A Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 2012, 5, 50-54
doi:10.4236/jsea.2012.512b011 Published Online December 2012 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/jsea)
Copyright © 2012 SciRes. JSEA
Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) Implication for
Education
Pannee Suanpang
Information Technology Department, Faculty of Science & Technology, Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, Bangkok, Thailand.
E-mail: dtechpannee@yahoo.com
Received 2012
ABSTRACT
This paper illustrates the development of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and its implication for education. IPTV is
a new type of educational technology that provides digital content (text, graphic, audio and video) which users watch as
television broadcasting on the In ternet. With the capabilities of IPTV that could be used for educational purpose.
Therefore, the IPTV project’s (Suan Dusit Internet Broadcasting: SDIB) aim has been to develop into a platform that
increase educational opportunities that support distant education. The IPTV system was designed to broadcast in four
channels (kids, video on demand, variety and radio). More than seven hundred program are being transmitted both
trough live and video on demand streams via computer, set top boxes and mobile devices. The IPTV system has been
implemented and used in 80 pilot schools. The data of an evaluation of the IPTV system was collected from question-
naires and interviews. The results indicated that IPTV users were highly satisfied with the contents, set top boxes, LCD
television, and overall IPTV systems.
Keywords: IPTV; Internet Broadcasting; Educational Technology
1. Introduction
Internet protocol television (IPTV) is a collection of
modern technologies in computing, networking, and sto-
rage integrated to delivery digital content through an
Internet Protocol (IP) network [1]. This system broad-
casts various types of digital content including text,
graphic, audio and video files over an IP network in or-
der to reach a large number of users [2]. IPTV uses digi-
tal broadcast network such as ADSL and satellite to
broadcast the data and provide user interface, which can
be either a television monitor or web page with a menu
organized in several categories such as movies, video
games and radio [3]. The IPTV occurrence is being con-
tinuously enhanced with improvements in its underlying
networking and computing. The successful deployment
of IPTV on a large scale is essentially dependent on a
wide range of supporting technologies [1,4].
IPTV has changed the way of users ’ access informa-
tion, knowledge and entertainment. It has been utilized in
multiple sectors such as business, entertainment, com-
munication, healthcare and education. The implication of
IPTV for education are becoming admired, especially in
supporting distant education. IPTV can provide more
collaborative content than traditional television applica-
tions and it encourages existing passive television learn-
ers to become more actively involved in their learning
activities [5]. However, there has been limited research
and a few articles on IPTV’s implications for education.
This study breaks new ground and addresses key ques-
tions about the development of IPTV system implica-
tions for teaching and learning. The aim of this paper is
to study the development and deployment of IPTV (Suan
Dusit Internet Broadcasting: SDIB) and its implications
for education.
1.1 IPTV Trends
Currently, the IPTV industry has grown enormously both
in term of n umber of s ubscribers and investments by
service providers. The world’s leading markets for IPTV
are Germany, France (2.7 million users end of 2009),
South Korea (1.8 million users), and other [1]. Multime-
dia Research Group is forecasting that the number of
global IPTV users i n 2013 will grow to 81 million and
the service revenue is expected to grow to $19.9 billion
[6,1].
IPTV trends create a new model for service provi-
sioning and a transition from traditional broadcaster-
centric television services to a user-centric television
Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) Implication for Education
Copyright © 2012 SciRes. JSEA
51
model. The IPTV user’s behavior is changing from ac-
tive to passive and content digitization allows for easier
distribution [1]. The advances in IPTV technology will
blend aspects of communication, social media, interac-
tivity, and search information in new ways. In the future,
IPTV is expected to change the user experience by en-
hancing user’s interactivity, service personalization (such
as content personalization, recommendations, target ad-
vertisements, and personalize channels [8], mobility and
multi devices/screen usage.
1.2. IPTV System Capabilities
The IPTV system capabilities [5,9] shown in Table 1
1.3. IPTV Architectures
The basic IPTV architecture shown in Figure 1.
Table 1. IPTV system capabilities.
Issues IPTV Capabilities
Users worldwide that have known IP addresses
and known locations
Video quality Controlled QoS, broadcast TV quality
Connection bandwidth Between 1 and 4 Mbit/s
Video format
MPEG-2
MPEG-4 Part 2
MPEG-4 Part (AVC)
Microsoft VC1
Receiver device Set top box with a television display
Resolution Full TV display
Reliability Stable
Security Uers are authentification and protected
Complementarily with
cable, terrestrial and
satellite broadcasting
Potential commenon STB, complementary
coverage, common metadata
Copyright Media is protected
Figure 1. Basic IPTV architectures.
The basic IPTV architecture components include [1]:
1) Acquisition severs (A-severs): for encoding video
and DRM metadata.
2) Distributed severs (D-Sever): provide caching and
QoS control.
3) VoD creators and severs: retain a library of en-
coded VoD content to provide VoD services.
