German DVB-I Pilot commences
September 7, 2022
Stakeholders from the media industry, including broadcasters, device manufacturers, software providers and research companies have announced the start of the ‘German DVB-I Pilot’. The project develops a common understanding of the DVB-I functionality and challenges as well as a standardised future scenario to include the complete DVB-I ecosystem.
DVB-I enables an easy access to video streaming offers of linear programmes over the internet, ensuring the same user-friendly experience than traditional TV broadcasting on TV sets. Due to DVB-I’s standardised open approach, enhanced TV services can basically be delivered to any devices that have internet access and a media player, including smart TVs, tablets and smartphones. The key features of the specification are structured service lists which enable a harmonised user interface, low latency streaming and many options for additional services. They include HbbTV offers, programme guides, accessibility services, genre-based and event channels. Furthermore, with DVB-I, the IP streams can be combined with conventional broadcast over satellite, cable and terrestrial to provide a hybrid experience. In this manner, DVB-I paves the way for a transition to an internet-based media distribution.
The German DVB-I Pilot is already supported by 19 organisations, including ARD, bmt, Dolby, DVB, EBU, Fraunhofer FOKUS, LG, MIT-xperts, OnScreen Publishing, ProSiebenSat.1 Media, rbb, RTL Deutschland, Sofia Digital, Sony, TARA Systems, TP Vision, Vestel, WDR and ZDF.
Remo Vogel (rbb), Project Manager of the German DVB-I Pilot, stated: “We’re pleased to see strong support from across the broadcast industry. With the pilot project we want to demonstrate a vision for a national market scenario, gather experience with the aggregation of service lists and identify technical gaps and requirements in the standard. The pilot project has a limited duration and does not, for now, include a decision for a market roll-out in Germany.”
The technical architecture includes service list aggregation and discovery via a Central Service List Registry (CSR). Further features are the inclusion of HbbTV as an integral part of the programmes today, solutions for DRM and subscription-based services, dynamically added event channels, region-specific channel sorting, EPGs with links to media libraries, playlists as channels, radio services, Next Generation Audio and much more.