SAMflute acts as FLUTE/ALC client and analyses all data carousels within a DVB-H multiplex in real-time.

SAMflute processes FLUTE carousels either coming directly from a FLUTE server (e.g. via UDP multicast) or coming de-multiplexed directly out of a DVB-H multiplex.

In dvbSAM, SAMflute is closely interworking with SAMcorder, which feeds SAMflute with the de-multiplexed FLUTE services extracted out of the DVB-H multiplex.

SAMflute provides comprehensive features for in-depth analysis of data carousels transmitted via FLUTE/ALC protocol within DVB-H multiplexes. Furthermore it lively extracts the contents of all data carousels and stores them for further use in other applications.

Key Attributes:

• acts as independent FLUTE client, thus can be used standalone or in combination with SAMcorder
• supports UDP unicast and multicast
• processes several FLUTE carousels simultaneously
• extracts and stores all FDT instances
• extracts and stores all transmitted files
• display of announced and actually received files, file sizes, TOIs, encodings...
• measurement of carousel cycle times
• calculation of the file transfer bitrate for each carousel
• decoding of XML, ESG and announcement files
• endless archive of all received files ever transmitted within a data carousel (all received files get stored versioned onto disk)
• provides comfortable graphical user interface
• capable of unattended operation at 24/7

SAMflute receives IP streams on an UDP socket containing FLUTE/ALC file transfer fragments. The fragments are extracted, the files are rebuilt and saved in the directory structure.

Several carousel receivers can be activated simultaneously.

Receiving and recording of DVB-H FLUTE carousel data using SAMflute

SAMflute can be used as part of the dvbSAM solution, where SAMcorder de-multiplexes a DVB-H transport stream and feeds SAMflute with the particular FLUTE services. This interworking is seamless as SAMcorder and SAMflute mutually create the corresponding IP clients and listeners for their communication automatically.

However, SAMflute can also be used standalone for other purposes, e.g. for FLUTE based file transfer in IP based networks. So SAMflute can also run standalone on particular clients in an IP based network where the FLUTE server sends the FLUTE services directly to remote clients, e.g. via UDP multicast.

For each carousel a detailed monitoring of the file transfer status, the announced and completed files, the amount of data and the time needed to complete a carousel cycle gets be displayed.

XML files can be decoded and get visualized in a comfortable treeview.

If a new announcement instance gets received by SAMflute then the new or updated files are recognized and stored automatically. Furthermore there is the possibility to archive all files ever received via the FLUTE carousel into a separate directory structure.

Monitoring and analysis using SAMflute

SAMflute provides an additional analysis function on FLUTE packet level. For using this feature it is possible to create a snapshot of up to tenthousand FLUTE packets of the most recently received packets.

The FLUTE packet analyzer allows to analyze the received data packages on FLUTE protocol level in all details.

FLUTE packet analyzer