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Thursday, October 4, 2012

Challanges of the Hybrod TV

Hybrid Television, a product, a service or a technology?

Wise man say that Hybrid broadcast and broadband television combines and leverages the benefits of broadcast and Internet technologies, in order to offer new services to viewers, and boldly go where no man has gone before in the field of Television and Home Entertainment.
"Hybrid Tv" is the new name  given to the new technology resulted from the symbiosis between the Broadcast and Broadband services.

After, having the concepts cleared and proofed, other wise men requested for standards and frameworks, in order to have clear boundaries (and limitations?) for the newly architectured service.
 Also, the European Commission made some explicit sttments on this topic
Here some standards:

MHEG-IC (Interaction Channel) was eveloped in the UK  by DTG as an extension of the MHEG interactive middle-war.
Besides the  United Kingdom  (Freeview HD, Freesat DVB-T2 and DVB-S2 platforms), this standard was also used in Germany and Ireland (MHEG-5)
 
GEM/MHP Is a Javabased environment created for  DVB platforms, an open standard for interactive services.
Italy is probably the major MHP market in Europe with over 10 million MHP-enabled receivers. However, there are other countries havingMHP on at least one television platform: Belgium, Germany, Poland, Spain and Switzerland.

HbbTV
HbbTV was created by a group of 10 broadcasters and consumer electronics manufacturers, as an  interactive middleware that relies on of existing broadcast and web technologies
 HbbTV was standardized by ETSI in June 2010.
As of July 2010, commercial services are available in Germany while the Czech Republic, France and Spain have announced plans to adopt the standard.

Every product in the world is about revenue/profit. In order to achieve this basic goal, some market requirement are to be fulfilled. Some of these requirements are already fulfilled, some of them will be implemented in the future and some of them are currently under debate fr their legal, social, moral or ethical implications (Controversial requirements)


Future implementations requirements
This section provides requirements that could be implemented in hybrid television receivers in the
future. They are forward-looking and may best be considered as aspirations rather than agreed
requirements. It will not be possible for hybrid television receivers to include such requirements when they are deployed as of 2012.


New receiver features
These requirements relate to features that can be included when developing receivers in the future.
  • Devices should be able to display broadcast and broadband contents simultaneously (e.g. PiP
    functionality)
  • It should be investigated what mechanisms and subtitled formats should be adopted as mandatory requirements in streaming content on demand mp4 format.
  • In the case that a receiver can support more than one output screen, the application should be able to manage the content displayed in each screen.
  • Platforms and devices should accommodate systems, with a maximum of communality, which allow broadcasters and other content providers to provide a linkage between their linear and non-linear offers (permitting, in particular, enhanced or synchronised audiovisual content by a combination of linear and non-linear elements, e.g. online voting, sports statistics and sign language).
  • Receivers should implement an event synchronization mechanism coming from the broadband channel similar to the broadcast “stream event” mechanism.
  • The HBB system should accommodate advanced on-screen graphics.
Cookies management
These requirements relate to the use of cookies.
  •  A method should be available for HBB applications to know if the user has refused cookies.

Recording features
These requirements relate to the recording functionality of a hybrid television platform. 
  • If record functionalities are enabled on the HBB system, end-users shall be able to find, organize, schedule and record TV shows, including single episodes and series, taking into account broadcast and broadband content. The ability to record live broadband streams will need to be clarified based on the availability of technical standards.

Controversial requirements are those, for which the consensus has not been achieved among the different interest groups. These requirements may be specific to one country or market or may be pan-European broadcast requirements.
Such requirements could be implemented should alternative business models be adopted such as
subsidy allowances to offset the cost of receivers by the service platform operator.

Principles pertaining to broadcasters

These requirements relate to the rights of broadcasters to avoid overlays of third-party content, to
request the removal of widgets and to be given access to data regarding their programmes and
services.
  • Receivers must not allow the overlay of third-party content or commercial communications on the broadcaster’s content without the broadcaster's consent or an active decision by the viewer, whenever it is technically feasible. While accepted as a principle, legal backing may be necessary for enforcement.
  • The same conditions as for overlays must apply to commercial communications which appear anywhere on screen at the same time as the television broadcast.
  • Broadcasters must be able to request the removal of those widgets or applications that appear to facilitate access to pirated content.
  • Broadcasters must be informed about and, upon request, given access to, any data which that may be collected via hybrid systems relating to the use of their programmes and services, with due respect for data protection rules.

Access to broadcaster’s content

The below requirements relate to the access of broadcast content on hybrid TV portals, menus,
homes screens and broadcaster’s television channels.

  • Hybrid TV portals, hybrid TV menus and home screens must guarantee non-discriminatory access for all broadcasters and content providers.
  • Broadcasters' complete on-demand offering should be prominently displayed and easily
    accessible in an appropriate category on the hybrid TV menu or home screen.
  • Viewers must be able to access any portal site/application provided by the broadcaster from the
    home screen (where it should be identified by the broadcaster's logo or icon) and also while watching one of the broadcaster's television channels by pressing the red (or similar) button on the remote control

Receiver features
  • The below requirements relate to the reception of live content using the broadband network.The device should incorporate the feature "+ RTSP" that will allow reception of live content via the broadband communication channel.
  • The ability to record video on demand content streamed over broadband shall be under the control of the content provider.
  • In receivers with the technical capability of connecting external devices (e.g. microphones or cameras using USB connection), the HBB applications should be able to access the external devices.
  • In receivers supporting Bluetooth communication interface, HBB applications should be able to send or receive messages through this interface to and from external devices.




Reference http://www.digitag.org/DiscussionPaperV1.0.pdf


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