12/22/2011: OpenHbb : towards a European standard for interactive TV

By one-clic on the TV remote control, it is possible to publish movie technical informations, to answer a direct poll, to consult the website of your preferred TV show. All this thanks to an interactivity platform based on a European standard.

OpenHbb is a collaborative R&D project, in which Cognacq-Jay Image is taking a role, and initiated by Cap Digital and Images&Réseaux competitivity pole. It has been financed by the 8th call for project of the Interministerial Fund (FUI).

An interactive television despite the lack of standard unifying service development and user interfaces: TV manufacturers, broadcasters, content producers, operators and aggregators are actively preparing interactive TV. It aims at implementing interactive TV applications to fully benefit from TV-internet complementarity. However, no standard unifying service development exists. That's why there is a variety of proprietary solutions and a urging content aggregators demand to see the emergence of a standard that could unify everything.

To promote the interactivity of the French Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT): the OpenHbb project aimed at promoting interactivity for the French DTT. It offered an interactivity solution based on a new European standard (HbbTV : Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV). Developed with open softwares, it offered interactivity thanks to several modules from content creation to development environment, installed in connected TV or digital decoder. This objective is consistent with the current trend in unifying devices, diffusion, contents and services at a European level to satisfy the most of users.

OpenHbb is in line with connected TV, unified in Europe thanks to HbbTV standard. The openHbb project has been very active in testing and correcting the standard. It contributed a lot the its promotion.
The HbbTV standard has been approved by ETSi in June 2010. HbbTV is born from a pan-European initiative aiming at providing an alternative to proprietary technologies. HbbTV's goal is to harmonize the data services access via broadcast/ Satellite / cable and Internet for decoders and connected TV.

Project partners:
The project leader is Streamezzo/Amdocs, specialist in mobile applications specially for TV on mobile.

V4x, provider of video-based solution for management and delivery applications and interactive services.

WizTiVi, provider of interactive solutions for connected screens.

Mediatvcom, consulting & expertise in digital media.

HD Forum, association gathering French DTT players, represented in the project by France Télévisions.

Le Télégramme, media group.

SmarDTV, technology provider for Pay TV and decoder.

TDF, Broadcast operator.

Cognacq Jay Image, a TDF group company, expert in audiovisual services and video management.

Telecom ParisTech, academic research laboratory possessing a recognized expertise in multimedia standards.