DVB stream traditionally include a set of additional declarative tables of data with additional information including the following tables:

Network Information Table (NIT): A network information table that includes information about the physical network;

SDT (Service Description Table): a service description table indicating the services available and including, for example, the name of one or more services; In addition, a DVB stream may also contain other tables such as Application Information Tables (AITs). An application information table describes an application-type service element, such as an interactive application. The AIT table thus describes the characteristics of this application among the structure, the type, the functions or the behavior of the application when the user selects the service.

In addition, an AIT application information table can define:

- the name of the application;

at least one protocol among HTTP and / or Object Carousel. This protocol is used to load the entry point of the application, that is to say the first page of the application;

a priority associated with each protocol, making it possible to choose the preferred protocol in the case where several protocols defined by the AIT table are available from the television set;

for each protocol, a pointer to the entry point of the application;

the basic domain of the application. Indeed, each application belongs to a domain:

* for applications whose first page is loaded by the protocol

HTTP, this is the fully qualified domain name (in English term: FQDN for "Fully Qualified Domain Name") associated with the corresponding URL ("Uniform Resource Locator" or "Universal Resource Locator");

* for applications whose entry point is loaded from a data carousel, this is the carousel.

The app does not have permission to perform queries that point outside its domain to load media content;

an extension of the application domain extending the aforementioned application domain, able to list pointers to localized data outside the base domain of the application. Typically, these pointers can be in the form of URL links that indicate the additional FQDN (s) and / or the additional carousel (s) from which application is authorized to access multimedia contents. In the following, we will call "domain of the application" the extended domain (base domain plus domain extension). Recall that an URL is composed of a "schema", an "authority", a "path", a "question" and a "fragment" to form an expression of the form "schema". : // authority / path? question # fragment. The authority is usually limited to a host name, usually a name or address of a computer server. In the case of URLs of type dvb, the authority may for example designate a data carousel component.

Illustratively, the extension of the application domain of the AIT table can specify a list of valid authorities that can be used by the application to retrieve additional multimedia content (the default domain being defined by all files available from the hierarchy of files accessible from the authority of the base URL or from the basic data carousel).

PMT program mapping tables are declarative tables of television data specific to one or more services and will be referred to as "PMT tables" in the remainder of the description of the invention. In addition, the application information tables of an interactive application will be named "AIT tables" afterwards.

Conventionally, for the implementation of an interactive application and its functionalities, the multimedia contents designated by an AIT table include data associated with the interactive application that can be in the form of a data file. As an illustration, a data file of a multimedia content of an interactive application can be an HTML (HyperText Markup Language) file that can point to CSS files (Cascading Style Sheets), JavaScript type files, PNG (Portable Network Graphics) or JPEG (Joint Photography Experts Group) images, Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) videos, etc. Classically, the AIT table defines the entry point of the application by pointing to an HTML file that is part of the application's base domain, and the other files come from the interactive application's domain. These reminders on the DVB standard having been made, we will now describe the implementation of interactive applications for a service or a set of services broadcast by a DVB transmission stream, and in particular as will be explained below, according to the HbbTV standard. In the context of the broadcasting of audiovisual services, the above-mentioned interactive applications make it possible to add various functionalities to one or more services broadcast via a DVB transmission stream and in particular to convey additional multimedia contents to the conventional contents of a service ( audiovisual components video, audio, subtitle, etc.).

Conventionally, the DVB transmission stream broadcasts a set of non-return services (broadcast broadcast). Broadcast broadcast of a set of services to a set of television sets is, therefore, undifferentiated and all data services is sent to all television sets. Such broadcasting can be implemented by a cyclical sending of the data without addressing services broadcast to all television sets receiving the DVB transmission stream, which data broadcast is called "data carousel" ("data carousel" in term English-speaker).

As part of the data carousel broadcasting of a DVB transmission stream, the data component relating to the multimedia content of an interactive application can advantageously follow the DSM-CC (Digital Storage Media Command and Control) standard. The DSM-CC standard covers among others the digital data transfer and proposes a protocol called "Object Carousel". The Object Carousel protocol is used to convey and exploit data components received via data carousels via a DVB transmission stream. To do this, the Object Carousel protocol provides a standard format for describing data tree structures and encapsulating objects received by data carousels. In this case, the objects may be in the form of data files and / or data directories. Here, the data carousels transmitted by the DVB transmission stream advantageously follow the DSM-CC standard and will be named "DSM-CC data carousels" thereafter.

The DSM-CC standard and its Object Carousel protocol are commonly implemented in connected application standards, including the MHP and HbbTV standards. For the following description, we will take as an example an embodiment applied to the standard HbbTV to illustrate the manipulations of the signaling tables according to the characteristics of the invention. However, it should be understood that the invention is not limited to the HbbTV standard and can be applied to other connected application standards having recourse to DVB transmission streams, AIT signaling tables and data carousels.

In the remainder of the description, reference is made to data carousels of the DSM-CC type as they are particularly suitable for conveying multimedia contents via a transmission stream. However, it should be noted that other types of data carousels can be used for the implementation of the invention as will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

The HbbTV standard focuses on the broadcasting of interactive applications via a DVB transmission stream for so-called "connected" television sets. A "connected television set" will be interpreted here as a television set connected to a device comprising a browser and a cache memory ("Set-Top Box" type equipment) and / or a television set including at least one integrated browser. and an integrated cache, which browsers are capable of executing URL requests. However, it will be understood that the notion of a television set is not limited to such devices and more broadly concerns any type of terminal comprising at least one browser and a cache memory, which terminals are able to receive and conform to interpret a stream of data. DVB transmission. For example, such a terminal is likely to be a computer with DVB transmission stream interpretation software.

In addition, the HbbTV standard implements a hybrid environment for broadcasting interactive applications (broadcast broadcast and broadband broadcast). Thus, the browser of a television set can retrieve the information relating to an interactive application according to two protocols and according to the following characteristics:

broadcast HTTP protocol "broadband" (interactive application information retrieved by URL requests of type "http" from remote servers via the Internet for example),

- Object Carousel broadcast protocol (interactive application information retrieved by "dvb" type URL requests from an identified DSM-CC data carousel component).

These two possible protocols for a connected television set to retrieve the data of a multimedia content of an interactive application via its browser, are defined in the AIT table corresponding to the interactive application. An interactive application AIT table can define one of two protocols or two protocols in parallel. If both protocols are defined, it is advantageous for the AIT table to provide an execution priority between the protocols.

