Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) is both an industry standard ( European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) TS 102 796) and promotional initiative for hybrid digital television to harmonise the

broadcast Broadcasting is the data distribution, distribution of sound, audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), ...

, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), and

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

delivery of entertainment to the end consumer through connected TVs (

smart TV A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV or, rarely, CoTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features that allow users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart T ...

s) and

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also known as a cable converter box, cable box, receiver, or simply box, and historically television decoder or a converter, is an information appliance device that generally contains a Tuner (radio)#Television, TV tuner inpu ...

es. The HbbTV Association, comprising

digital broadcasting Digital broadcasting is the practice of using digital signals rather than analogue signals for broadcasting over radio frequency bands (radio broadcasting). Digital television broadcasting (especially satellite television) is widespread. Digital ...

and

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

industry companies, has established a standard for the delivery of broadcast TV and broadband TV to the home, through a single

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

, creating an open platform as an alternative to proprietary technologies. Products and services using the HbbTV standard can operate over different broadcasting technologies, such as

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

, or terrestrial networks. HbbTV can show

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using Digital signal, digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an ...

content from a number of different sources including traditional broadcast TV, Internet, and connected devices in the home. To watch hybrid digital TV, consumers will need a hybrid IPTV

Smart TV A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV or, rarely, CoTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features that allow users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart T ...

with a range of input connectors, including

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

as well as at least one tuner for receiving broadcast TV signals. The tuner can be

digital terrestrial television Digital terrestrial television (DTTV, DTT, or DTTB) is a technology for terrestrial television, in which television stations broadcast television content in a digital signal, digital format. Digital terrestrial television is a major technologica ...

(

DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Fe ...

DVB-T2 DVB-T2 is an abbreviation for "Digital Video Broadcasting – Second Generation Terrestrial"; it is the extension of the television standard DVB-T, issued by the consortium DVB, devised for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial telev ...

digital cable Digital cable is the distribution of cable television using digital data and video compression. The technology was first developed by General Instrument. By 2000, most cable companies offered digital features, eventually replacing their previo ...

(

DVB-C Digital Video Broadcasting - Cable (DVB-C) is the Digital Video Broadcasting, DVB European consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital television over coaxial cable, cable. This system transmits an MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 family digita ...

, DVB-C2) or digital satellite (

DVB-S Digital Video Broadcasting – Satellite (DVB-S) is the original DVB standard for satellite television and dates from 1995, in its first release, while development lasted from 1993 to 1997. The first commercial applications were by Canal+ in ...

DVB-S2 Digital Video Broadcasting - Satellite - Second Generation (DVB-S2) is a digital television broadcast standard that has been designed as a successor for the popular DVB-S system. It was developed in 2003 by the Digital Video Broadcasting Proj ...

History

The HbbTV Consortium (later HbbTV Association) was born in February 2009 from the French H4TV project and the German HTML profil project. HbbTV was first demonstrated in 2009, in France by

France Télévisions France Télévisions (; stylized since 2018 as ) is the French national public television broadcaster. It is a state-owned company formed from the integration of the public television channels France 2 (formerly Antenne 2) and France 3 (form ...

and two developers of set-top box technologies, Inverto Digital Labs of Luxembourg, and Pleyo of France, for the Roland Garros tennis sport event on a DTT transmission and an IP connection and in Germany using the Astra satellite at 19.2° east during the IFA and IBC exhibitions. In May 2011, in an email sent on behalf of the HbbTV Consortium steering group, supporters of the consortium were invited to become full members. The transitional arrangements towards the opening of membership would involve withdrawal of a number of privileges, including participation in meetings and contribution to further versions of the specification, from supporters that did not sign up. The cost of membership was around €7,000 for the first year. In June 2014, the HbbTV Association merged with the Open IPTV Forum, a similar industry organisation for end-to-end Internet Protocol television (

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV), also called TV over broadband, is the service delivery of television over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Usually sold and run by a Telephone company, telecom provider, it consists of broadcast live telev ...

