Current TV trends & SmartTV Platforms

HbbTV general 

• What it is…
• How it works…
• Where it is…
• The HbbTV History and Evolution of the Versions

Demonstration of App Development Workflows 

HbbTV Feature Overview

• Summary of HbbTV 1.0 & 1.5
• Deep Dive HbbTV 2.0 & 2.0.1

HbbTV Trends, Innovations and Future Developments

• Linear Storytelling
• HbbTV to Portal Launch
• 360° Videos
• Ad-insertion from HbbTV 1.0 to HbbTV 2.0

This tutorial gives an overview on the current market situation of SmartTVs and HybridTV services in general as well as standardized technologies, such as Hybrid Broadcast Broadband Television (HbbTV), in particular. HbbTV Version 2.0.1 defines the technical requirements for the interaction of television and internet services in upcoming TV sets and Set-Top-Boxes. HbbTV applications may run in different modes: Broadcast independent applications are designed to run in the manufacturer’s service portal.

In contrast, broadcast related app shall overlay the actual linear TV program. The hybrid standard combines both worlds: broadband and broadcast. In this tutorial we will discuss the fragmented technology stack – both on a platform level (variety of hardware manufacturers and middleware solutions) and on a service level (e.g. different browsers, interpreters, and services).

In a deep dive session, we introduce the current version HbbTV 2.0.1, its main differences to older versions and new features. For instance, HbbTV 2.0.1 provides a more advanced technology stack: offering primarily HTML 5, DOM 3 and CSS 3. In addition, many other features are leveraging this upcoming standard: e.g. Subtitles via TTML, Companion Screens, Discovery Protocols, Media Synchronization Mechanisms, WebSockets and Advertising approaches using multiple HTML5 media elements.

In parallel, we show practical examples of the introduced features, from innovations that are market ready or already deployed up to developments that will leverage future TV consumptions. Moreover, we demonstrate an app development life cycle using emulators and live test environments consisting of test servers, playout systems, and HbbTV compliant TV sets.

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Foundations of Internet-delivered Media

• Adaptive Streaming Basics
• DASH, CENC, HLS, CMAF

Web-based protected media delivery

• Web APIs: MSE/EME, fetch(), XHR, WebSocket
• Cross-platform deployment to, SmartTV, HbbTV, FireTV, Chromecast, AppleTV, iOS, Android, Desktop etc.
• Codec, DRM and Cast support

Multi-DRM Backend

• OTT Strategy
• CPIX, PlayReady, Widevine, ClearKey

Advanced Web-based streaming features

• OTT and HbbTV Ad-insertion
• Low-latency streaming
• ABR Metrics/ Client coordination

360° Streaming

• State of the art: YouTube, Facebook etc.
• Challenges: Bandwidth, Processing, Motion-to-photon latency.
• Architectures: Cloud vs. Client vs. Hybrid Rendering.
• Projections: equirectangular, panoramic, cube, etc.
• Web APIs: MSE/EME, fetch(), Canvas, WebGL, WebVR
• SDOs

With streaming formats such as Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) and HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), content providers can reach many devices (mobile, desktop, TV, etc.) over-the-top (OTT). The upcoming MPEG Common Media Application Format (CMAF) standard will enable interoperability between both streaming formats by leveraging the same media format (ISOBMFF).

In order to distribute premium content, Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems are needed to protect the media streams. A DRM system enables content owners to control content policies. However, using only one DRM system to protect the video distribution is not the optimal solution to reach the maximum amount of devices, since a platform or device is normally tied to only the vendor’s DRM. As a result, a multi-DRM approach is required in order to protect content with more than one DRM system – the MPEG Common Encryption (CENC) standard enables this. Many components are involved in a multi-DRM backend, e.g. license server, encryptor or packager. The challenge is to ensure secure communication between these components, so that they can exchange sensitive metadata such as DRM licenses and encryption keys. This can be accomplished following a new specification named Content Protection Information Exchange Format (CPIX) by the DASH-IF.

An overview of advanced media streaming features such as ad-insertion, low latency streaming, client coordination and 360° streaming will be given. We will cover state of the art 360° streaming solutions, challenges, different architectures, projections and Web APIs. The tutorial will be supported by live demos.

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