what is MIDDLEWARE ?

MIDDLEWARE

I have some experience on working of Middlewares in set top boxes so here is a short understanding. Middleware is the software layer inside the set-top box that dramatically enhances your broadcast service.

MediaHighway, the world’s leading set-top box software, minimises the cost of set-top boxes by separating hardware and software layers, allowing you to source the right set-top boxes for your operation and port existing applications to new STBs. With MediaHighway, you can easily add new features while maintaining a consistent branded look across all boxes.

The driver layer provides low level control of the STB hardware while the middleware layer provides the general funtionality required in an MPEG-2 STB such as control of MPEG-2 decoding and conditional access.

The application layer is responsible for high level functionality of the STB and so determines how it appears to a user.      

   

Middleware  defines the interface between core layer the driver layer. All access to the driver layer of the STB code from the application layer will be via the MediaHighway core. The application layer is therefore not visible to the driver layer and not be considered by the driver developer.

Purpose of the middleware

The purpose of the middleware is to allow the core code independence from features and facilities provided by hardware devices present in an STB. The aim has been to define the interface at a low level to ensure efficient code while still allowing the manufacturer the max choice in hardware.

The middleware is designed so that chip vendor can write their own drivers as simple as possible, and without detailed knowledge of the middleware software.hardware drivers will be present for each hardware element.