Two specifications hot off the press from Europe’s DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) body suggest that its heart is in the right place, but not that change is imminent. The standards body’s steering board has approved one initiative to push in-home redistribution of broadcast feeds to peripheral IP devices, such as smartphones; and another to encourage broadcasters to cash in on targeted advertising with watermarking technology.
The first spec, DVB Home Broadcast (DVB-HB), is brand new, enabling mobile devices to receive TV feeds at broadcast quality. We initially assumed that DVB-HB is an extension of DVB-I, which was announced in July 2019 to uphold the quality of linear TV delivered over the internet, however a DVB spokesperson was keen to assure us that the two specs have taken totally different approaches.
This DVB representative explained that DVB-HB is mainly tailored to extend broadcast services’ reach within the home, so that satellite and terrestrial TV services can address second screens. It aims to fill some gaps during the transition period, so that operators can extend their reach beyond the main screen while gearing up their services to be broadcast in a native IP format that will be directly tailored for these peripheral devices.
On the other hand, DVB-I was described as a concept to allow the discovery of both broadband and broadcast services (in the case of hybrid receivers) from the Internet, so that – for the user – the resulting channel list is a friendly and homogenized one. This reduces workloads for the manufacturers, who will not need to develop and maintain various apps that do not guarantee services prominence on devices where tons of apps are stacking up.
However, DVB-HB includes a more recently defined profile that allows DVB-I services to be supported.
The DVB camp has been ringing the bell of delivering broadcast to mobile devices since forever, much like ATSC 3.0 in the US, but it seems that its roll-out is moving at a snail’s pace. There has been no clear announcements of operators or broadcasters making use of DVB-I, although the spokesperson confirmed to us that several trials are underway in Germany and Iran, while the technology is under consideration in the UK.
Perhaps the roll-out of 5G will change things, as this is increasingly be flouted as the driving force for DTT-over-IP standards. The DVB envisions that applications for DVB-HB could extend beyond the home into public spaces such as hospitality and WiFi hotspots.
Meanwhile, the DVB Targeted Advertising (DVB-TA) specification has been updated to include watermarking as an alternative way to signal where content can be inserted on connected TVs displaying a DVB broadcast stream. DVB-TA was first published by ETSI in December, offering broadcasters new revenue streams brought by targeted advertising.