Edition No.15 September 2005 DVB - SCENE Tune in to Digital Convergence in to Digital Tune 15 The Standard for the Digital World This issue’s highlights > 2ND Generation STBs > New Features For MHP > Advanced TV Displays Forecast Take > Analysis: DAB > Choosing An IPTV Solution > Market Watch It Outside A word from the DVB Project Office the various DAB based systems being considered for standardisation. Satellite delivered HDTV services in MIGRATION Europe are driving frenzied development of DVB-S2/H.264 set-top boxes. BSkyB, Premeire and DirecTV Peter MacAvock, in the US have announced plans to Executive Director TIME launch with the advanced set-top box. Not entirely coincidentally, we have SCENE brings you topical articles on seen the emergence of two both of these subjects and more groundbreaking technologies: one for besides. Looking beyond the transmission and the other for video immediate confines of the world of coding, which make economically After the nice European summer, DVB, we have a piece on the current viable the migration from MPEG-2 for September brings heightened activity status of DAB deployments, HD services at least. The question is in the form of IFA (Berlin) and IBC technology and set of services with whether affordable consumer (Amsterdam), amongst others. The hot renewed interest following the equipment is going to be available on topics this year are likely to be the development in Korea of the two time for the planned launches. Either launch of HDTV and the continued distinct systems, T-DMB and S-DMB. way, we are witnessing important extraordinary interest in handheld DVB continues its efforts at fostering steps in Europe towards an HDTV broadcasting. This edition of DVB- interoperability between DVB-H and future – it’s been a long time coming. Arqiva DPC-Digital Playout Center GmbH DVB-SCENE : 02 NEW Envivio Freescale Semiconductor Hewlett-Packard MEMBERS MPC Data Ltd. LIKE (Technical University Erlangen-Nürnberg) The views expressed in this newsletter are those of the individual DVB members or guests and are not necessarily the views of the DVB Project Office or Steering Board. Published by the DVB Project Office, c/o European Broadcasting Union, 17a Ancienne Route, CH-1218 Grand Saconnex, Switzerland. www.dvb.org & www.mhp.org Printed by Lithmark Limited. Editors: William Daly, Harold Bergin Editorial and Advertising enquiries to: WHD PR Email: [email protected] Telephone: +44 (0)20 7799 3100 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior consent of the publisher. All content correct at time of printing. (c) DVB-SCENE 2005. DVB and MHP are registered trademarks of the DVB Project. Certain other product names, brand names and company names may be trademarks or designations of their respective owners. To obtain extra copies of DVB Scene please contact Eoghan O’Sullivan at [email protected]. Delivery charges will apply. Jean-François Buggenhout, Networked Audio-Visual Systems, European Commission, Information Society and Media Directorate-General SUPPORTING SUCCESSSUCCESS The world of television is moving Through the cooperation with of a new plan for terrestrial digital towards high quality digital interactive organisations from Latin America and television (DVB-T/DVB-H/…) in about services. Satellite and cable operators Asia these projects contribute towards 120 nations. During her speech1 at the are progressively deploying their HDTV the development of early consensus, Seventh Radio Spectrum Policy offerings in Europe, while the switch easing the standardisation process. Group, the Commissioner Reding has from analogue to digital terrestrial With research being a long term stressed the importance of having a networks is improving the quality and investment, the European Commission coordinated action at European Level increasing the number of programmes is already preparing the next Framework and announced a Communication on offered to us. At the same time digital Programme (Seventh) of EU funded the preparation of the RRC-06 recording and time-shifting equipments R&D, covering the period of 2006-2010. conference which should come out in are becoming more affordable, and the second half of this year. Thanks DVB-SCENE : 03 In the field of broadcasting to mobile large HD flat screens are entering our to the analogue switch-off that would devices, it is expected that the DVB-H living room. Behind all those devices take place before 2012, as standard will be one of the major players and applications, the DVB family of recommended by the EC in its in Europe as well as in other countries standards is the guarantee for openness Communication on Accelerating the around the world. Its close relationship and interoperability. transition from analogue to digital to DVB-T, as well as its