| Middleware technology is a computer software technology. It is a software layer based on the DTV (digital Television) receiver drivers and devices used to provide a complete API for interactive applications. Along with the quick development of technology in the sector of DTV and also the change of people's entertainment and leisure using TV, using a middleware technology in set-top box (STB) is mandatory. MBT system (Media Beacon Tower) is designed and implemented to reply to answer the needs of the Chinese market, and it provides a Java virtual machine so that interactive applications can be developed using Java language. The present article presents first briefly several organizations for the standardization in the DTV sector, and then it describes the basic software architecture used in STB, the concept, functionality and implementation scheme of middleware. Then the design principal, system architecture, functionality and components of MBT system are presented in the detail. The article describes the graphic engine and its associate APIs provided by MBT system. Some important concept and notions, such as pixel mode, characteristics of graphic primitives are presented as well. This article makes analysis on several popular HTML browsers used under LINUX system, and especially presents the functionality and architecture of ViewML, a commonly used HTML browser under LINUX system. And then the MBT graphics system, Flnx module, Libwww module, the HTTP and File protocols are also analyzed and described. Followed by the above presentation, the article presents in the detail the contribution made by the author on the improvement of drawing, algorithm for pixel alpha blending, change and use dynamically of font files. The article analyzes the defaults to be improved in ViewML, and presents the modifications made on object organization and event processing. A real execution result given by the ported ViewML in MBT system is also presented. |
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