) services formed in 2007, which worked closely with the HbbTV initiative on browser and media specifications for network-connected televisions and set-top boxes. The two initiatives were combined under the HbbTV Association's banner because the markets for IPTV, OTT and hybrid broadcast and broadband TV are converging. In September 2016 it was announced that the Smart TV Alliance, founded in 2012 by

LG Electronics LG Electronics Inc. () is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation headquartered in Yeouido-dong, Seoul, South Korea. LG Electronics is a part of LG, LG Corporation, the fourth ...

Panasonic is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturer, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Kadoma, Japan. It was founded in 1918 as in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Fukushima by Kōnosuke Matsushita. The company was incorporated in 1935 and renamed and c ...

Toshiba is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors ...

and TP Vision, was to merge with HbbTV, extending the scope of the HbbTV specification to address over-the-top services and to streamline standards. The merger was expected to be finalised within a year.

Applications and consumer products

Services delivered through HbbTV include enhanced

teletext Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipped television sets. Teletext sends data in the broadcast signal, hidden in the invisible vertical blanking interval area at the to ...

, catch-up services,

video-on-demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typical static broadcasting ...

, EPG, interactive advertising, personalisation, voting, games,

social networking A social network is a social structure consisting of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), networks of Dyad (sociology), dyadic ties, and other Social relation, social interactions between actors. The social network per ...

, and other multimedia applications. At the May 2010 Broadcast and Beyond Conference in London, Thomas Wrede, VP Product Management Media at SES, said that he expected HbbTV devices to be launched commercially from June 2010 with a consumer market introduction at the IFA consumer electronics trade fair in Berlin in September 2010. Wrede also noted that Humax and Videoweb both had conformant products and that at the then-recent ANGA Cable trade fair in Cologne, 12 manufacturers exhibited HbbTV devices, with another six working on product introduction. In March 2019

launched the first commercial deployment of the HbbTV "OpApp" operator App enabling Panasonic 2019 smart TVs to receive services from the high-definition

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location.ITU Radio Regulations, Section IV. Radio Stations and Systems ...

platform for German-speaking users, HD+ without the set-top box, CI module or smartcard previously required. With the app, the TV is only required to be connected to a satellite dish pointing at Astra 19.2°E and to the internet. The OpApp also offers HD+ viewers an 'instant restart' function, direct access to catch-up TV services and an interactive, customisable programme guide. Two weeks after Panasonic's introduction of the app,

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

also offered the app's integrated access to HD+ on its 2019 TVs. The OpApp acts like a virtual set-top box inside the smart TV so platform operators can provide a branded, uniform interface across different manufacturers.

Benefits

HbbTV devices enable consumers to view all of these advanced services on their TV, via a single device. In addition to a broader range of content from TV providers – ranging from traditional broadcast TV, video on-demand and catch-up TV services, like

BBC iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available Over-the-top media service, over-the-top on a wide range of devices, including Mobile phone, mobile phones and Tablet computer ...

– hybrid digital TV also provides consumers with access to

user-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), emerged from the rise of web services which allow a system's User (computing), users to create Content (media), content, such as images, videos, audio, text, testi ...

either stored on an external

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

, or

cloud storage Cloud storage is a model of computer data storage in which data, said to be on "the cloud", is stored remotely in logical pools and is accessible to users over a network, typically the Internet. The physical storage spans multiple servers (so ...

, and to a range of advanced interactive services and

applications. Hybrid set-top boxes are increasingly commonplace amongst

pay-TV Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...

operators, as they look to meet the changing media consumption trends for more video content, advanced interactivity and internet applications, like

. Operators like n, a division of ITI Neovision in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, and Telekom Austria are two of the leaders in the deployment of hybrid set-top boxes. The 2010 IPTV World Forum Awards recognized a hybrid solution as the best interactive TV service/application: the solution, developed by Advanced Digital Broadcast, was the first three-way hybrid platform that enables content delivered via

, terrestrial and

networks to be viewed on a television.

Association membership

The HbbTV consortium has over 75 supporting members from the CE and broadcast industries, including: * Standardisation and research bodies: ATET, Digital TV Group,

Dolby Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (Dolby Labs or simply Dolby) is a British-American technology corporation specializing in audio noise reduction, audio encoding/compression, spatial audio, and high-dynamic-range television (HDR) imaging. Dolby li ...