When a connected television set uses the Object Carousel protocol, the browser of the connected television receiver retrieves the application data from a cache memory of the same connected television set. To do this, the browser executes a "dvb" type URL request from the cache, which dvb URL request includes at least one component identifier of the DSM-CC data carousel with which the data associated with the domain application (for example, HTML homepage multimedia content) of the interactive application can be retrieved. Such an identifier is called "component_tag" in the rest of this presentation. With reference to FIG. 1A, there is illustrated an example of audiovisual equipment 100 comprising a connected television set 101 receiving a DVB stream via the following reception means:

an antenna 102 in the context of a reception of the DVB stream by radio, a satellite dish 103 as part of a reception of the DVB stream by satellite transmission,

a cable 104 as part of a reception of the DVB stream by cable transmission. The connected television set 101 may also include an access 107 to a wide area network 106 of "internet" type. In the illustrated example, the NAV browser is integrated with the connected television set 101. Depending on the characteristics of the AIT table received by the connected television set 101 via the DVB transmission stream, the NAV browser executes URL requests. http or dvb URL queries to retrieve data from the broadcasted interactive applications. For HTTP URL requests, the NAV browser retrieves, for example, the data from the interactive application from a remote server SERV via access 107 to the WAN 106. For dvb URL requests, the NAV navigator retrieves the data from the application from the data carousels stored in a memory cache MEM which may be internal to the connected television set 101 (for memory, the data carousels preferentially follow the DSM-CC standard). A communication means 108 between the NAV browser and the memory cache MEM allows the browser to retrieve the data of an interactive application from the Identified DSM-CC data carousel component (via a component_tag identifier) by the dvb URL request. In addition, dvb URL requests to other DSM-CC data carousel components may come from the media contents pointed by the AIT table of the interactive application. Thus, HTML files, CSS code or JavaScript code are able to define URL requests for the recovery of other multimedia content conveyed by the transmission stream and corresponding to the interactive application.

As a purely illustrative example, the table AIT of an interactive application defines a base URL http (broadband broadcast) primarily to retrieve the relative data via the internet network 106 (the application data being stored on the remote server) SERV). The same table AIT also defines a DSM-CC (broadcast broadcast) data carousel component identifier for retrieving the application data via dvb URL request according to this identifier from the cache memory of the broadcast station. connected television. Thus, the NAV browser preferentially executes a request to the priority http specified priority URL for retrieval of the entry point of the application of the interactive application. However, if the connected television set 101 does not have access to the WAN 106, the NAV browser can still retrieve the application data from the MEM cache by executing the dvb URL request. with the identifier of the data carousel component DSM-CC.

With reference to FIG. 1B, the diagram of a variant of the example shown in FIG. 1A is illustrated with an example of audiovisual equipment 110 comprising a conventional television set 111 (without integrated browser or cache memory) connected to FIG. a set-top box STB device via a communication link 112. In this example, the NAV browser and the MEM cache memory are integrated in the STB device and here perform the same functions as in the example of FIG. 1A. It will be understood that according to this variant, the conventional television set 111 is considered as a television set connected by means of the STB device to which it is connected by the communication link 112. The television sets having such characteristics of the examples illustrated in the figures 1A and 1B, are named "connected television sets" for the rest of this talk.

To better understand the organization of the signaling tables of a DVB transmission stream and in this case, according to the standard HbbTV taken as an example, reference is now made to FIG. 2. In this figure, the simplified diagram of an exemplary DVB multiplex that satisfies the HbbTV standard for the undifferentiated broadcast of multiple services for a set of television sets (Multiplex MPTS: Multiple) is illustrated. Program Transport Stream). Among the signaling tables transmitted to the set of television sets, a first program association table PAT 200 lists, for example, two available services (identified by service identifiers: SID for "Service IDentifier") via the DVB transmission stream. For this purpose, the table PAT 200 comprises a set of pointers to a table NIT 201 and to the two tables PMT 202 A and 202B respectively associated with the service of SID equal to 1 and with the service of SID equal to 2. The pointers indicate the PID ID numbers of identified packets corresponding to different tables or services. It will be recalled that the NIT table 201 includes information relating to the network such as, for example, the identifier of this network and the name of the access provider. The PMT program map 202A lists the components of the service associated with this table and has pointers to the PIDs of the identified packets corresponding to them (a PMT is generally associated with a single service). In this sense, the PMT table 202A includes pointers to service components such as service elements PES 203A and 203B (Program Elementary Service). Here, the service elements PES 203A and 203B are for example a video component and an audio component. At the same time, the PMT 202B has a pointer to a service element of its own (service element PES 206).

In addition, a service PMT table (202A, 202B) can point to an AIT table (204, 207) and a DSM-CC data carousel component (205, 208) that define and compose an interactive application. For example, the PMT table 202A includes a pointer to an AIT table 204 (of PID equal to 2000) as well as to a data carousel component DSM-CC 205 (of PID equal to 2001). The AIT 204 describes the structure of the interactive application associated with the service of the PMT 202A with information about the application (protocol, name, URLs, etc.). The AIT table 204 defines one and / or two protocols for accessing the application content data, HTTP and / or Object Carousel, and a pointer to an entry point for each protocol (an HTTP URL for the HTTP protocol, a value of component_tag identifying a data carousel component for the Object Carousel protocol). In this illustrated example, each of the AIT tables 204 and 207 points to respective DSM-CC data carousel components (205, 208). As will be illustrated later, each of the interactive applications defined by these AIT tables may issue a dvb URL request to other DSM-CC data carousel components.

According to the HbbTV standard and as explained above, the two illustrated protocols can be used to retrieve the data of the application content, the HTTP protocol (HTTP URL request) and the Object Carousel protocol (URL request dvb). The organization of the signaling tables of the DVB transmission stream relative to the HbbTV standard thus makes it possible to broadcast to connected television sets interactive applications associated with services within a hybrid environment (broadcast / broadband). As described above, the use of the HTTP protocol makes it possible to envisage the differentiation of the multimedia contents sent by a remote server to the connected television sets (for example by identification of IP addresses in the case of a local network). This differentiation of content can be applied to television sets members of the same local network then having access to specific services for each of the connected television sets. The invention proposes, in the context of a unidirectional DVB transmission stream, a differentiation of the interactive application multimedia contents by limiting itself to the use of the Object Carousel protocol.