ability to broadcasting2, there should be enough Through its Research Framework manage power efficient reception, even spectrum available for all those Programmes, there is no doubt that the at high speed, makes DVB-H an promising applications, making European Commission (EC), has highly excellent candidate for this kind of interactive digital television a very contributed to the success of DVB application. However, the question of exciting experience, be it on your technologies in terms of research, spectrum availability is still open. development, cooperation and handheld device on the road, or your Next year, the ITU Regional standardisation activities. The EC ‘HD ready’ labelled flat screen display Radiocommunications Conference contribution to the DVB standards at home. RRC-06 is expected to revise the started with the work carried out by frequency plans for the use of the VHF/ 1 The views expressed in this document are of the research projects of the Third author and do not necessarily represent the views of UHF bands, including the development Framework Programme in the early 90’s the European Commission. on audio and video compression and 1 7th RSPG meeting, Brussels (June 16, 2005) – Speech from the Commissioner Ms Reding: transmission technologies. The results http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/05/374 2 EC Communication on Accelerating the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting (May 24, 2005): of these projects still find applications in http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/ecomm/useful_information/library/communic_reports/index_en.htm a wide range of domains, from digital television transmissions to the Information Society Technologies Research Framework Programmes lightweight portable music players. Later DRM on, the research projects pursued the COMPRESSION DELIVERY INTERACTIVITY MOBILITY efforts on an integrated and secure 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 MPEG-2 delivery chain, as well as the development of better compression FP3 FP4 FP5 FP6 FP7 algorithms standardised within MPEG-4. DTTB ATLANTIC CISMUNDUS INSTINCT Finally, other projects contributed to the HAMLET MOMUSYS CONFLUENT MHP-KDB ISIS SAMBITS MHP-CONFIDENCE further validation and evolution of the VALIDATE SAVANT PARTAKE DVB standards and participated in the EMPHASIS NEXTV PHENIX-SSA development of interactive satellite, VIPER MASCOT VAS-CHINA MPEG-4 PC MOWGLY cable and terrestrial broadcasting MOBILITY MIRADOR TPMHP models, with a special emphasis on TALISMAN CODIS MHP. Today in the context of the Sixth ADPS GMF4ITV Framework Programme of EU funded CODEC MONASIDRE QUOVADIS R&D (2002-2006), several DVB and DIGISAT MHP related projects are being carried CINENET out addressing convergent services, that INTERACT DVBIRD combine interactive digital broadcasting MOTIVATE and cellular communication networks. 22 ND GENERATION HDTV STBS Aidan O’Rourke, Marketing Director, IP Multimedia Access, Broadcom Corporation Before we discuss the evolution of Audio capabilities of the current crop features and capabilities of second of HD STBs usually include Dolby 5.1 generation high definition TV set-top surround sound, as well as support for boxes, we should look at first stereo mix down. BTSC encoders, for generation HD boxes. HD STBs are encoding stereo audio to a remote starting to become commonly second TV may also be provided. available from cable or satellite Finally the security features of these service providers, and their popularity existing boxes are primarily concerned is being fuelled by the availability of with conditional access. Security is attractively priced, large screen covered by either smart card based plasma or LCD slim TVs, and a supporting standards such as greater variety of high definition CableCard or other proprietary programming. solutions or it can also be network Current HD STBs employ MPEG-2 based. video decompression. MPEG-2 was As we look to the next generation of HD STBs, there are many technology DVB-SCENE : 04 standardised and developed in the early 1990s and provides a level of changes and usage model changes compression that is adequate for the that are driving major revisions of HD transmission of standard definition STB architectures. The following TV but requires significant bandwidth represents a list of what are probably (c. 20Mbps) for the transmission of the most significant of these changes: HD. High end Media Gateways, - MPEG-4 AVC video compression, additionally provide MPEG-2 providing an additional 2-3x compression for recording analogue improvement over MPEG-2 content to an embedded hard drive. - Upgrading of security to support HD STBs have many features such downloadable/renewal security as personal video recorders, dual mechanisms