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TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 09-10/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
Spark Receiver Software
Unlimited TV
via the Internet
Thomas Haring
FEATURE
just software updates or the
transfer of recordings.
Fulan takes it quite a few
steps further and opens for
the user not only the tun-
er input as a signal source
but also the Internet as a
way to view hundreds of
TV channels. This function
can be found on any Spark
software equipped receiver
under the Web-TV menu in
the Networking section of
the Main menu. Before we
go deeper into the special-
ties of this feature, we want
to quickly get a handle on
some of the terms that you
might come across.
The International Tele-
communication Union (ITU)
defines IPTV as TV, video,
audio, picture, multimedia
and data services that are
transmitted via IP based
networks with the required
amount of quality, security,
interactivity and reliability.
Clearly, though, the Inter-
net does not satisfy all of
the requirements of qual-
ity, security and reliability
so that it’s relatively easy
to tell the difference be-
tween WebTV and IPTV. If
an end-user uses his receiv-
er, whether it’s a mobile or
stationary device, to make
a direct connection with the
IPTV network of his pro-
vider without the need of an
Internet connection, then
we’re talking about IPTV. If
the Internet is required as a
transmission medium, then
it’s WebTV.
While the IPTV end-user,
in a provider controlled en-
1. The WebTV player can
be found in the Networking
section of the Spark software
2. While the channel list
appears on the right side
of the display, the currently
selected channel can be seen
in a smaller window on the
left side
3. Even HD content can be
received via WebTV
Fulan, with their Spark
software platform, has giv-
en themselves an ambitious
goal: and that is to provide
the end user a software
package for their digital re-
ceiver with the largest pos-
sible array of functions. Ob-
viously, with requirements
like these, the network/
Internet connection of the
receiver won’t be limited to