We Pledge Our Honor That We Have Abided by the Stevens Honor System

TV Signal Splitter

Design 6 - Assignment 5

March 25, 2011

"We pledge our honor that we have abided by the Stevens Honor System"

Richard Sanchez _____Richard Sanchez___

Tony Dominguez _____ Tony Dominguez__

Henry Vizuete ______Henry Vizuete____

Amilcar Javier _____Amilcar Javier_____

David Leon ______David Leon______

Table of Contents

Section 1 – Introduction……………………………………………………..3

Section 2 – Designs/Block Diagrams………………………………………4

Section 2 – Progression of Block Diagram………………………………...6

Section 3 – Self Analysis of Progress (SWOT)

Strength ………………………………………………………………..7

Weakness………………………………………………………………8

Opportunities…………………………………………………………...9

Threats………………………………………………………………….9

Appendix………………………………………………………………………10

Section 1 – Introduction

Brief explanation of the contents within this homework assignment

For this assignment, the group came together in efforts of designing a functional block diagram to illustrate the functionality of the TV Signal Splitter. Every member in the group helped come up with ideas for the design. Amilcar and Tony were responsible for putting the ideas to paper as illustrated in Section 2. The group went through multiple drafts before we were content with our final block diagram. The final diagram was created by David using a block designing application called Visio and can be seen in the Appendix. The functional descriptions and progression of the block diagrams were also done by Amilcar and Tony.

The diagram itself is not meant to be too specific with much detail but rather is the foundation which the group will go by for future assignments. Once the group gathers more information regarding each component, the group will expand upon the block diagram in order to clarify technical specification for fabrication/production.

Richard, the team leader, was responsible for organizing the team’s thoughts and ideas into one document as well as managed the responsibilities for each member in the group. Finally, Henry took leadership of adding to the group’s Self-Analysis Progress otherwise known as SWOT to include any new Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats which the group has encountered.

Section 2 - Designs/Block Diagrams

Below are some of the groups original ideas and designs

Figure 1 – (Left: design drawing by Amilcar; Right: design drawing by Tony)

Figure 2 –Block Diagram Rough draft 1

Figure 3 –Block Diagram rough draft 2

Figure 4 – Block Diagram rough draft 3

Figure 5 – Final Block diagram for TV signal Splitter

Section 3 - Description of block diagram
Progression of our Block Diagram
The group began by drawing out how our actual device would look like. In figure 1, one can observe some of the ideas the group came up with for design of the device; the one on the right was created by Tony and the other one was created by Amilcar. Both of the images contain HDMI in ports either on the front or back of the device to connect to the sources. The opposite side of each design has an HDMI out port that connects to the screen to show the different images on a display. The designers also added vents to keep the device cool and added switches to change the display sources, a power button that turns on the splitter, and LEDs to indicate if the device is on.
The group then proceeded to create a block diagram. The diagram in figure 2 has two sources sending their signal to a point, which then sends the combined signal into the splitter through HDMI. The splitter gets power from an external source like a battery or a plug to an outlet. The splitter then sends the divided images to the display. We realized that this design was too simple and did not account for an interface to control how the source would be displayed on the screen. It also did not account for how sound would be handled.
With this image in mind, the group went on to create our second block diagram as seen in Figure 3. This diagram displays two sources sending their signals to the TV splitter separately. The splitter again gets its power from a battery or outlet. After receiving the signal, the device checks to see if the user interacted with it through a remote control or by pressing buttons on the device. We decided that the source that is chosen to be the main one, this choice can either be made by pressing buttons on the device or by using a controller, would use the display speakers to project it’s sound and the secondary source would project it’s sound through stereo headset. After the user has chosen which source is the main one, the splitter sends the decision to an audio codec, which sends the sound through the appropriate medium. Although this diagram is a great step up from the first one, many things were missing. This diagram did not contain an interface or a way to loop the choices of the user so he can change the main and secondary sources at will.
Finally, our group created the third block diagram as illustrated in figure 4. Unlike the first two designs, this diagram has four sources sending their signals to the TV splitter, which gets its power from a battery or connection to an outlet, through HDMI in ports. The splitter then sends the four signals to a GUI on the display. This display allows the user to choose which of the 4 sources would be the main source and which would be the secondary. It also allows the user to alternate between the 4 sources and choose the orientation - landscape or horizontal, split screen or picture in picture. After the user has decided which of the sources is the main and the secondary, the GUI sends the signals to the audio codec. The codec then projects the main signal’s sound through the display speakers and the secondary signal’s sound through the stereo headphones. The screen then shows the main and secondary sources and projects the sound from each. Finally, the diagram loops to the GUI so that the user can choose different sources as his main and secondary and also change the orientation at will.