, EBU,

Everyone TV Everyone TV Limited (formerly known as Switchco Limited from 2005–2006 and Digital UK Limited from 2006–2023) is a British television communications company owned by the BBC, ITV (TV network), ITV, Channel Four Television Corporation, Chann ...

, Fraunhofer FOKUS * Broadcasting and streaming:

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

, Cellnex,

CommScope CommScope Holding Company, Inc. is an American network infrastructure provider based in Claremont, North Carolina. CommScope employs over 22,000 employees. The company joined the Nasdaq stock exchange on October 25, 2013. CommScope designs an ...

Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. It was formed in 199 ...

, Digita,

Discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

, ERT,

Eutelsat Eutelsat S.A. is a French satellite operator. Providing coverage over the entire European continent, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas, it has been the world's third-largest satellite operator in terms of revenues. Its subsidiary E ...

Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Everyone TV (itself owned by all of the four UK Public broadcasting, public service broadcasters, BBC, ...

, Freeview (Australia), Freewheel, Google, ITV, Seven.One, RAI, RBB, Red Bull Media House, Reti Televisive Italiane,

RTL Group RTL Group S.A. ("Radio Télévision Luxembourg") is a Luxembourg-based international media conglomerate, with another corporate office in Cologne, Germany. The company operates 56 television channels and 36 radio stations in Germany, France an ...

, Salto, SES,

Sky UK Sky UK Limited (formerly British Sky Broadcasting Limited (BSkyB)), Trade name, trading as Sky, is a British broadcasting, broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, broadband internet, fixed line and mobile telephone ...

SRG SSR The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (; ; ; ; SRG SSR) is the Swiss public broadcasting association, founded in 1931, the holding company of 24 radio and television channels. Headquartered in Bern, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation is a non-pro ...

, TDF, TV3, Tivù Sat * Software and Content protection:

Access Access may refer to: Companies and organizations * ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network * Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom * Access Co., a Japanese software company * Access International Advisors, a hed ...

BearingPoint BearingPoint (parent company: BearingPoint Europe Holdings B.V.) is a multinational management and technology consulting firm headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It has operations in 24 countries with around 6,200 employees. The firm origi ...

, Fincons Group, Irdeto, iWedia, Kineton, Netgem, Ocean Blue Software, Samba TV, Seraphic, SmarDTV, Sofia Digital, Suresoft, Synamedia, Verance, Vewd,

Viaccess Viaccess is a conditional access system developed by Orange S.A. There are six versions in use today, Viaccess PC2.3, Viaccess PC2.4, Viaccess PC2.5, Viaccess PC2.6, Viaccess ACS3.x/Prime Sentinel, Viaccess ACS4.1, Viaccess ACS5.0, and Viaccess A ...

, Zeasn * CE devices and components manufacturers: Amlogic,

Arçelik Arçelik A.Ş. () is a Turkish multinational household appliances manufacturer. The company engages in the production, marketing and after-sale services of durable goods and their components. Its products include white goods (such as refrigerat ...

, Changhong, CVTE, Hisense,

HiSilicon HiSilicon ( zh, c=海思, p=Hǎisī) is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province and wholly owned by Huawei. HiSilicon purchases licenses for CPU designs from ARM Holdings, including the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore ...

, LG, MediaTek, Novatek,

Realtek Realtek Semiconductor Corp. () is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Realtek was founded in October 1987 and subsequently listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998. Realtek has manu ...

Roku Roku ( ) is a brand of consumer electronics that includes streaming players, smart TVs (and their operating systems), as well as a free TV streaming service. The brand is owned by Roku, Inc., an American company. As of 2024, Roku is the U ...

, Sagemcom,

, Sharp, Skyworth, Smit,

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

TCL TCL or Tcl or TCLs may refer to: Business * TCL Technology, a Chinese consumer electronics and appliance company ** TCL Electronics, a subsidiary of TCL Technology * Texas Collegiate League, a collegiate baseball league * Trade Centre Limited ...

, Tele System, TD Systems, TP Vision, Vestel, Xperi * Test Houses for CE devices: Resillion The HbbTV Association steering group currently comprises representatives from:

, Cellnex Telecom,

, EBU, Resillion, LG,

, RAI, Reti Televisive Italiane,

, Salto,

, Tivù Sat, TP Vision and Vewd.