4) IP routers: route IP packets and provide fast re-
route in case of routing failures.
5) Residential gateways: IP routers for bundled ser-
vice at home.
6) STBs: a STB (Set top box) is a device on the user
side that interfaces with the user terminal (e.g. TV, PC,
laptop, and others) with DSL or cable wiring.
2. IPTV Implication for Education
The IPV implications for education project was imple-
mented at Suan Dusit Rajbhat University, Thailand since
2008. The IPTV was called Suan Dusit Internet Broad-
casting (SDIB).
2.1. Aims of IPTV
The aims of IPTV are to develop new educational inno-
vations for supporting distance and life-long learning for
students of Suan Dusit Rajabhat University and to in-
crease learning channels for the delivery of information
and knowledge to local communities [11].
2.2. Concepts
IPTV was designed to support education. Figure 2 shows
the IPTV system design for support distance learning.
Internet
Figure 2. IPTV designed concept.
Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) Implication for Education
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52
2.3. Channels, Contents and Users
IPTV was designed to broadcast in four channels and
provided the following contents [2,3,10,11]:
Channel 1 (kid program): broadcasts teaching and
learning at Sa-Tid-La-Or-U-Tid primary schools.
Most of the contents are useful for distance students
who are studying in the Bachelor of Education Program
in Pre-school Education. Currently, the university has
more than 20,000 distance students who are studying
in this program. Most of them are teachers who are
working in the early childhood care centers in Thai-
land, and therefore the contents of this channel are
useful for them. This channel broadcast more than
372 programs that focus on early childhood education.
There are many interesting program such as brain-
based learning (BBL), toys for children, and food and
nutrition for children. Moreover, there are some live
programs such as Kindergarten Fantasia which broad-
casts children’s activities in their classroom; parents
can watch these programs from the Internet. Users
who are distance students currently number more
than 20,000. Furthermore, the audience includes par-
ents, kindergarten school teachers, and researchers
who are interested in studying early childhood educa-
tion.
Channel 2 (video on demand of university teaching):
broadcasts video on demand for bachelor’s and mas-
ter’s degree students. This channel broadcasts more
than 95 programs. Users wi ll be students who are
studying at Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, of which
there are currently around 30,000.
Channel 3 (variety): broadcasts variety programs with
a focus on the university’s strengths. This channel
broadcasts more than 240 programs. There are many
interesting program such as Food and Thai Cuisine,
Thai Handicrafts, Tourism in Thailand, Thai Food and
Beverages, and others. Users will be students, teach-
ers, university staff, and people who are interested in
these programs.
Channel 4 (radio): broadcast radio programs for users
who have low internet access. This channel broad-
casts 11 programs. There are many interesting pro-
grams such as Art of children, Knowledge Manage-
ment for Fun, and others. Users will be people who
have low speeds of internet access.
2.4. IPTV Architecture
The IPTV architecture design shows in Figure 3. It con-
sisted of
Studio rooms for live broadcasting which have high
definition video cameras.
A multimedia server (MMS) which separated one
channel from one server. Server numbers 1-3 were
located in the control room at Suan Dusit Rajabhat
University, Thailand. Server numbers 4-5 were
located at CAT Telecommunication as a co-location.
SAN storage for 6 terabytes for storing multimedia
content.
F5 as the load balance for distributing traffic to the
Intranet.
Website (sdib.dusit.ac.th) for broadcasting content
through users. Figure 4 shows website of the IPTV.
2.5. Devices
Users can access IPTV by using PCs, tablets (iPad, Galaxy
Tab, HP Touchpad), smart phones and smart TVs (iPhone,
Samsung, BlackBerry, Nokia, HTC, Sony Internet TV).
The browser supported both browsers on PCs (Internet
Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome) and browsers on mobiles
(Safari on iOS, Android, Internet Explorer Mobile).
Figure 3. IPTV hardware architecture.
Figure 4. IPTV website.
Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) Implication for Education
Copyright © 2012 SciRes. JSEA
53
The questionnaire was divided into three parts: demo-
graphics information, IPTV system evaluation, and user
satisfaction. The questionnaire trials and had a highly re-
liability (Alpha Coefficient by Cronbach) of 0.988.
2. Result
The demographics profile of IPTV’s users is given in
Table 2.
2.6. The Study
The IPTV study was im plemented in 80 pilot schools
around Thailand. Suan Dusit Rajabaht University pro-
vided free LCD television, set top boxes, and ADSL to
the pilot schools. The IPTV system was used by teachers
and students in the pilot schools for six months. The re-
search was complied through both quantitative (a ques-
tionnaire using 322 sam ples) and qualitative methods
(interviews).
Table 2. Demographic profiel of IP TV use r s.
