The Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) Framework for Web Access through Digital TV

Last decade has witnessed the first steps to the end of passive television. Thanks to continuous advances in hardware and software, now, digital TV technology is mature enough to enhance traditional TV sets (limited to content reproduction) with computing capability to execute multimedia software integrating richer formats. The MHP standard promises to enable interactive applications to be downloaded from broadcast networks and executed on receivers with specific hardware and software implementations from any manufacturer. But, as any new business, strong incentives are needed for the user to pay for it. New value-added services must be developed over TV if investors want to recover their money in a short period. And a significant example of such services is Internet access through television, which is becoming a reality in the last generation of digital SetTop boxes. However, both devices (computers and televisions) are different enough to require noteworthy modifications in their respective computing models. The MHP standard is the first one that tries to define regulations in that sense. In this paper, we analyse some technical aspects of the MHP solution.