Referring now to Figure 3 which illustrates a non-limiting example of the infrastructure of a broadcast system 300 that can be implemented according to the invention. In this example, the broadcasting system 300 makes it possible to broadcast within an establishment a set of services composed in particular of audiovisual services and interactive applications.

To do this, the broadcasting system 300 advantageously comprises a "server" type computer entity comprising, for example, computer sub-entities including at least a first entity ENT1 and a second entity ENT2. The computer entity is shown in FIG. 3 in the form of a central site SC having the role of "head of the station" of the local network 302. The central site SC then forms the interface between a broadcasting network and the network. Local 302. The local network 302 here connects the television sets (TV1, TV2, TV3) to the computer entity. The central site SC has receiving means 102, 103, 104 for receiving a first transmission stream from the broadcast network. The first flow of transmission is received at the ENTl entity of the SC central site or stored as a file in an S entity or on the ENTl entity.

Entity ENTl comprises at least:

a means for generating and updating signaling tables (among others, tables

PAT, PMT, AIT, NIT, etc.),

access to a remote database or stored locally on the entity, means for generating and updating data carousels carrying multimedia contents (HTML files, scripts, images, generic data, specific data, etc.) ,

a transmission stream reception system from an antenna, a video acquisition system, a local server, etc., and / or access to a transmission stream stored as a file,

means for associating (multiplexing) signal tables and data carousels with a service or set of services of a transmission stream, and means for broadcasting that stream to an ENT2 entity.

According to these features, the entity ENT1 is able to manipulate and perform operations on the received transmission stream signaling tables to generate at least one transmission stream with the modified signaling tables.

According to a preferred embodiment (which will serve as an example for the rest of the description), the entity ENT1 receives the first transmission stream by modifying certain signaling tables of this stream (like the PAT table) and adding components. elementary and signaling tables of an additional transmission stream (which stream includes at least one additional service and an associated interactive application). In this way, the second transmission stream generated by the entity ENT1 comprises the original signaling tables of the first stream with, in addition, the tables of the supplementary stream. The additional stream added may come from the server S (as explained below) or may be stored at the entity ENT1.

It will be understood that this embodiment comprises the particular case where the first transmission stream is empty, in which case the second stream then comprises the single additional stream. On the other hand, according to another particular case, several additional streams are added to the first transmission stream.

In another possible embodiment, the entity ENT1 adapts the signaling tables of the first transmission stream to generate a second transmission stream with modified tables. The second transmission stream thus broadcasts one or more services that can present differentiated interactive applications (notably thanks to the generated data carousels) to the connected television sets, members of the local network 302. In such an embodiment, the entity ENT1 is capable of generating or modifying the AIT table of at least one application associated with one of the services of the first transmission stream or can associate a new interactive application with one of these services. In essence, this may consist of modifying an interactive application and / or services received via the television broadcasting network or any other source, or else adding an interactive application to one or more services of the first stream that does not did not have any. Such table manipulations are performed by means of operations of the entity ENT1 on the pointers of the PMT tables and / or the AIT tables and again make it possible to differentiate the multimedia contents broadcast on the television sets from an undifferentiated flow.

Advantageously, the entity ENT1 comprises at least one storage means for storing a database. Such a database comprises data and / or specific information corresponding to the identifiers of the television sets of the local network 302. The database can be pre-established within the entity ENT1 of the central site SC and or retrieved and updated regularly from a remote server (not shown in the figure). For purely illustrative and non-limiting purposes, the database is in the form of an association table as explained below. For example still in the context of a hotel establishment, the database is in the form of an association table relating to a database retrieved from a hotel occupancy management server and the in which we find the list of occupants of the rooms with their names and data specific to them.

The entity ENT2, for its part, is shaped in order to modulate and broadcast the second transmission stream generated by the entity ENT1 to the local area network 302. This entity ENT2 can be associated with an amplifier, an inverted splitter or any other means. suitable for broadcasting transmission streams over a local area network as it will appear for a man of the job. In this way, the second transmission stream generated is broadcast by the ENT2 entity to the member television sets (TV1, TV2, TV3) and this, in an undifferentiated manner and without a return path (in accordance with a "broadcast" broadcast) , each of the services of the stream broadcast being likely to have been associated with at least one interactive application in advance by the ENTl entity. This second stream may be transported on the local network 302 at the same time as other transmission streams directly from the broadcast network or other sources.

By way of example, FIG. 3 shows optional means including a reception means 304 and a module 303 connected to the network 302. The reception means 304 is of the antenna type and can receive a broadcast stream of television services. . This receiving means 304 is connected to the module 303 which is of the "inverted modulator" type. The module 303 receives the broadcast stream from the reception means 304 and the second transmission stream from the entity ENT2. The module 303 can thus add (at the output of the central site SC) other transmission streams to the television sets of the network 302.

The central site SC can be connected to a server S which broadcasts at least one additional service. This additional service may be added in the second stream to the set of services received via the first stream (a set that may be empty). This addition is done at the level of the entity ENTl of the central site SC by adding at least one pointer to the association table PAT of the second stream to the at least one supplementary service (pointer to the table PMT of this service additional). Advantageously, this additional service includes an associated interactive application. With respect to the example previously applied to a hotel establishment, it can be assumed that the supplementary service is an internal channel of the hotel and that the associated interactive application renders the display of the connected television set, the name of the occupant of the room.

According to the example illustrated in FIG. 3, the server S is external to the central site SC. However, it will be understood that the server S may alternatively or additionally be integrated with the central site SC of the broadcasting system 300. For such an embodiment, the entity ENT1 integrates the characteristics of the server S in order to modify the signaling tables. the second transmission stream by adding the supplementary service and the associated interactive application. The local network 302 may be based on a physical medium known and suitable for the implementation of local networks such as for example optical fiber, coaxial cable, twisted pair or other. In addition, the television sets TV1 and TV2 are connected television sets comprising at least one browser and at least one integrated cache memory (as shown in the example illustrated in FIG. 1A). The television set TV3 is a conventional television set connected to a STB device of the Set-Top box type, which device STB comprises at least one browser and at least one cache memory (as shown in the example in FIG. 1B). ). In the remainder of the presentation, we consider the hypothesis that the set of services (and associated interactive applications) is broadcast via a DVB transmission stream with an organization of the signaling tables identical or similar to that of the standard. HbbTV previously described with reference to Figure 2. However, it is recalled that the invention is not limited to the DVB standard, and could very well apply in other analog and / or digital contexts. In this case, program correspondence signaling tables, similar to PMT tables and AIT tables, could be used in compatibility with the selected technology or standards.