Section 4 - Self-Analysis of Progress (SWOT)

Strength

Television is the most widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that are either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. Picture in Picture is a feature of some television receivers and similar devices. One program (channel) is displayed on the full TV screen at the same time as one or more other programs are displayed in inset windows. Picture in Picture or Picture by Picture is useful if you are exploring the internet and want to watch the news at the same time. Or if you are playing a video game on your Sony Play Station 3 and your sibling wants to play Xbox 360, you both can use the same TV. The strengths of PIP/PBP are endless. The device would connect to the respected TV USB input slot that would connect directly to the back of the computer. Once connected the Device would then receive the two inputs that would normally be connected to the TV and thus enable the viewer to use his/her television with the picture and picture function with two inputs. The device itself would be approximately the size of an average book ideally and would contain HDMI input slots to receive inputs from various electronic devices. Most TVs that are being produced now all have multiple USB slots and this is why I have chosen to go with the USB approach rather than the HDMI approach that I previously wanted. The device will not only be geared towards younger adults who primarily use gaming consoles but also franchises display a vast amount of information on television. They would not need multiple television sets in order to display the information; they would be able to use one half of the screen for diagnostic of one item and other side of screen for another item. In addition, there are many television users that need a device as this for some projects or just for their personal entertainment. Thus, This idea generally applies to financial franchises/firms who use monitors as one of their main information gateways.

Weakness

The main weakness about this project is that by displaying various sources on one screen, the user may become very distracted. PiP solved this issue by making the main screen the only one with sound. We can adopt a similar solution and allow the user to switch the main screen at will. Another solution would be to do as another television feature known as Picture-and-Picture (PaP) does. PaP is very similar to PiP just that both displayed sources are viewed as the main screen. Sound is heard from the television speakers from one of the sources and the sound form the other source can be heard from headphones. Although this can solve the distraction issue, this can be very uncomfortable since users would have to remain close to the television screen so that the headphones can be used. I think the user should be able to press a button so that the focus switches to one of the sources and sound is heard from there while the second source is muted as done with PiP. This would solve the problem and keep the user at a comfortable distance.

Another weakness would be that in the future television manufactures could include this kind of technology in their models making our device useless. However, the old models could still use the device in order to split the signal.

Opportunities

Our project offers great opportunities to become a popular product due to the fact that this device is wanted for many people but has not been created yet. In addition, we are focusing on working with HDMI connectors in order to plug in any device that the user wants to use. There are some opportunities to expand its use to not only HDMI compatible devices but to any other device which does not use this connector. Having the possibility to expand the use of this product makes it even much more desirable and it would have a greater acceptation in the market. This expansion would not only be for the input but it would also be for the output in order to be used in any kind of display or output device. The opportunities for this product to become greatly demanded in the market are more than what we expected because after doing some research, we found out that this product has not being developed and people from every country of the world desire to have a product like this. Although the technology exists, it has not being developed in a small device as we plan to do. Other than output and input variety, another enhancement that this device could have is the ability to not only divide the screen in two section but in 4 or even 8 depending on the application. For example, security cameras would not need to have there independent display. They could be displayed all at the same time in the same screen. This would help minimize space for the security equipment needed and monitoring more efficient. Knowning these facts, the possibilities that this product would be a success are even better than what anybody could think of.

Threats

Some threats for this device are simply the fact that “why hasn't this been done before”. When talking to my colleagues, they all rave over the thought of such a device but the same issue that comes to mind is why hasn’t it been done already. However this theoretical problem is not the only one, the other is actually creating a program that could do such a task. The program would essentially “talk” to the television and tell it to initialize once the picture and picture feature was started. This could be tricky since our team might discover that the modding of the television might be needed to create such a communication. Also the main threat this product faces is marketability. Since this has really never been done or attempted, would a television manufacturer consider such a device simply because our team says it would be widely used. Also, television manufactures could use this technology and implement it in their models making our device useless. Another thread is that our device could become very expensive and the marketability would be even more difficult. Surveys and other methods of acquiring user thoughts would be needed to support this device, if made, to be marketable.

Appendix

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