ETSI

The HbbTV Consortium--the group behind "Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV" (HbbTV), a pan-European initiative that was launched last August and that describes its goal as "harmonizing the broadcast and broadband delivery of entertainment services to the end-consumer through connected TV's and set-top boxes" (note: according to the Consortium, the HbbTV initiative is based on elements of existing specs, including OIPF, CEA, DVB and W3C specs; the consortium's founding members are ANT software, the EBU, France Televisions, Germany's Institut fuer Rundfunktechnik, OpenTV, Philips, Samsung, SES Astra, Sony and TF1)--said last week that version 1.1.1 of its specification has been approved by European standards agency, ETSI and l

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Cambridge, UK-based digital TV client software company, ANT, announced last week that Germany's CreNova Technology plans to build its new range of hybrid set-top boxes on the ANT Galio HbbTV platform.

The Open IPTV Forum (OIPF)--an industry group that is attempting to bring together telcos, consumer electronics manufacturers, and network infrastructure providers, in order to develop specifications for an open, end-to-end solution that will facilitate development and deployment of interactive, personalized IPTV services (note: the organization, whose founding members include Ericsson, FT Group, Nokia Siemens, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony and Telecom Italia, recently published the Architecture Specification for IPTV infrastructure elements and services to be included in Release 2 of its OIPF Specifications--see the article published on itvt.com, September 8th--and also recently published the Profi

Germany's Institut fuer Rundfunktechnik (IRT), a founding member of the industry consortium behind "Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV" (HbbTV), a pan-European initiative that describes its goal as "harmonizing the broadcast and broadband delivery of news, information and entertainment to the end consumer through TV's and set-top boxes with an optional Web connection" (note: other consortium members include Canal+, France Televisions and TF1; satellite operator SES Astra; and software providers OpenTV, ANT and Opera Software), last week announced the completion of the first HbbTV interoperability workshop, and also revealed that the consortium has submitted the HbbTV 1.1.1 specification draft (a copy of which can be downloaded from the HbbTV Web site) to int

The International MHEG Promotion Alliance (IMPALA), an organization that was set up in 2006 by Strategy & Technology, Cabot Communications and EchoStar Europe to promote use of the MHEG-5 standard outside the UK (note: MHEG-5 is the middleware standard upon which the UK's free-to-air digital terrestrial service, Freeview, is based; it was developed and standardized in the mid-90's as part of the DAVIC standardization effort to support interactivity and navigation for VOD services), announced Monday that the latest version of its open standard interactive TV middleware has now been submitted to ETSI for approval.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) announce Monday that it is organizing a joint interoperability testing event for IPTV and IMS core networks (note: IMS--which stands for IP Multimedia Subsystem--is a core element of next-generation fixed, mobile and broadcast communication networks). The organization, which plans to hold the event under its "Plugtests" brand in Lannion, France from October 16th-20th, says that the event's goal is to ensure complete interoperability of both equipment and services from different vendors and manufacturers.