The connected television sets are compatible with the DVB standard and able to receive and interpret the signage (the SI / PSI signaling tables) as well as the data from the DVB transmission stream. In addition, the connected television sets can be controlled by control functions initiated by a suitable device such as a conventional remote control (not shown in the figures) communicating respectively with at least one television set connected by a wireless link.

According to a first embodiment, at least one service (from the set of undifferentiated services) conveyed in the second transmission stream is broadcast to all the connected television sets (TV1, TV2, TV3) of the local network 302 with an interactive application associated. To illustrate this embodiment, we will take the example according to which the service under consideration (with an associated application) is an additional service added by the entity ENT1 of the central site SC. However, it will be understood that this service could be a service from the first transmission stream received by the central site SC. Advantageously, the interactive application associated with the additional service added in the second transmission stream includes specific multimedia contents for each of the connected television sets. These multimedia contents relate to the identifiers of the television sets of the local network 302. In this sense, in the context of this embodiment, the supplementary service is broadcast in an undifferentiated manner to the television sets connected with an associated interactive application, which points to a multimedia content specific to the identifier of the post.

For this purpose, in the second DVB transmission stream, the AIT associated with the supplementary service identifies a DSM-CC data carousel component containing the entry point of the interactive application. This multimedia content of the application includes link requests (URL dvb) of at least one other multimedia content. This other multimedia content includes specific data and / or content for each of the connected television sets.

Concerning the multimedia content data specific to an interactive application, these are for example listed in a database broadcast by the entity ENT1. This database can be a retranscription of the database stored at the entity ENT1 and which notably includes data and / or differentiated content corresponding to the connected TV set identifiers. To do this, the entity ENT1 broadcasts the database it contains in the form of a multimedia content contained in a component of the data carousel components DSM-CC identified by the table AIT of the interactive application. The connected television sets can thus all recover the database presenting their identifiers with the data and / or differentiated contents corresponding to them.

According to this first embodiment, the database broadcast inside the DVB transmission stream is in the form of an association table. As a purely illustrative example, the association table can be defined in an ECMAScript (commonly called JavaScript) encoded data file, for example in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format, or in Extensible Markup Language (XML).

A preliminary phase of configuration of TV1 connected TV1 TV2 and STB device of the TV3 connected TV set can be performed before the broadcast of the set of services on the local network 302. This prior configuration phase consists in making each of the connected television sets able to identify, thanks to a script included in a multimedia content (for example JavaScript code), the specific data of an interactive application that are intended for it within the association table. Essentially, this consists in applying an identifier for which, at the end of this configuration, each of the TV sets connected to TV1 to TV3 has at least one own identification means for retrieving the multimedia content data intended for it in the association table broadcast. By way of example, such a configuration can be carried out on a bench for setting up television sets, or using a USB key, a memory card, a CAM (Conditional Access Module) module, or through a proprietary protocol and other appropriate means.

FIG. 4 shows a non-limiting example of a table organization of a DVB transmission stream according to this first embodiment. Here, two services 401 (listed in the PAT 400 table) broadcast in the second transmission stream (coming from the entity ENT1) which are derived from the first transmission stream (received by the entity ENT1) have been illustrated. In this example, it is considered that the signaling tables of these two services have not been modified at the central site SC and that their tables PMT 410 and 411 each point to conventional components of television programs in this case, at least one video component (420, 422) and an audio component (421, 423). Furthermore, the supplementary service 402 added by the entity ENT1 has also been represented. In the second transmission stream shown in FIG. 4, the entity ENT1 added a pointer (PID equal to 34) in the table PAT 400 to the table PMT 412 (which table PAT only listed two services in the first stream similarly to the example shown in Figure 2). The PMT table 412 lists the components associated with the supplementary service (video component 424, audio component 425), in particular the interactive application that has been associated with it by the entity ENT1. In this PMT table 412, the components of the interactive application are listed by the pointers 414 which point to:

to the AIT 430 table (describing the application associated with the service in the PMT 412 table),

a data carousel component DSM-CC 431 (entry point of the application and including basic multimedia content of the interactive application), and a data carousel component DSM-CC 432 (part of the extension of the application domain and also including at least one multimedia content). Here, a connected television set retrieves data and information from an interactive application following the Object Carousel protocol. The definition and implementation of the Object Carousel protocol are included in the AIT 430 table with, in essence, the identifier (component_tag_l) of the component of the data carousel DSM-CC 431 with which the NAV navigator of a control station. connected TV can retrieve the entry point of the application and its related data. For example, the entry point is an HTML home page. The data carousel component DSM-CC 431 stored in the memory cache MEM, thus includes an HTML file named "Home.html" relative to this home page. In addition, this home page may include at least one pointer (as URL dvb) to the second illustrated carousel component, the data carousel component DSM-CC 432.

In this exemplary embodiment, the authority of the dvb URL contained in the home page can be listed in the definition of the domain extension of the application described by the AIT 430 table. Such a home page may contain at least script language instructions (source code type of the application) to retrieve specific data based on the identifier of the TV and data pointed by the URL dvb. Thus, the NAV browser can retrieve the multimedia content contained in the data carousel component 432 pointed by the URL dvb of the application home page. For this example of the first embodiment, the data carousel component DSM-CC 432 has been illustrated as comprising an association table as mentioned above. Here, the association table (analogous to the database stored in the ENT1 entity) can be, for example, a file encoded in JSON or in any other format adapted to present a list of identifiers of the workstations. television connected with the corresponding data and / or contents of the interactive application. Here, we took the example of a file of type JavaScript named "names.js".

It should be noted that the data transported by the data carousel components DSM-CC 431 and 432 can belong to the same data carousel and be located in the same identified memory space (same carousel_id). So, the data set is simultaneously loaded to the cache when the NAV browser executes the dvb URL request from the memory to access the entry point of the application.

Still in the example applied to a hotel establishment, reference is made to an association table according to which there is a list of identifiers relating to each of the television sets (TVl, TV2, TV3) member of the local network 302. For each of the items is associated with a specific message to be displayed by the interactive application of the supplementary service.

Thus, each connected television set having an identifier (identifier likely to have been previously configured as previously explained), can retrieve the data which are specific and dedicated to it in the association table received via the data carried by the component of DSM-CC 432 data carousel of the second transmission stream.

