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HbbTV
“HbbTV is the first
successful standard
to enable a horizontal
market for OTT services
and interactive
applications.”
speeds of adoption by different countries
is tricky but we can be confident that we
will find a way,” says Wang.
Although v1.5 offers an interoperable approach
to DRM, this is practically, and politically,
difficult to standardise on, “requiring at least two
vendors to be selected – that is if any at all can be
agreed upon at all,” notes Humax’s Hannent,
“The UK’s DTG in the UK has standardised
on an OIPF/HbbTV variant, but has currently
been unable to make the leap towards fixing a
content protection mechanism,” says Hannent.
The French appear to have agreed on Microsoft
PlayReady and Marlin, and the Germans are
letting the market decide on a de-facto from
content providers.”
Support of multiple DRM with a common
encryption will allow service providers to provide
secure streaming to HbbTV 1.5 sets, and is a
major step in making CTVs useful devices for pay-
TV services and VoD.
However, warns Jean-Marc Racine, managing
partner, Farncombe, retail devices are not pay-TV
devices, and the control and maintenance of the
security of the device will be a challenge. “The
industry has to take it into account and integrate
it in its operating mode. This is not yet the case,
and HbbTV and the device manufacturers
integrating it with DRMs or Ultraviolet are facing
similar challenges that will need to be addressed,”
he says.
Potter at Digital TV Labs agrees: “Unlike a
closed, vertical operator environment where
application interoperability is guaranteed by
intensive testing of a one or two proprietary STB
implementations, HbbTV applications will be
running on hundreds of
different digital TV devices
that are uncontrolled by
the operator or content
provider.
“In the UK this problem
was partially solved by a
good industry test suite via
the DTG and a strict
conformance regime tied to
the Freeview Logo, yet
writing MHEG
applications still required
lots of interoperability
testing,” says Potter.
Conformance test issues
HbbTV is planning an ‘honesty box’ conformance
system, where manufacturers self-certify their
compliance to the standard. “Many operators
completely underestimate the interoperability
problems they will encounter unless they
implement some type of manufacturer
conformance enforcement, through a logo, white
list or controlled certificate-based authentication
system,” advises Potter.
As HbbTV services begin to take off and
become increasingly more sophisticated, the need
to closely monitor the performance of the
network in order to improve customer services
and reduce churn will become more important.
“Consumers may not be able to take full
advantage of the service due to compatibility
issues with their existing hardware and software,
requiring them to upgrade their current set up,”
says Jean Schmitt a Director at JDSU. “HbbTV
does, after all, require an HD terminal device and
broadband connectivity, which may involve
additional costs.”
Getting the TV or set-top box connected to the
internet is another challenge. Until wireless
networking and other alternatives to Ethernet
such as powerline networking becomes the norm
in smart TVs and set-top boxes, connection rates
will remain low.
“The industry can’t expect users to run
Ethernet cables around their homes just to
connect their TV,” says Morris.
Work must also be done to build applications
and portals for connected TV which are simple
to use for the consumer. New features like
the Red Button which allows the start of an
OTT application directly out of a linear
streamed TV broadcast channel, combined with
DRM and streaming protocols, will enable
premium content services and support
multi-device usage.
“HbbTV can potentially offer the best of both
worlds through both ‘red button’ applications and
through manufacturer portals,” says Morris.
“Application developers and manufacturers will
need to focus on the quality of their apps, rather
than the quantity – offering a huge number of
apps in a TV portal can confuse the user rather
than helping them.”
According to Smartclips’ Chandrapal, one
theory is that populating TV screens with
suppliers’ apps will put customers off because it
complicates the viewing process. “However, we
see through fast growing traffic numbers that
consumers are attracted by apps, extending the
consumption of linear broadcast through
interactive music channels, casual games, catch-up
TV offerings or VoD stores.”
New features going forward
Long term, Farncombe’s Racine expects
connected TVs and OTT services to capture a
significant part of the viewing habits of European
consumers. “Connected devices are a fantastic
opportunity for established player to diversify
their services and attract new audience, it is also a
threat as it opens the door to competitors, and
certainly creating a clear strategy on how to
address them is more important than ever.”
Future features and standardisation of HbbTV
includes the development of open APIs that go
beyond next HbbTV releases, cloud assisted
services, and even face recognition and gesture
control, reports Schmitt.
“With strong existing alternatives including
IPTV, cable and YouTube (still the leading
provider of online video), broadcasters need to
determine what extra value employing the
additional interactivity that HbbTV services
provide will add for consumers and, indeed,
whether there’s currently sufficient market
demand to make it economically viable to invest
in,” argues Schmitt.
The technology may also go global. HbbTV has
also caught interest in the US, Japan, Australia,
China (which is conducting trials) and Malaysia,
where the imminent terrestrial DVB-T2 roll-out
has specified HbbTV.
16 May-June 2012 www.csimagazine.com