Standard

As well as helping consumers/viewers, the introduction of the HbbTV standard is of benefit to both equipment manufacturers and content providers who at the moment have to produce hardware or content specific to each country to meet the de facto standard in that country. The establishment of a unified European HbbTV standard means "content owners and application developers can write once and deploy to many countries". The HbbTV specification was developed by industry members of the consortium and is based on elements of existing standards and web technologies including the Open IPTV Forum, CEA, DVB, and

W3C The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...

. The

European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; , UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) or who are member states of the Council of Europe, members of the ...

General Assembly has given its support to the HbbTV initiative and described the technology as "one of the most exciting developments in the media today". The standard specification was submitted by the end of November 2009 to

ETSI The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is an independent, not-for-profit, standardization organization operating in the field of Information and communications technology, information and communications. ETSI supports the de ...

, who published it under reference ETSI TS 102 796 in June 2010. There is an accompanying Test Suite that provides a set of test material to test HbbTV device implementations, suitable for manufacturers of devices, including software and hardware components that implement the HbbTV specification (ETSI TS 102 796 v1.1.1). In November 2012 Eurofins Digital Testing (then Digital TV Labs) became the first Registered Test Centre. The applications for HbbTV are HTML-based, making use of

HTML5 HTML5 (Hypertext Markup Language 5) is a markup language used for structuring and presenting hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. It was the fifth and final major HTML version that is now a retired World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommend ...

and the CE-HTML user interface language, but utilise only a sub-set of standard web standards, developers have to use specialist validation tools. In September 2017 the HbbTV Association announced the publication of its IPTV specification by ETSI as TS 103 555. This specification builds on HbbTV 2.0 and defines how audio-visual content delivered by an IPTV service can be presented on HbbTV terminals (such as set-top boxes and televisions): both hybrid terminals with an IP connection and an RF-based broadcast connection, and pure IPTV terminals with only an IP connection. The next incremental version of the standard (HbbTV 2.0.1) included functionality from the MHEG-5 interactive middleware platform used for digital terrestrial TV in the UK, to facilitate the transition from MHEG-5 to HbbTV as the mandated system in the UK. HbbTV 2.0.2 enables support for HDR and HFR video and next generation ( AC-4 and

MPEG-H MPEG-H is a group of international standards under development by the ISO/ IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It has various "parts" – each of which can be considered a separate standard. These include a media transport protocol standard, ...

) audio.

Rollout

Several countries, particularly in Europe, have adopted the HbbTV standard and/or operated HbbTV services and trials. As of December 2011, HbbTV services were in regular operation in France, Germany and Spain, with announcements of adoption in Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Denmark, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Turkey, and trials in Australia, China, Japan, and the United States. As of October 2015, 27 countries have launched HbbTV services with the most recent being the UK, New Zealand, Senegal, Namibia, Bosnia and Estonia. In October 2014, the HbbTV Association announced that over 20 countries had launched HbbTV services with Italy and Saudi being the most recent to launch.Breil, Rober
"HbbTV momentum continues to grow"
Broadband TV News. October 28, 2014. Retrieved March 27, 2015.

Europe

Estonia

In Estonia HbbTV was adopted on March 10, 2015.

Finland

In Finland the national HDTV Forum has adopted the NorDig Unified Specification for Hybrid Services. The members of HDTV Forum see the HbbTV specification having a wide market acceptance supporting wide range of TV applications and new hybrid services. HbbTV services have been on air in Finland since March 2013 in the nationwide terrestrial TV network. Current services include "red button" services and an enhanced programme guide application. Several broadcasters in Finland use the HbbTV platform. Those are

Yle Yleisradio Oy (; ), abbreviated as Yle () (formerly styled in all uppercase until 2012), translated into English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, founded in 1926. It is a joint-stock comp ...

Nelonen Media and MTV.

France

In France, the government-owned public broadcaster,

selected HbbTV for its interactive news, sports and weather service, and plans to add catch-up TV and social media sharing capability. International French news channel

France 24 France 24 ( in French) is a French state-owned publicly funded international news television network based in Paris. Its channels, broadcast in French, English, Arabic and Spanish, are aimed at the overseas market. Based in the Paris suburb ...

announced that it would launch an HbbTV interactive news service in 2012 via the Astra 19.2°E satellites, with support from Orange and SES.

