TSBroadcaster vs SoftOC
Both S&T's SoftOC and TSBroadcaster build MPEG-2 transport streams containing OCAP or other iTV applications, but they are designed for very different purposes:
- SoftOC is a fine-grain tool which gives the user substantial flexibility over the structure and content of the transport streams it creates. SoftOC generates a stream of MPEG-2 transport stream packets whose payload consists of one or more encoded DSM-CC object or data carousels along with the associated PSI and SI sections. It is primarily designed to assist in receiver testing and is driven by an XML script file.
As a consequence, SoftOC is a core component of CableLabs's Automatic Test Environment (OCAP ATE). The Test Manager of the OCAP ATE generates XML appropriate to control the test transport streams generated by SoftOC.
- TSBroadcaster is GUI-driven package designed for deployment of ETV and OCAP applications in the lab or from a live headend. It's features include automatic scheduled play-out of applications, real time updates to application data, bandwidth allocation, creation/definition/play-out of multiple transport streams and n+1 redundancy with automatic failover. TSBroadcaster also includes full OCAP unbound application and OCAP Common Download support.
Both products use TSPlayer for multiplexing and play-out and are written in Java. TSBroadcaster is tightly integrated with TSPlayer.
Both SoftOC and TSBroadcaster can be installed on the same TSPlayer system if required.
Usage Examples
- SoftOC has the ability to create generic tables and descriptors. You can use this feature to create tables and descriptors with syntax errors which is extremely useful for receiver testing.
- SoftOC can use generic table to add proprietary tables, defined as hexadecimal, a string or from a file.
- Easy integration of SoftOC with test environments, such as the MHP and OCAP ATEs.
- TSBroadcaster puts all object carousel data on one PID, for each object carousel; whereas SoftOC can split an OC over many PIDS (e.g. 100), with an unlikely MPEG section size (e.g. 50 byte) to test receiver edge conditions.
- It is very easy to add a new application to a TSBroadcaster play-out. The process of building an application set and adding it to the play-out takes around 2 minutes. The same process with SoftOC takes longer and requires careful editing of the XML control file.