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June 2018
DVB celebrating 25 years!
What comes next?
2018 is a special year for DVB as it marks our
25th anniversary. In these 25 years, DVB has
revolutionised how we watch television.
In Europe, but also in many other parts of
the world, analogue TV has been replaced by
our technology. At least one of our standards
is used in every country — a development we
consider a worldwide success.
We started in 1993 with the needed
specifications for satellite, cable and
terrestrial transmission with a clear focus on
standard definition (SD) TV programmes.
Ten years later, with the second generation
of transmission standards, we provided the
technology for high definition (HD). And
just recently, we added to the list of DVB
specifications: 4K/Ultra HD (UHD) resolution
in combination with the advanced feature set
of high dynamic range (HDR), wider colour
gamut (WCG), high frame rate (HFR) and
next-generation audio (NGA).
This is a major milestone for broadcast
technology, because now, the end-user Quality
of Experience (QoS) comes close to replicating
the capabilities of the human eye. The first
implementations may not utilise the full range
of these new features but, over time, the full
range will become available.
These are solid and successful milestones
on the DVB road, but what will the future
bring? Peter MacAvock, chairman of DVB,
has outlined the journey as “strengthening
broadcasting and specify the transition to
seamless hybrid broadcast-broadband services
and delivery”.
In a way, DVB is now in a comparable
situation as 25 years ago, when we had to
define and manage the transition from
analogue to digital broadcast. Now, we are
confronted with the challenge of transitioning
from digital broadcast to a hybrid scenario,
and finally to an all-IP delivery scheme.
What is different to 25 years ago is the ready
availability of many tools and solutions —
you may even argue that there are too many
solutions on the market! Today, every over-
the-top (OTT)/video-on-demand (VoD)
provider has its own app to find and access
content. Each app will only work within the
domain of one provider; to access a wider
range of content, the user has to switch
between several apps.
On the other side, there are also challenges
— broadcasters and OTT/VoD content
providers are faced with a wide range of
different clients. More effort thus is required
to purpose the content to a plethora of players.
In addition, intensive testing is necessary to
ensure the overall system works. Another
concern is that content delivery via MPEG-
DASH suffers from long delays, as compared
to broadcast delivery. Furthermore, popular
live broadcast events result in high peak traffic,
as such content delivery networks need to be
designed for the peak loads, which will result
in an over-dimensioned and cost-inefficient
solution. Currently, the end-us