The identification of the connected television sets can be carried out according to several possible variants.

A first variant aims to identify the television sets connected from the MAC (Media Access Control) address of the network interface of each of the television sets TV1 to TV3 within the local network 302. For the TV set connected TV3 , the address of the device STB to which it is connected in the local network 302 is considered. The database of the entity ENT1 is then advantageously pre-filled with the MAC addresses of the television sets on the local network 302 before associating information specific to the identifiers. According to the example of the previous association table, the ID1 to ID3 referenced relative to the television sets connected TV1 to TV3, are the respective MAC addresses of the television sets within the local network 302.

According to a second possible variant of this first embodiment, the identifier of each TV set connected TV1 to TV3 of the local network 302 is defined according to a unique identifier establishes during the prior configuration of the connected television sets. Such a unique identifier can flow:

an identifier stored in a file of the non-volatile memory of the connected television set,

an identifier entered by a menu (of hotel mode for example) of the connected television set,

an identifier included in a NAV browser cookie that does not have an expiration date,

an identifier derived from data of a non-volatile memory connected to the connected television set (USB key, external hard disk, etc.), or

other similar and appropriate means.

The unique identifier applied to each of the items is filled in or derived from the database stored in the entity ENT1. In addition to this variant, it is possible, for example, to use a unique identifier relating to the actual room number in which the connected television set is located.

According to another possible variant of this embodiment, the television sets are configured to recognize the additional service broadcast to all stations according to a specific identifier for each television. For example, the television set TV1 recognizes the supplementary service (SID equal to 3) under the name "ch 101", the television set TV2 recognizes the supplementary service under the name "ch 102" and the set TV3 recognizes the additional service under the name "ch 103". Thus, the identifiers ("101", "102", "103") of the television sets (TV1, TV2, TV3) are directly contained in the name of the additional service which has been assigned to them in the configuration of the stations.

Advantageously, for this variant of the first embodiment previously described, no description table of all the available services of the second broadcast stream, which would include an undifferentiated name for each of these services, is broadcast on the local network. 302, from the central site SC during and after the broadcast of all services. This forces the television sets to ignore the name of the service other than that provided during the configuration phase. For the above three variants, the connected television sets are considered to have a routine (implemented in the form of an API programming interface) executed to record:

the MAC address, or

- the unique identifier (previously configured), or

the name of a specific and / or additional service (previously configured). In this way, the connected television sets are able to identify the corresponding interactive application specific data in the association table. For such an embodiment, the routine may be available from the scripting language of the application that can be interpreted by the television set.

It will be understood that any other type of identification of connected television sets is conceivable for the implementation of this embodiment and is not limited to the identifiers of these variants as will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

According to a second embodiment, separate signaling tables are generated at the central site SC according to the connected television sets. In the context of a DVB transmission stream, this may result in the broadcast of the PMT signaling tables on the local network 302 from the central site SC, in a differentiated manner for the connected television sets. When all the services have been received at the central site SC via a first transmission stream, that is to say with undifferentiated original PMT tables, some of them can then be replaced by differentiated PMT tables according to the television sets for broadcast on the local network 302 via the second transmission stream. If an additional program is added by the ENT1 entity, the PMT tables in this service can also be replaced by differentiated tables.

For this second embodiment, a prior configuration phase can be performed for each of the connected television sets and this, before broadcasting the set of services on the local network 302. This configuration phase consists in making each of the stations of connected television TVl, TV2 and the STB device connected to the television set TV3, able to recognize and operate the PMT signaling tables dedicated to it (possibly with other television sets) and to ignore the PMT signaling tables which are not intended for him (but are intended for other television sets). At the end of this configuration, each of the television sets TV1 to TV3 is thus able to receive the service elements or the interactive applications to which the only PMT tables respectively dedicated to them point. For this purpose, the configuration of each of the television sets TV1 to TV3 can be performed by means of a respective list of SID service identifiers pointing to the PMT signaling tables (via a PAT table associating a PID with each SID) which will be intended for this television set. The configuration of the connected television sets can here also be carried out on a tuning bench of the television sets, with the aid of a USB key, a memory card or by means of a proprietary protocol and other means. appropriate

Referring now to Figure 5 which illustrates an example of the second transmission stream modified by the entity ENT1 according to the second embodiment. The services of conventional television programs (SID equal to 1 and SID equal to 2) are broadcast by the transmission stream and as illustrated in FIG. 4. According to the second embodiment, the supplementary service is added according to tables. distinct signaling. Thus, for the implementation of the supplementary service with the connected television sets, the entity ENT1 adds an additional service respectively by television set. In this sense, in this exemplary embodiment, three additional services are dedicated to the stations (SID equal to 3, SID equal to 4 and SID equal to 5). Since the PMT tables 510, 511 and 512 are broadcast to all television sets (TV1, TV2, TV3), the tables are differentiated so that the table PMT 510 is actually dedicated to the television set connected TV1 and the PMT tables 511 and 512 respectively dedicated to the connected television sets TV2 and TV3. However, it should be noted that PMT tables could possibly be intended for a plurality of connected television sets, rather than a single connected television set.

In addition, the definition of the associations between the PMT tables and the television sets connected TV1 to TV3 results from the configuration phase mentioned above. Each television set is thus configured with service numbers (a SID dedicated to each station) and PIDs that correspond to the PMT tables that are intended for each. As an example here:

the TV set connected TV1 ignores services 4 and 5 (PMT tables 511 and

512 of PID equal to 35 and 36) of the PAT 500 table,

the connected television set TV2 ignores services 3 and 5 (PMT tables 510 and 512 of PID equal to 34 and 36) of the PAT 500, and TV3 connected television ignores services 3 and 4 (PMT tables 510 and

511 of PID equal to 34 and 35).

To do this, the central site entity ENT1 SC adds pointers 501 to the PAT table 500 which point to the aforementioned PMT tables 510, 511 and 512.

Each of these PMT tables point here to the same service elements (relating to the components common to the different television sets receiving the second transmission stream) associated with the supplementary service, in this case to:

the service element PES 520 (video component type),

the PES 521 service element (of the audio component type),

the AIT table 522, and

the DSM-CC 523 data carousel component (which contains the entry point of the interactive application).

For a better understanding of Figure 5, all arrows for representing pointers have not been shown.

