Despite the growing importance of mobile connectivity, television is still the most important source for information and entertainment in people’s households. To meet customers’ demands for a converged broadcast and Web experience, many devices today are already equipped with Internet access and various technologies to access applications and services or allow companion device scenarios (e.g. using tablets and smartphones). This tutorial overviews the emerging Hybrid TV market, technologies used, current standardization activities and future trends. Furthermore, methodologies and requirements to introduce or expand existing services on TVs are layed out.

IPTV & Hybrid TV Landscape

Hybrid TV or Connected TV have become commonly used terms for TV sets capable of Internet-based applications. This tutorial deals with currently deployed proprietary as well as standardized platforms (e.g. HbbTV and OIPF) and relationships between these solutions are illustrated. In addition a categorization of commercial off-the-shelf devices and their supported services is given for participants of this tutorial.

IPTV Architecture

This part of the tutorial discusses hardware requirements and different operating systems in currently deployed and future IPTV systems and middleware. Moreover principles such as managed vs. unmanaged IPTV or native vs. Web application development are elaborated. Hereby advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches are demonstrated.

Enablers

What are common enablers for IPTV, Hybrid TV or WebTV services and how can they be integrated? This question is answered by diving into topics such as HTTP Adaptive Streaming, DRM and metadata information. Issues and limitations for new interactive services are debated and best-practices for these challenges are given.

Services

State of the art TV applications and services are explored in this part of the tutorial. Where and how can new services be published and what are potential “killer applications” in the future? This discussion will focus on the needs of content providers with existing services or plans to introduce services in this emerging Hybrid TV market. Furthermore opportunities for converged Web and TV services are discussed as well as technical challenges explained.

Level

Introductory

Prerequisites

No prequesites

Intended Audience

The tutorial is aimed at anyone interested in the convergence of broadcast and broadband, business opportunities, technical challenges and current research activities regarding IPTV, Hybrid TV and WebTV.