A Graphical User Interface FRAMEWORK for digital television

César Pablo and Vuorimaa Petri

Telecommunications Software and Multimedia Laboratory

Helsinki University of Technology

P.O. Box 5400 FI-02015 HUT

FINLAND

Tel: +358 9 4515128

Fax: +358 9 4515351

E-mail: pcesar@tml.hut.fi and Petri.Vuorimaa@hut.fi

ABSTRACT

Currently, the number of non-PC devices used for interactive applications is increasing. Digital television set-top boxes, PDAs, and mobile phones are typical examples. Interactive applications are controlled via a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Consequently, a GUI framework is required. The objective is a unified GUI framework for all these new devices. Since one of the new devices is digital television, an implementation of a digital television GUI framework is presented. It has been developed following the HAVi specifications. Its main characteristics are use of Java, separation of look and feel, and lightweight widgets. The implementation is tested with a digital television application. The main conclusion proposed is that new devices should use a device-oriented GUI framework implementation. Moreover, specific implementations can be obtained by modifying the look or feel of the widgets.

Keywords: Digital television, DVB-MHP, GUI, HAVi, Java.