Here, the AIT table 522 and / or the files (multimedia contents) constituting the application and contained in the data carousel component DSM-CC 523 can identify and point to at least one component of the DSM-CC data carousel components. (524, 525, 526) specific to each of the PMT table services 510, 511 and 512. Thus, specific and differentiated multimedia content is assigned for each connected television set.

Several DSM-CC data carousel components may be stored at a cache location of a television set that is identified by a memory space identifier named "carousel_id". This data carousel is then called "multi-PID data carousel". Thus, the DSM-CC data carousel components of an interactive application can be located in the same memory space (DSM-CC data carousel components of the same carousel_id,) or in different memory spaces (carousel components DSM-CC data of different carousel_id). These two modes of operation are implemented respectively by the following two variants of the second embodiment for an identification of the DSM-CC data carousel component specific to each of the PMT table services 510, 511 and 512. According to a first variant (carousel_id DSM-CC data carousel components different), the base domain of the application of the AIT table 522 (with the identifier "component_tag_l") consists of the data carousel component DSM -CC 523 whose multimedia content includes at least one application script (including at least part of the application's source code) and includes a pointer (of URL type dvb) to one of the data carousel components DSM-CC Here, the data carousel component DSM-CC 523 (with a value of carousel_id equal to 0, for example) is located at a memory space different from the data carousel components DSM-CC 524, 525 and 525. 526 (which, for example, all have a value of carousel_id equal to 1). At the same time, the pointer (included in the application script) to one of the data carousel components DSM-CC 524, 525 and 526 includes a TV-specific identifier connected to point the carousel component. specific DSM-CC data (with differentiated multimedia content) to the television set that executes interactive application.

In this sense, for illustrative purposes, the multimedia content of the data carousel component DSM-CC 523 retrieves the service identifier (SID) dedicated to the connected television set to integrate it into a pointer (URL dvb) and thereby, generating a URL request with the identifier to a station-specific DSM-CC data carousel component having differentiated media content for that station. Here, according to the example, such a request points to a data carousel component DSM-CC specific to the identifier of the television set (SID service dedicated to it). To do this, the different dvb URLs, each having a connected television set identifier (SID), are declared (by the entity ENT1 when generating the second stream) in the definition of the extension of the application domain. in the table AIT 522.

According to a second variant (DSM-CC data carousel components of the same carousel_id,), the application domain of the AIT table 522 (with the identifier "component_tag_l") points to the data carousel component DSM-CC 523 , which component contains the entry point of the application. By way of example, the data carousel component DSM-CC 523 (with a value of carousel_id equal to 0 for example) has been located in the same memory space as the data carousel components DSM-CC 524, 525 or 526 (which, therefore, have a carouseljd value equal to 0 as well), in the form of a multi-PID data carousel. Note that DSM-CC data carousel components of the same carouseljd (but of component_tag of different value) are organized according to a file tree in the memory space identified by the carouseljd. In this way, with the use of the same carousel_id for the DSM-CC data carousel components of the PMT tables, the application domain defined in the AIT 522 table includes a dvb URL relative to the base URL but which also loads the DSM-CC data carousel components associated with the service dedicated to the television set. Thus, when the AIT table 522 points to the entry point of the application, the set of data carousel components DSM-CC of the same carouseljd is loaded into the same cache space, and the browser loads the point input from this memory space. However, since all DSM-CC data carousel components are simultaneously loaded into the cache memory, all that is required is a relative URL query (i.e. without any mention of the schema or authority) for achieve all these components. This relative URL can be advantageously contained in a list of links (list of authorized URLs). This list of links can be described by the AIT 522 table (the link list is then the basic domain of the application) or by multimedia content relating to the interactive application. It will be understood here that the application domain thus makes it possible to access the file tree of a memory space of the same carouseljd and to directly load the data carousel components DSM-CC that it comprises (including, in particular, the specific data carousel component DSM-CC). It is then no longer necessary to access other memory space (different carouseljd) to retrieve the differentiated multimedia contents and the declaration of an extension of the application domain in the AIT table is no longer required in this case.

By way of example, the PMT table 510 points to the AIT table 522 which describes the data carousel component DSM-CC 523 as an entry point. In this example, the data carousel components DSM-CC 523 and 524 have the same carouseljd and are thus loaded to the cache when accessed by the NAV browser at the entry point. A relative URL then makes it possible to simply point to all the data of the multi-PID carousel, and in this case, the data carousel component DSM-CC 524 (which includes multimedia content specific to the television set TV1). Thus, the second embodiment allows a differentiation of multimedia content broadcast from an undifferentiated service transmission stream to connected television sets. The manner of destining certain PMT signaling tables to some of the connected television sets, and the corresponding manner for a television set to receive and recognize the PMT signaling tables dedicated thereto, allow the assignment of the data specific to the stations. television (TV1, TV2, TV3) of the local network 302.

According to another variant of the second embodiment, an entry point of an interactive application (a home page for example) points to a multimedia content comprising data and / or multimedia content specific to corresponding identifiers (able, for illustrative purposes, be contained in an association table that includes a data carousel component DSM-CC pointed by the home page).

An association table here includes specific data for the service identifiers (SID) dedicated to each connected television set. As a purely illustrative example, such an association table can then be in the following form:

The interactive application received by a television set is able to recognize the service that is dedicated to it through an API programming interface of its scripting language. It is recalled that the application script can be included in the multimedia content (for example included in or pointed from an HTML page) of the application. Thus, the script raises the service identifier SID of the dedicated service to recover within the association table specific data assigned to its service identifier.

By way of non-limiting example and according to the data table presented above, reference is now made to FIG. 6. Here, the television set TV1 ignores the services of identifiers SID2 and SID3 but receives the service of identifier SID1 dedicated to him. For this purpose, the TV set TV1 only considers the PMT 510, which points to the AIT 600 table. According to this example of implementation, a script is transmitted via the multimedia content of the Basic domain of the interactive application (included here in the data carousel component DSM-CC 601). A programming interface of the scripting language retrieves the current SID service identifier. The script is thus able to retrieve the service identifier for which the station has been previously configured. Thus, it is possible to identify in the association table the data and / or multimedia contents specific to the corresponding identifier. As an example here, the association table is contained in the data carousel component DSM-CC 602 under a JavaScript file for example by the name "SID.js", which is pointed by the multimedia content of the component data carousel DSM-CC 601.

As a variant or in addition to this second embodiment, each of the PMT tables of the broadcast services comprises a pointer to an interactive application AIT table specific to each service. Thus, an AIT table is dedicated to each connected television set, which AIT table identifies a specific or common application entry point to the different AIT tables and each AIT table can list in its extension domain at least one specific pointer to differentiated multimedia content for the post.