Germany

In 2010 German broadcaster RTL Television introduced a new information service, HD Text, making use of HbbTV and the CE-HTML user interface language, and in 2012 launched an online music video service (Clipfish Music) on its HbbTV portal allowing access to TV viewers. In February 2020, German public broadcaster ARD launched Replay TV, offering viewers the option of restarting a running programme, via HbbTV. The function is available on all smart TVs and set-top boxes with the HbbTV 2.0.1 standard.

Greece

In Greece HbbTV was adopted in November 2016 by ERT.

Italy

Italy had launched HbbTV services by October 2014.

Lithuania

In June 2019, the Lithuanian Radio and Television Centre launched a Lithuania nationwide HbbTV broadcasting service. The service provides access to some of regional broadcasters and their media library archive. Service also includes radio stations support.

Montenegro

In August 2019, Montenegrin service provider M:TEL created HbbTV portal for

RTCG Radio and Television of Montenegro ( cnr-Cyrl-Latn, Радио и Телевизија Црне Горе, Radio i Televizija Crne Gore; abbr. /) is the public service broadcaster of Montenegro. A state-owned company with its headquarters in Podgor ...

state TV and MTEL HbbTV portal for all other channels distributed within its cable DVB-C network.

Netherlands

In 2011 the Dutch national public networks,

NPO 1 NPO 1 (known as Nederland 1 until 2014) is the first national television station in the Netherlands. It launched on 2 October 1951. It provides public broadcasting and currently exists next to sister channels NPO 2 and NPO 3. Several broadcastin ...

, 2, and 3 began broadcasting HbbTV " red button" applications including a program guide and catch-up TV instead of developing separate apps for particular platforms.

Nordic regions and Ireland

In Nordic region (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Ireland) the NorDig standardization forum has adopted the HbbTV specification which replaces DVB-MHP as the common API for hybrid digital receivers.

Poland

The first tests of HbbTV services in Poland were started by TVN in March 2012.

Spain

In November 2011 Spain's Ministry of Industry approved a document signed by 54 companies adopting the HbbTV standard and broadcasters,

Mediaset España Grupo Audiovisual Mediaset España Comunicación, S.A.U. (formerly Gestevisión Telecinco, S.A. and Mediaset España Comunicación, S.A.) is a Spanish media company, controlled by the Italian-based company MFE – MediaForEurope N.V., which i ...

, Canal+ and

Telefónica , S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company with registered office and headquarters located in two different places, both in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the ...

have run pilot services. In November 2018, LOVEStv (in test emission since June 2018) was launched in Spain. It is a joint venture of

RTVE The Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española (; ), known as Radiotelevisión Española (''Spanish Radio and Television'', RTVE), is the Spanish national public Broadcasting, television and radio broadcaster. It is a state-owned enterprise f ...

Atresmedia Atresmedia Corporación de Medios de Comunicación, S.A., previously Grupo Antena 3, is a Spanish media group, present in the television, radio and filmmaking industries. Significant shareholders include Grupo Planeta and Bertelsmann. On 6 Marc ...

and

, offering catch-up services based on a HbbTV standard.

Switzerland

In Switzerland the first HbbTV service, called ''RTS+'', was launched on March 5, 2013, on

French-speaking channels RTSun HD and RTSdeux HD. The service was developed by SwissTXT.

Turkey

Turkish Radio and Television Corporation The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT; Turkish: ) is the national public broadcasting, public broadcaster of Turkey, founded in 1964. TRT was for many years the only television and radio broadcaster in Turkey. Before the introductio ...

launched its HbbTV app, TRT Plus (), in 2014. In Turkey, FOX TV and Kanal7 launched its HbbTV EPG app (Fox'da ne var?, Kanal7 yayın akisi) in 2016 and 2017 provided by Turkish HBBTV company Admongrel. Service was deployed with help of Castoola HbbTV platform. In 2017 first interactive preroll advertisement campaign (Bosch advertisement) was launched by Admongrel, Adform and Kanal7.

