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Archive for the 'Digital Terrestrial' Category

MHP was no GEM: the jewel in interactive TV’s crown is likely to be the Internet

February 19, 2010 by Barry Flynn

Europe’s TV standards group DVB has designated GEM as its primary middleware technology in place of MHP - after standardisation body ETSI adopted it as a self-contained specification.

GEM - which stands for Globally Executable MHP - was, as its name suggests, a DVB-independent derivative of MHP (Multimedia Home Platform), a Java-based system originally proposed as a common European interactive TV platform.

Now, GEM becomes a standard in its own right, eclipsing MHP.

The original idea behind MHP was that its inclusion of a Java Virtual Machine would enable interoperability of interactive TV applications across different digital TV platforms. But in practice, MHP implementations turned out to be stripped-down, customized affairs that were only nominally independent of the platforms that deployed them.

MHP boxes also generally cost more than ones using interactive technologies such as OpenTV or MHEG, a factor which was exacerbated by an unexpected hike in licensing-fees in March 2006. MHP interactive environments also proved costly to maintain.

Thus, apart from MHP’s success in colonizing the Italian DTT market (the result of a government subsidy being made available for interactive set-top boxes), the middleware was never widely adopted.

GEM has now emerged as the more significant technology: (a) it is incorporated into the high-definition optical disc standard Blu-Ray; (b) it forms the basis for the US Opencable standard (under the brand ‘tru2way’); and (c) it underpins Brazil’s interactive middleware standard Ginga-J.

GEM is also compatible with the US and Japanese digital terrestrial broadcasting standards.

DVB claims that GEM/MHP technology is currently in around 50m devices worldwide, the vast majority of which are likely to be Blu-Ray players, in Farncombe’s view.

However, the trend towards hybrid decoders and connected TVs indicates that such broadcast-specific interactive TV platforms have probably had their day. In the future, interactivity on the TV is likely to use the broadband link and to derive from existing, tried-and-tested Internet technologies, with new standards such as Europe’s HbbTV and the UK’s Canvas pointing the way.

Posted in Digital Cable, Digital Satellite and Digital Terrestrial. 1 Comment

Higher TV viewing: DVRs may be the reason

December 17, 2009 by Barry Flynn

The UK regulator, Ofcom, has released international comparison data showing that the UK witnessed the highest average increase in TV watching during 2008 across 11 major economies, up by 3.2% to 3.8 hours a day. Ofcom also noted that the UK remained the country with the highest proportion of households with digital TV on their main set, at 88%.

It has generally been assumed that TV viewing is a counter-cyclical activity, because in a recession, consumers tend to cut down on going out and are therefore more likely to stay at home watching TV. However, the recession only began half-way through 2008, and although it was deeper in the UK than most other economies, this may not tell the whole story.

Ofcom’s second data-point suggests an additional factor: as digital TV penetration has increased in the UK, so has penetration of digital video recorders (DVRs) - and owners of DVRs watch more TV. Evidence from BSkyB’s Skyview panel suggests that users of DVRs watch in the region of 17% more television than their ‘linear’ counterparts.

Farncombe’s calculations (based on Ofcom’s quarterly digital TV reports), show that the number of DVRs in the UK (excluding Freesat) increased by 60% in 2008, putting DVRs in nearly a third of UK homes at the end of last year. This is no doubt contributing to the TV viewing increase noted by Ofcom.

This underlines the positive contribution on-demand consumption can make to viewing-levels increasingly under pressure in a traditional linear broadcast environment.

Posted in Digital Cable, Digital Satellite, Digital Terrestrial and Research. 0 Comments

French DTT in HD by 2015? Bonne Chance!

November 24, 2009 by Barry Flynn

The French regulator, the CSA, has suggested that France’s entire DTT platform could be broadcast in HDTV by 2015. The comments came from CSA member Alain Méar at a recent debate on the future of DTT in Paris, hosted by NPA Conseil.

Currently, there are 31 channels broadcasting across six DTT multiplexes, only five of which are available in HD (these are simulcasts of the Canal+ premium channel, public channels France 2 and Arte, and commercial channels TF1 and M6).

Since under French broadcasting rules, the standard-definition channels are broadcast in MPEG-2 and the HD ones in MPEG-4, there is scope for spectrum savings if simulcasting is stopped and all the channels are converted to MPEG-4.

Even so, the CSA’s proposals are challenging: eleven DTT multiplexes would be required, alongside another two to be reserved for mobile broadcast TV. The CSA itself has already complained that government plans to harmonize the so-called 800MHz band in line with EC recommendations - which would require part of the expected digital dividend from analogue switchoff to be allocated to mobile services - would endanger plans to migrate the DTT platform to HDTV. (The risk is real: a recent position paper by the EBU warns of the technical obstacles harmonization could place in the way of European analogue switchoff plans).

One answer would be to migrate to the use of the next-generation standard DVB-T2, which offers potential efficiency savings of at least 40% over DVB-T (the standard currently used in France for both standard-definition and high-definition services). DVB-T2 has been adopted in the UK in response to a similar conundrum.