Items Frequency Percent
Central 157 47.29
Southern 49 14.76
North 45 13.55
North-Eastern 71 21.39
Area
N/A 10 3.01
Femal 293 88.25
Male 37 11.14
Gender
N/A 2 0.60
>25 yrs. 9 2.71
26-35 yrs. 133 40.06
36-45 yrs. 116 34.94
<45 yrs. 72 21.69
Age
N/A 2 0.60
Undergraduate 9 2.71
Bachelor degree 280 84.34
Master degree/ Ph.D. 41 12.35
Education
N/A 2 0.60
>1 yr. 6 1.81
1-5 yrs. 98 29.52
< 5 yrs. 224 67.47
No experience 2 0.60
Work
experience
N/A 2 0.60
>1 yr. 27 8.13
1-5 yrs. 149 44.88
< 5 yrs. 141 42.47
No experience 13 3.92
IT
expereince
N/A 2 0.60
>1 yr. 37 11.14
1-5 yrs. 138 41.57
< 5 yrs. 144 43.37
No experience 11 3.31
Internet
expereince
N/A 2 0.60
Yes 314 94.58
No 15 4.52
Computer
at school N/A 3 0.90
The result of IPTV system evaluation found that most
of users used IPTV via set top box (84.34%) and used
IPTV at school 3-4 days per week on average.
The result of user’s satisfaction with the IPTV sys-
tem is shown in Table 3.
The result of the IPTV system evaluation showed that
the highest scores (mean =4.32) were achieved by the
television LCD, the overall IPTV system (mean =4.24),
benefits of using content from IPTV (mean = 4.16), con-
tent in IPTV (mean = 4.16) and set up box (mean = 4.04)
respectively. Here are some comments which illustrate
the usefulness of the IPTV system as follows:
“I really like IPTV system because it help use to
prepare teaching material easier for example I develop-
ments program it teach me how to make toys by using
plants and natures resources that we can find in our lo-
cal community. This is very useful for us.”
“We can use TV LCD for other purpose as well, such
as watching news, connect to the Internet and use for
watch IPTV programs.”
“I think, content in IPTV is really useful both for
teacher and students. Students can learn outside the
classroom by using IPTV system. It ‘s good for educa-
tion”
The result of IPTV program evaluation show that the
highest score were achieved by Toys developments
(means = 4.00), Novels for children (mean = 3.98),
Study tours outside the class room (means = 3.93),
Teaching and learning at Sa-Tid-La-U-Tid (mean = 3.93)
and English for fun (mean = 3.91), respectively. Here are
some comments illustrate the usefulness of IPTV pro-
grams as follows:
Table 3. User’s satisfaction using IPTV system.
Issues Mean SD
IPTV system
Television LCD 4.32 0.84
Overall IPTV system 4.24 0.72
Benefit of using content from IPTV 4.16 0.77
Content in IPTV 4.16 0.79
Set top box 4.04 0.87
Total 4.17 0.65
IPTV program
Toys developments 4.00 0.75
Novels for children 3.98 0.79
Study tours outside the class room 3.93 0.80
Teaching and learning at Sa-Tid-La-U-Tid 3.93 0.80
English for fun 3.91 0.84
Total 3.83 0.70
Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) Implication for Education
Copyright © 2012 SciRes. JSEA
54
“Kids in our school like to watch IPTV program very
much especially ‘Study tour outside the classroom’ pro-
gram because it help them to explore the world outside
the classroom. Children can learn by watching those
programs and discuss with their classmates. I think, the
IPTV system is very useful especially for teacher and
students in the rural areas that can access new knowl-
edge and information for supp ort lifelong learning.”
“Kids like to watch English for fun program because
our school doesn’t have foreigner teachers to teach Eng-
lish. So, I open this program and use for my teaching.
Students are rea lly like it.”
3. Conclusion
The implication of IPTV ‘s use in education was illus-
trated in this paper. The IPTV project background was
demonstrated and explained through IPTV concepts,
channels contents and users, architecture and devices.
The IPTV concepts were design to support distant learn-
ing. It consisted of four channels (kids, video on demand,
variety and radio) and provided information regarding
bandwidth availability and it supported a variety of out-
put devices (television monitors, PCs and smart phones).
Users can watch IPTV programs both in the live and
video on demand format. An IPTV study was imple-
mented in pilot schools around Thailand. The result
found that the IPTV users have a high score of system
satisfaction and IPTV programs.
4. Future Work
The future study should develop IPTV to mobile IPTV
system because the technological trend of mobile IPTV
is becoming popular and advance. Mobile IPTV t ech-
nology is an application that allows users to transmit and
receive multimedia content through an IPTV based net-
work with the support of security, mobility and interac-
tivity [2]. Also, the research should focus on how to de-
velop learning pedagogy by using IPTV integrated with
social networking to support distance learning.
5. Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank you the Office of Aca-
demic Resource and Information Technology (ARIT) at
Suan Dusit Rajabhat University for providing IPTV sys-
tems to the pilot schools, and providing network infra-
structure for supporting IPTV operation.
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