As IBC 2011 gets under way, the HbbTV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV) consortium has revealed that since opening for membership in May 2011, it has now reached fifty members. HbbTV is an industry initiative that brings together broadcast and broadband TV services into one seamless user experience. The HbbTV standard utilises existing standards and web technologies including OIPF (Open IPTV Forum), CEA, DVB and W3C. Version 1.1.1 of the specification was published by European standards agency ETSI in June 2010. At IBC, over thirty companies will demonstrate HbbTV implementations.

HbbTV was first announced to the market in August 2009, since then HbbTV STBs (set-top boxes) and connected TVs have been widely deployed into the German Free-to-Air market. The standard also received support from the French government regulatory body for TV, the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA), with French HbbTV services launched in June 2011. In Spain, there is a wide consensus that HbbTV will be the deployed standard for interactive services, says the consortium. Already several national and regional terrestrial broadcasters have begun rolling out HbbTV services over DVB-T.

Klaus Illgner-Fehns, Chair of the HbbTV consortium noted the strong representation of HbbTV at IBC. “The formalisation of the membership earlier this year marked another important step for the HbbTV consortium and the take-up following this has been extremely positive. Since its formation, HbbTV has received support from across the delivery chain ensuring that the standard represents the interests of the broadcasters, CE device manufacturers and software providers,” he added.

Categories: Articles, HbbTV, OTT