However, during the debate, which Farncombe attended, it was not clear that the use of DVB-T2 was being considered by the CSA. It is difficult to see how the regulator can square the circle without it.

Posted in Digital Terrestrial. 0 Comments

Farncombe Consulting proposes replacement for DVB Common Scrambling Algorithm

October 26, 2009 by Barry Flynn

Farncombe Consulting Group, which hosts this blog, has published a second White Paper on TV Conditional Access (CA), which proposes a possible replacement for the DVB Common Scrambling Algorithm (CSA).

This is the hardware-based digital TV encryption technology mandated under European Law and which underpins today’s DVB-based pay-TV sector.

Farncombe’s in-house video security experts think it’s overdue for a replacement, arguing that - although it was introduced for the best possible motives in the early 1990s - the technology now raises serious commercial, regulatory and technical concerns for the digital pay-TV industry.

For instance, they point out, the CSA was designed for an era when operators were keen to avoid their content being distributed to PCs, and where broadband did not exist as a distribution medium. But neither of these factors apply today. This means operators are saddled with a technology which makes content distribution more difficult, and is not only already vulnerable to piracy but poised to become increasingly so.

In the White Paper, Farncombe accordingly proposes a next-generation replacement for the CSA, based on a ‘toolkit’ approach which mixes both hardware and software elements.

This will take time to implement, however. In the meantime, operators who upgrade their installed receiver base without addressing the security flaws in the CSA approach risk wasting their investment. Farncombe notes that the nature of this weakness is such that it only takes one hacked receiver to allow control words to be fed over broadband to any legacy DVB STB and enable pay-TV content to be pirated.

This implies that the industry needs to introduce a replacement as soon as possible.

A PDF of the new White Paper can be obtained from Farncombe by clicking here (or by pasting the following URL into your browser: http://www.farncombe.eu/index.php?menu=4.4) and filling in a simple registration form. Farncombe will then personally send you a copy.

Posted in Digital Cable, Digital Satellite, Digital Terrestrial and IPTV. 1 Comment

IBC Report - DVB-T2: a possible home for the DVB’s next-generation handheld standard?

September 13, 2009 by Barry Flynn

Connected TV met up at IBC for the first time with Peter Siebert, who recently took over from Peter MacAvock as executive director of the DVB Project office (earning himself the nickname ‘Peter 2.0′ in the process), and was treated to the latest version of the DVB standards road-map.

One of the most interesting elements to come out of our discussion concerned the fate of what used to be known as DVB-H2 - the next-generation version of the mobile/handheld broadcast standard DVB-H.

Temporarily shelved because of an intervening effort to get the satellite/terrestrial hybrid version of DVB-H (DVB-SH) underway (its first European implementation will be on the Solaris Mobile venture (see previous post), it is now back on the books again - under the working title of DVB-NGH (for ‘Next Generation Handheld).

Asked whether DVB-T2 - which has always encompassed advanced mobile broadcast capabilities as well as high-capacity fixed HDTV ones - mightn’t itself play the role of a DVB-H substitute, Siefert conceded that “maybe [DVB-NGH] is only DVB-T2. The elements of DVB-T2 are a good candidate.”

On the face of it, this might make good sense: operators in some countries are already looking upon robust profiles of DVB-T as a potential substitute for DVB-H, simply because such implementations re-use a pre-existing transmitter network.

Equally likely, perhaps, would be DVB-T2 with ‘add-ons’ - for instance, DVB-NGH could contain DVB-T2 plus LGE (4G) elements - or, indeed, it could end up as something entirely separate from DVB-T2, Siebert said.

In any event, the next DVB Technical Module meeting is expected to give the go-ahead to a new technical group which will decide what NGH will be based on.

At that same meeting, a study group will be reporting back on current industry 3D developments (very much the theme of this year’s IBC show) with a view to a decision being reached about what DVB’s role should be in the 3D standardisation process, if any. Siebert suggested DVB come contribute elements to do with service information and transport protocols.

Siebert said there was also an ongoing discussion going on between the HBBTV backers (see previous story) and DVB as to “whether DVB should play a more active role” in the hybrid DVB standardisation space, perhaps acting as an umbrella group for various industry initiatives.

Amongst other recent developments, nine European operators, including the likes of Kabel Deutschland, Kabel Baden Wittenberg, Ono and Com Hem, have now committed themselves to the next-generation version of DVB’s cable standard, DVB-C2. Siebert commented that in Germany in particular, cable operators were running out of capacity, so they required the extra capacity DVB-C2 could offer. As an example, he pointed to the fact that Kabel Deutchsland’s RFPs now contained questions about whether set-top box manufacturers were able to support DVB-C2.

The first DVB-C2 prototypes are due to be shown at the Anga Cable show in Germany next year, and IBC 2010 would certainly feature the technology, Siebert said.

Posted in Digital Cable, Digital Terrestrial, IPTV, Mobile TV and TV-over-Internet. 0 Comments