OpenCaster is a collection of

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

and

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

for the Debian GNU/Linux system to play out and multiplex

MPEG transport stream MPEG transport stream (MPEG-TS, MTS) or simply transport stream (TS) is a standard digital container format for transmission and storage of audio, video, and Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) data. It is used in broadcast systems ...

s. OpenCaster generates most of the non audio/video data present into transport streams and handles playout of pre-encoded audio/video files or can be integrated with third parties audio/video encoders.

Common use cases

* Table generator (PSI/SI and

EPG Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information for ...

) * Interactive TV standards DSMCC object carousel broadcast ( MHP, MHEG5,

HbbTv Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) is both an industry standard ( European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) TS 102 796) and promotional initiative for hybrid digital TV to harmonise the broadcast, Internet Protocol Television (I ...

, ...) * Multiplexing of input

multicast In computer networking, multicast is group communication where data transmission is addressed to a group of destination computers simultaneously. Multicast can be one-to-many or many-to-many distribution. Multicast should not be confused with ...

UDP

to output

UDP transport stream * Playout of locally stored, offline encoded audio and video for non-live TV and/or radio stations * VOD system based on mpeg2 transport stream over IP or over DVB-* for walled garden network like hotels with coax * DVB-SSU update for decoders

OTA OTA or ota may stand for: Art, entertainment, and media * ''Off the Air'', an Adult Swim television series * Otakon, an annual anime convention in Baltimore, Maryland Electronics, science, and technology * Ochratoxin A (also termed OTA), a mycoto ...

Teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...

generator

Design principles

OpenCaster supports Interprocess communication among its different tools using

Named pipes In computing, a named pipe (also known as a FIFO for its behavior) is an extension to the traditional pipe concept on Unix and Unix-like systems, and is one of the methods of inter-process communication (IPC). The concept is also found in OS/2 an ...

and enabling a high level of customization with

shell scripts A shell script is a computer program designed to be run by a Unix shell, a command-line interpreter. The various dialects of shell scripts are considered to be scripting languages. Typical operations performed by shell scripts include file manip ...

. The pipe paradigm has been criticized for performance, but the performance loss may be accepted for the ability to customize. Table generation is performed with

serialization In computing, serialization (or serialisation) is the process of translating a data structure or object state into a format that can be stored (e.g. files in secondary storage devices, data buffers in primary storage devices) or transmitted (e ...

of a

natural language In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved naturally in humans through use and repetition without conscious planning or premeditation. Natural languages ...

description in

Python Python may refer to: Snakes * Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia ** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia * Python (mythology), a mythical serpent Computing * Python (pro ...

and already features a large number of descriptors from different digital television standards. Adding new descriptors to the library is simple, and only requires knowledge of how the packet is specified bit by bit.

History

Originally tests were done in

Cineca Cineca is a non-profit consortium, made up of 69 Italian universities, 27 national public research centres, the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR) and the Italian Ministry of Education (MI), and was established in 1969 in Casalecc ...

as part of a research project under a different name targeting broadcast of DSMCC file system for MHP interactive television but the project was already started from works by German National Research Center for Information Technology. The first service featuring OpenCaster DSMCC was broadcast on air in Italy in 2003. The first non-live DVB service 100% generated by OpenCaster and open source mpeg2 encoders is operating on air since 2004. OpenCaster was presented at the 16th ACM international conference on Multimedia since then has been used also in other researches: DVB-T DIGITAL TV TANSMITTER BASED SOFTWARE, MHP Conformance test, Building of an HbbTV demonstrator a project in collaboration with

European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who ar ...

, Open Source End-2-End DVB-H Mobile TV services and network infrastructure — The DVB-H pilot in Denmark. OpenCaster was used in the

HbbTV Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) is both an industry standard ( European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) TS 102 796) and promotional initiative for hybrid digital TV to harmonise the broadcast, Internet Protocol Television (I ...

Test suite in 2014 and has been cited as tool in From the Aether to the Ethernet – Attacking the Internet using Broadcast Digital Television

Integration

OpenCaster has been successfully integrated with a long list of broadcasting products, among them there are products by Adtec,

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

Scientific Atlanta Scientific Atlanta, Inc. was a Georgia, United States-based manufacturer of cable television, telecommunications, and broadband equipment. Scientific Atlanta was founded in 1951 by a group of engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, an ...

, Deltacast, Dektec,

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

Tandberg Television Ericsson Television, formerly Tandberg Television, is a company providing MPEG-4 AVC, MPEG-2 and HEVC encoding decoding and control solutions, plus stream processing, packaging, network adaption and related products, for Contribution & Distribu ...

, Eurotek, Harmonic/Scopus,

MainConcept MainConcept GmbH is a software company founded in Germany by Markus Moenig and Thomas Zabel. They specialize in developing video/audio codecs and also applications and plug-ins related to video/audio encoding. They are a subsidiary of Endeavor S ...

, Mitan, Screen Service, Sr-Systems, Wellav, ...

Testing

OpenCaster has been tested with

Rohde & Schwarz Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co KG (, ) is an international electronics group specializing in the fields of electronic test equipment, broadcast & media, cybersecurity, radiomonitoring and radiolocation, and radiocommunication. The company provides ...

DVM100L and DVM 400 and it is continuously tested with Dektec StreamXpert

References

{{Reflist, colwidth=30em Streaming software