Foreseeing the growing importance and evolution of an integrated NGN IPTV infrastructure, Semantic IPTV implements an IPTV reference architecture that is based on current IPTV standardizations of the ITU-T IPTV Focus Group, ETSI TISPAN and Open IPTV Forum. Thereby we are following the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) based approach which originally provides a platform for converged, personalized and controlled person-to-person and person-to-content communication services.

The figure above depicts a high level view of the infrastructure and the interaction of the components we have developed for the semantic IPTV services. The infrastructure consists of a client and several server-side components:

• IPTV User Agent

  The IPTV User Agent located in the user equipment is the user's interface to the IPTV system.

• IPTV Applications

  IPTV Applications comprise IPTV service control and IPTV services such as Live TV, PVR, personalized channels and TV guides.

• Smart Recommender

  The smart recommender provides personalized information that has been adapted to the user's interests.

• Smart Telephony System

  The Smart Telephony System allows controlling of each device during a conversation and is an enabler for services like Follow-Me.

• IMS Service Enabler

  A presence server is used to manage valuable context information about users, services and devices inside the network. This is combined with an XDM Server for data management, which not only stores presence data but also IPTV services data such as user personalization profiles.

• IMS based Service Control

  The IMS based service control is responsible for SIP based IPTV routing, signalling and user access control.

• Media Control/Delivery Function

  The Media Control and Delivery function enables the streaming of mulitmedia content (live TV and stored media) to the user device.