Referring to Figure 7, there is illustrated an example of this variant. The PMT tables 710, 711 and 712 are here respectively dedicated to the connected television sets TV1, TV2 and TV3. Each of the PMT tables points to a specific AIT 720, 721, or 722 table. At the same time, the PMT tables 710, 711 and 712 also point to the data carousel components DSM-CC 724, 725 and 726 respectively comprising multimedia content specific to a connected television set. In addition, the AIT tables 720, 721 and 722 respectively have as their entry point the data carousel components DSM-CC 730, 731 and 732 (each being identified, for example, by component_tagl or component_tag2 or component_tag3). Here, the entry points are specific to the television sets and can thus point respectively to one of the data carousel components DSM-CC 724, 725 and 726 including the multimedia content specific to each station. In this way, each television set being configured to receive only one of the PMT tables 720, 721 and 722 of the example, the interactive application received by one of the connected television sets is specific for its differentiated multimedia content. .

It will be noted that, although the use of the signaling tables, in particular PMT and AIT, which is made in the embodiments which have just been described, introduces a differentiation between the television sets, the transmission flow of FIGS. 4, 5, 6 and 7 nevertheless remains in accordance with the DVB standard. Therefore, no substantial modification of the local area network 302 or television sets TV1 to TV3 is required. This is a major advantage that limits the complexity, the cost of development and maintenance of the proposed solution.

Advantageously, for the second embodiment previously described, no description table of all available services, including including a name for each of these services, is broadcast on the local network 302, from the central site SC during and after the broadcast of all services. This is the case in the example of FIGS. 5 to 7, in which the transmission stream represented does not contain an SDT table. This forces TVs to ignore services that were not planned during the configuration phase, and prevents them from being able to adjust to other services (the SDT table is necessary to allow tuning of channels on certain television sets). Alternatively, it may be interesting to broadcast a modified SDT table containing invalid information to force the television sets not to adjust to services that are not intended for them.

As mentioned above, this solution is not limited to the DVB standard, and could very well be applied in other analog and / or digital contexts. In this case, program correspondence signaling tables, similar to the PAT, PMT and / or AIT tables, could be used in compatibility with the selected technology or standards.

By virtue of what has just been described, it will be understood that the present invention allows access to services which is selective according to television sets connected to a local network. For this purpose, it uses signaling tables in a non-standard way, but nevertheless complies with the standards (in particular the DVB and HbbTV standards for example). This results in an addressing television sets for the broadcast of differentiated multimedia content from a transmission stream of a set of undifferentiated services without providing a modification of the local network.

Referring now to Figure 8 which summarizes the main steps of the television data processing method according to a general embodiment. In a first step S1, the entity ENT1 of the central site SC receives at least a first transmission stream Φι originating from the broadcasting network, a video file and / or a similar source and which may comprise one or more television services. with related information such as:

- television data specific to several television services, and

the signaling tables of the transmission stream.

In a step S2, the entity ENT1 of the central site SC modifies the signaling tables of the first transmission stream Oi including the PAT table, the PMT tables and / or the tables AIT in order to associate with at least one service a content specific multimedia CMMj to a TVj station identifier and multiplex the service or services to broadcast output. The stream Φ ₂ then comprises at least one differentiated multimedia content for each of the identifiers of television sets. The multimedia contents CMMj and the respective identifiers come from a database DDB (step D3) which is internal or connected to the entity ENT1. The entity ENT1 therefore generates in step S2 a second transmission stream Φ ₂ comprising:

all or part of the television data relating to the stream Φι,

pointers to multimedia content CMMj, and

the multimedia content data CMMj. In a step S4, the entity ENT2 of the central site SC broadcasts the stream Φ ₂ in an undifferentiated manner with the television sets with the signaling tables TS comprising the PAT tables, the PMT tables and / or the AIT tables modified by the entity ENT1.

In addition, other transmission streams for the television sets can then be added to the transmission stream broadcast by the ENT2 entity.

In a next step, the connected television sets receive the transmission stream Φ ₂ and carry out a T5 identification test. According to the T5 test, the television sets refer to the identifier assigned to them to recover the CMMj differentiated multimedia contents dedicated to them from the signaling tables TS of the stream Φ ₂ . The connected television sets, having recovered the multimedia content that is specific to them, read the differentiated multimedia content dedicated to them (step S6), for example for a display (DISP) or other. Advantageously, for all the embodiments described above, the components of the DSM-CC data carousels are updated dynamically when the database DDB of the entity ENT1 is modified. For example, in the example of a hotel establishment, when a new customer registers upon arrival at the reception, the specific data carousels destined for the television or televisions of the room in question are updated; which allows the interactive application to display a personalized greeting with its name when the client activates the channel containing the interactive application. To do this, the ENT1 entity uses the versioning mechanisms of the PMT, AIT tables, DSM-CC data carousel components and / or modules of these components. The use of the version control mechanism then forces the television set to load the updated data, or even to fully reload the application in the case of a version change of the AIT table.

Embodiments other than those described above may be contemplated within the scope of the present invention, as will be apparent to those skilled in the art. By way of example, it can be envisaged that the method is implemented more widely by any type of terminal capable of receiving and interpreting a DVB transmission stream (such as, for example, a computer).

Claims

A method of processing television data, implemented by a computing entity (SC), for differentiated multimedia content communication (CMMj) to a plurality of respective terminals (TV1, TV2, TV3) connected to said computing entity (SC), wherein:

a database (DDB) of identifiers (TVj) of said terminals (TV1, TV2, TV3) is accessible by the entity (SC), with, in correspondence of each identifier (TVj), a specific multimedia content (CMMj ) associated with this identifier (TVj),

said entity (SC), from a first stream (Φι) capable of comprising at least:

* television data, specific to several television services,

generates in the first stream (Φι) at least one association table (400; 500), a declarative table (412; 510, 511, 512; 710, 711, 712) and / or an interactive application table (430; ; 522; 600; 720, 721, 722), linked to at least one given identifier (TVj) by adding at least one pointer to a multimedia content (CMMj) associated with this given identifier,

for delivering to the terminals a second stream (Φ ₂ ) comprising:

* all or part of said television data (420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 520, 521), specific to several television services,

the data of identifiers of said terminals, and the multimedia contents (CMMj) respectively associated with said identifiers (TVj), and

* said declarative tables (410, 411) of said television data, with said generated tables (412, 430; 510, 511, 512, 522; 600; 710, 711, 712, 720, 721, 722), each terminal (TV1 , TV2, TV3) being able to:

- refer to said generated tables (412, 430; 510, 511, 512, 522; 600; 710, 711, 712, 720, 721, 722) related to the identifier (TVj) of this terminal, and

from there, recovering, in the second stream, a multimedia content (CMMj) declared from said generated tables (412, 430; 510, 511, 512, 522; 600; 710, 711, 712, 720, 721, 722); for a playback of the recovered multimedia content, said multimedia content (CMMj) retrieved then being content specific to this terminal.

