20 theibcdaily
10.09.2011
Consulting on connected TV Simon Gautlett, CTO for the Digital TV Group, explains the rationale behind the launch of specifications for connected TV services in the UK contained in D-Book 7, which includes extensions to the HbbTV standard he Digital TV Group (DTG) has always regarded international standards as an essential ingredient in the UK specification for UK digital terrestrial television (known as the D-Book). As the industry association for digital television in the UK, the DTG publishes and maintains the specification which is compiled by experts from the Group’s 150 member organisations including broadcasters, manufacturers, platf o r m o p e r a t o r s , t e c h n o l og y providers, retailers, government departments, trade bodies and not for profit organisations. Since our inception we have worked closely with our members to adapt international standards to create an interoperable UK digital TV platform that consumers can rely on. The DTG also allows Digital Europe to use areas of D-Book copyright under license to encourage international harmonisation. The seventh edition of the DBook, published in March this year, includes the specification for UK Connected TV products and services. This provides manufacturers and service providers such as YouView, Virgin Media and Sky with a core common foundation upon which to build their own consumer offerings. Before work began on D-Book 7, the Group explored the global market to see what standards were available. HbbTV was being written in ETSI for the French and Germ a n m a r k e t s , p r i m a r i ly t o introduce interactive TV services with internet connectivity. In the UK, red button services via MHEG have been available since 1998 and more recent additions of the MHEG interaction channel have
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The DTG has a liaison with the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), which owns the digital locker system Ultraviolet – to ensure a common approach to file formats for protected content D-Book 7 includes significant extensions to the original HbbTV standard
provided connected functionality. However, useful work had been undertaken by HbbTV to prof ile the HTML interactive format and move towards a more advance connected TV offering. The DTG reviewed the HbbTV standard in depth as well as the underlying Open IPTV For um (OIPF) specifications HbbTV was built on and discussed with our members what we needed to do to make it work for the UK market. As a result, D-Book 7 includes significant extensions to the original HbbTV standard including: specific requirements for content providers, co-existence or presentation technologies (e.g. HTML with MHEG), adaptive streaming suppor t and an increased security mechanism to allow more content
Simon Gauntlett: consumers are becoming confused about what TV they should buy in order to receive the services they want
on the platform. Many of these extensions have now been fed back into the standardisation bodies to enable the next generation of HbbTV and Open IPTV Forum (OIPF) specifications. The DTG also has a liaison with the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) which owns the digital locker system Ultraviolet, to ensure a common approach to common file formats for protected content.
European harmony Earlier this year, the DTG chaired an ETSI Working Group with the aim of proposing a new version of ETSI ES 202 184 (MHEG) to include the Interaction Channel and IP Stream-
Prestigious certification for US company IMT By Ian McMurray Integrated Microwave Technologies is publicising the achievement of ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management certification for its Mt. Olive, New Jersey production facility. The announcement follows the company’s consolidation and expansion of its production capabilities in November 2010. The new facility in Mt. Olive is home to IMT’s research and development, application engineering, manufacturing assembly, electronic testing and customer technical support services. IMT’s range of produ c t s f o r comm ercial and government customers includes wireless camera systems, portable
ing features first published in DBook 6.2.1, along with additional advances in MHEG features created in other markets. This was published in March and enables wider adoption of MHEG through its publication in an international standard. This is the relationship the DTG has always had with international standards – we reference them
IMT has consolidated production into a new 65,000 sq. ft. site in New Jersey
video transmit and receive systems, airborne video downlinks, and central and diversity receivers. The ISO 9001:2008 standard is a set of international quality practices that ensures the use of effective processes that are consistently monitored and continually improved.
The certification validates a quality management system that promises customer satisfaction from effective implementation of the system, and conf irms an organisation’s solid foundation for consistent improvement through data use and analysis. “IMT continually strives for excellence and we are thrilled that the hard work and dedication of our employees has earned us this highly respected industry achievement,” said Integrated Microwave Technologies’ President, Stephen Shpock. “While we have received this certification, it does not mean our ISO journey ends here. IMT will continue to operate with a set of principles that ensure a common sense approach to the management of our business activities to consistently achieve customer satisfaction.” 1.D40
where possible, undertake modifications to make them work in the UK market and drive new innovations before pushing them back out, so that the next generation specifications can be harmonised across Europe. For broadcast, the DTG previously developed mechanisms for Active Format Descriptors which were fed into the DVB standard and adopted inter nationally. More recently we defined Target Region Descriptors as a mechanism for handling multiple regional variants and fed this back into the DVB where it was modif ied to meet European requirements, the DTG then modified the UK implementation to ensure it aligned with the DVB standards. Today’s Connected TV market
is increasingly fragmented, with different connected services being available on different products. As a result, consumers are becoming c o n f u s e d a b o u t wh a t T V t h ey should buy in order to receive the services they want. Through the DTG’s relationship with content providers we were informed that they don’t all have the capacity to make and maintain individual deals with manufacturers on specif ic implementations, instead most content providers would prefer a single common platform to target their services. D-Book 7 makes it easier for manufacturers to implement products built upon the same core, stable foundation across Europe and for service providers to support the same single standard. Of course, no technical specification can be effective without an accompanying test and conformance regime that is reviewed and approved by industry. The UK digital television industry’s test centre DTG Testing, which currently runs the test regimes for the Freeview and Freesat logos and the ‘digital tick’ conformance mark, is creating a test and conformance regime for Connected TV products and services. Through its liaisons with international standards and expertise the DTG will be able to test a range of receivers against the specifications, including products manufactured for sale in the UK and those designed for the European market. At IBC the DTG will be supporting a demonstration of MHEG IP Streaming on the ETSI stand (2.C29), with the assistance of Strategy and Technology (S&T). The demonstration is a standard VoD browser and player application, making use of the MHEG IP streaming features for Interaction Channel and Streaming, based on S&T’s MHEGPlayer system. The demo is free-to-view with advertising support. However, the specification includes the ability to stream encrypted premium content. We are also exhibiting on stand 5.A45.
MAM administration via the web Tedial By Michael Burns The latest version of the Tarsys media asset management system includes a web-based administration GUI for managing database data models. Tarsys – being demonstrated by Tedial today – features integrated HSM software. Content in a Tedial f ile-based system is indexed on ingest and a low-resolution proxy copy generated. If needed, only required parts of a file can be recovered from tape. Wherever it is stored, users see all content as a single archive. Combined with intelligent tape management, this means that users can treat content on tape as a readily accessible part of the store.
A web-based GUI can control the Tarsys filebased MAM system
Administrators can now access tools via any PC to manage data repositories, create folders for cataloguing and specialised metadata fields, thesaurus and multi-language dictionaries. The administration GUI provides tools for system auditing, allowing the administrator to check logs and review activities. Tarsys also allows administrators to manage multiple users’ access rights profiles. 8.B41