Advanced Television

Standards

Industry Forum boost for VR service adoption

At CES in Las Vegas, 28 companies announced the Virtual Reality Industry Forum (VRIF), a not-for-profit company with its purpose stated as: “To further the widespread availability of high-quality audiovisual VR experiences, for the benefit of consumers”. The Founding Members of VRIF are Akamai Technologies, ARRIS International, b<>com, Baylor University, CableLabs, Cinova Media, Dolby Laboratories, […]

January 6, 2017By Colin Mann

Ultra HD Forum updates deployment guidelines

The Ultra HD Forum, the global organisation defining industry best practices for the introduction of technologies to facilitate the ultra-HD viewing experience, has released version 1.2 of its Ultra HD Phase A industry guidelines. “Ultra HD Phase A” encompasses practices and technologies that are commercially feasible in UHD services today. This revision builds on best […]

January 6, 2017

Only DVB-T2/HEVC TV sets on sale in Italy

As of January 1st, the sale of TV sets with DVB-T/MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 encoding is no longer allowed in Italy. Retailers can market only TV sets with tuner compatible with the new second-generation digital terrestrial standard DVBT-2/HEVC, which allows for more efficient use of frequencies by an estimated 30 per cent compression of the signal. […]

January 5, 2017From Branislav Pekic in Rome

Streaming Video Alliance trials open caching systems

Industry body the Streaming Video Alliance – whose members include a broad range of suppliers, distributors and programmers – has confirmed that trials based on recently-approved Open Caching Request Routing and HTTPS Delegation Technical Specification are to begin. The trials are the first implementation by Alliance member companies of open caching systems that incorporate the […]

January 4, 2017

V-Nova joins SMPTE

V-Nova, a provider of video compression solutions, has joined the Society of Motion Pictures & Television Engineers (SMPTE), the organisation whose standards work has supported a century of technological advances in entertainment technology, to join fellow industry leaders in devising standards for software solutions enabling high-quality video experiences. V-Nova will participate with the SMPTE UK […]

December 19, 2016

HbbTV 2 test suite spec released

The HbbTV Association, a global initiative dedicated to providing an open standard for the delivery of broadcast and broadband services through connected TVs and set-top boxes, has released test suite version 9.0 which will support the HbbTV 2 specification. The new test suite expands on the existing suite, making it 50 per cent larger with […]

December 6, 2016

Broadband Forum seeks virtualisation consensus

The Broadband Forum has announced the first steps have been taken to form a new industry connectivity and virtualisation committee of global service providers which will resolve how connectivity and virtualisation are bought and sold by service providers worldwide. Founded by the Forum’s Service Provider Action Council (SPAC) – an international autonomous committee of service […]

December 1, 2016

ETSI Home Gateway Initiative smart home specs

Three Home Gateway Initiative specifications have been published as Technical Specifications by ETSI. Following the closure of the Home Gateway Initiative in June 2016, work on the three specifications was transferred to ETSI. They have now been published using the ETSI Publicly Available Specification process. The three specifications are ETSI TS 103 424, which deals […]

November 29, 2016

HomeGrid Forum G.hn certifies Xingtera

HomeGrid Forum has announced that Xingtera’s XT1800 G.hn chipset has been awarded its G.hn certification, recognising a high-performance product that allows networking over any form of cabling at a rate of 1 Gigabit per second – a direct result of Xingtera’s ongoing dedication to the development of the chipset. “At HomeGrid Forum we champion industry […]

November 28, 2016

DVB approves commercial requirements for ABR multicast

After consideration of the Commercial Requirements for ABR (Adaptive Bit Rate) Multicast presented to the 84th meeting of the DVB Steering Board (SB), the decision was made to commit the Technical Module to produce a specification.  The scope of the work will pave the way to providing a harmonised solution to the problem of transmitting […]

November 23, 2016