The method according to claim 1, wherein, the database storing a unique identifier (TVj) for each terminal (TV1, TV2, TV3), the entity (SC) generates said interactive application table (430), by adding pointers to the multimedia contents (CMMj) of the second stream respectively in correspondence with identifiers relating to said unique identifiers (TVj) of said terminals.

3. Method according to one of claims 1 and 2, wherein the terminals are connected to the entity (SC) by a local area network (302), a MAC address being assigned to each terminal (TV1, TV2, TV3). , the database stores the MAC addresses of each terminal and each terminal identifier (TVj) of said database (DDB) corresponds to a terminal MAC address.

The method of claim 1, wherein, the database storing service identifiers (TVj) of said second stream (Φ ₂ ), the entity (SC) generates said interactive application table (430) by adding pointers to the multimedia contents (CMMj) of the second stream respectively in correspondence of the identifiers (TVj) of said services.

The method according to claim 1, wherein the entity (SC) assigning to each terminal (TV1, TV2, TV3) a dedicated service, to which at least one declarative table (710,

711, 712) and an interactive application table (720, 721, 722),

the entity (SC) generates, for each terminal (TV1, TV2, TV3), the interactive application table (720, 721, 722) associated with the dedicated service of this terminal, by adding a pointer to the multimedia content (CMMj ) associated with the identifier (TVj) of this terminal,

each terminal (TV1, TV2, TV3) being configured to recognize the declarative tables (710, 711, 712) associated with said dedicated service and to ignore the declarative tables associated with the services dedicated to other terminals.

The method according to claim 1, wherein the entity (SC) assigning to each terminal (TV1, TV2, TV3) a dedicated service, to which at least one declarative table (510,

511, 512) and an interactive application table (520, 521, 522),

the first stream (Φ ^ has at least one association table (500) including service identifiers, and the entity (SC) generates said interactive application table (600), by adding pointers to the multimedia contents (CMMj) of the second stream (Φ ₂ ) respectively in correspondence of the dedicated service identifiers,

each terminal (TV1, TV2, TV3) being configured to recognize the declarative tables (510, 511, 512) associated with said dedicated service and to ignore the declarative tables associated with the services dedicated to other terminals.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the entity (SC) assigning to each terminal (TV1, TV2, TV3) a dedicated service, which are associated at least one declarative table (510, 511, 512) and a table. interactive application (520, 521, 522),

the entity (SC) adds in the second stream (Φ ₂ ) at least one script of an application, said application script being pointed by the interactive application table (520, 521, 522) or by a multimedia content pointed by the interactive application table (520, 521, 522), and the execution of said application on a terminal generating a pointer to the multimedia content (CMMj) associated with the identifier (TVj) of this terminal,

The method of claim 7 wherein said script includes application source code.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein, the entity (SC) assigning to each terminal (TV1, TV2, TV3) a dedicated service, which are associated at least one declarative table (510, 511, 512) and a table interactive application (520, 521, 522),

the entity (SC) adds in the second stream (Φ ₂ ) at least one list of links including at least one link,

said link list being defined in the interactive application table (520, 521, 522) or by multimedia content pointed to by the interactive application table (520, 521, 522), and said link of the link list points to a multimedia content (CMMj) relating to the identifier (TVj) of the terminal,

10. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the second stream (Φ ₂ ) comprises:

the data of identifiers of said terminals, and the multimedia contents (CMMj) respectively associated with said identifiers (TVj),

at least one declarative table and / or an interactive application table relating to an additional service, linked to at least one identifier (TVj) given by adding at least one pointer to a multimedia content (CMMj) associated with this given identifier, and

* in the declarative table and / or in the interactive application table associated with said supplementary service, a pointer to the identifier data (TVj) of said terminals,

each terminal (TV1, TV2, TV3) being able to:

refer to said declarative table and / or said interactive application declarative table associated with said additional service linked to the identifier (TVj) of this terminal, and

from there, recovering, in the second stream (<¾), multimedia content declared in said associated interactive application table for a playback of the multimedia content (CMMj) retrieved, said multimedia content (CMMj) retrieved then being a specific content terminal audit (TV1, TV2, TV3).

11. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein each of said terminals (TV1, TV2, TV3) is configured to recognize, from the identifier data (TVj) of said terminals, an identifier associated with this terminal.

A method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein no description table of said services, including at least one name relating to services, is modified or generated in said second stream during and after the generation of the second flux.

The method according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein said at least one second stream is generated according to the DVB standard, in particular according to the HbbTV standard, and in that the association table is a program association table ( PAT), the table declarative is a program map (PMT) and the interactive application table is an application information table (AIT).

14. Computer entity (SC) for processing television data for differentiated multimedia content communication (CMMj) to a plurality of respective terminals (TV1, TV2, TV3) connected to said entity (SC),

comprising:

a connection to a storage memory of a database (DDB) comprising identifiers (TVj) of said terminals (TV1, TV2, TV3) with, in correspondence of each identifier (TVj), a specific multimedia content (CMMj) associated with this identifier (TVj),

generation means, starting from a first flow (O likely to comprise at least:

* television data, specific to several television services,

at least one association table (400; 500), a declarative table (412; 510, 511, 512; 710,711,712) and / or an interactive application table (430; 522; 600; 720 , 721, 722), linked to at least one identifier (TVj) given by adding at least one pointer to a multimedia content (CMMj) associated with this given identifier,

for delivering a second stream (Φ ₂ ) comprising:

* said declarative tables (410, 411) of said television data, with said generated tables (412, 430; 510, 511, 512, 522; 600; 710, 711, 712, 720, 721, 722).

15. Computer program comprising instructions for implementing the method according to one of claims 1 to 14, when the program is executed by a processor.