United Kingdom

In the UK, the Freeview Play platform has been launched implementing an HbbTV 2.0 catch-up service on DVB-T/T2.

, the

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscri ...

satellite TV service broadcast via Astra 28.2°E, has revealed that the second generation "G2" specification for Freesat receivers will use HbbTV, to take advantage of the digital TV chipsets being developed for that standard (but retaining MHEG-5 compatibility of the first generation Freesat receivers). While the Digital TV Group approved D-book 7, a detailed interoperability specification between digital terrestrial television and HbbTV-based products and services. In December 2017, the BBC launched a UK nationwide HbbTV broadcast service. This provides users the opportunity to launch connected TV applications from broadcast as well as offering broadcast TV applications for radio stations.

Australia and New Zealand

Freeview New Zealand launched its HbbTV platform in New Zealand in July 2015, under the registered trade mark name "FreeviewPlus", with their DVB-T service (Freeview, HD); followed by an extension to the DVB-S service (Freeview Satellite) in April 2016.

Western Asia and Middle East

Saudi Arabia had launched HbbTV services by October 2014. In early 2015, several broadcasters in Turkey reportedly began using the HbbTV platform and services provided by Admongrel.

Other locations

HbbTV is being reviewed and tested, with interest from US, Argentina, Japan, China (which is conducting a trial), Malaysian Broadcasters (where DVB-T2 broadcasting will soon start) and Singapore (where Mediacorp is introducing its service through Toggle), and also in Russia.

HbbTV set-top boxes

Since the beginning of 2010 a new generation of advanced HbbTV

set-top box has emerged in the UK with the advent of

services.

tuners enable the reception of

terrestrial high-definition programmes to be received in around twelve areas of the UK. HD terrestrial services have encouraged a range of device manufacturers to launch new hybrid set-top boxes for the UK consumer retail market. Some of these companies have launched devices that, in addition to allowing traditional broadcast and IP-delivered services to be received, have an integrated smart-card slot that allows consumers to receive encrypted

premium television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, bu ...

services including sports and movies. Such boxes enable the aggregation of traditional linear TV broadcasts with video delivered via both managed (cable) and unmanaged

IP network The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...

s (the internet). This allows viewers to view broadcast television and internet video on their flat screen TVs, alongside advanced interactive services, such as

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

browsing, and time-shifted TV. A hybrid IPTV platform helps operators increase average revenue per user (ARPU), whilst eliminating expensive duplication in network infrastructure investment. IPTV

customer-premises equipment In telecommunications, a customer-premises equipment or customer-provided equipment (CPE) is any terminal and associated equipment located at a subscriber's premises and connected with a carrier's telecommunication circuit at the demarcation p ...

(CPE) allows pay TV operators to deploy home entertainment, with video telephony, surveillance, gaming, shopping, e-government, and interactive services amongst the service mix that can be offered.

Tools

OpenHbb is a collaborative project funded by the French government (DGCIS), the

Pays de la Loire Pays de la Loire (; but can also mean 'Lower Loire') is one of the eighteen administrative regions of France, located on the country's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. It was created in the 1950s to serve as a zone of influence for its capital an ...

and

Île-de-France The Île-de-France (; ; ) is the most populous of the eighteen regions of France, with an official estimated population of 12,271,794 residents on 1 January 2023. Centered on the capital Paris, it is located in the north-central part of the cou ...

regions, and the Conseil Général des Hauts-de-Seine (council for the department of

Hauts-de-Seine Hauts-de-Seine (; ) is a department in the Île-de-France region of France. It covers Paris's western inner suburbs. It is bordered by Paris, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne to the east, Val-d'Oise to the north, Yvelines to the west and ...

) as part of the Images & Réseaux and Cap Digital competitiveness clusters. Opera has developed an HbbTV Emulator, available for free on their website. This emulator is currently in beta version.
HbbTV App Validator
is a free, cloud-based tool for HbbTV app conformance validation provided by Eurofins Digital Testing (formerly Digital TV Labs). App Validator uses static analysis to check for simple problems and use of non-standard language features in your HbbTV app's

XHTML Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages which mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated. While HTML, pr ...

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

and CSS. There is also a Firefox add-on
FireHbbTV
, as a free HbbTV emulator. OpenCaster is a free GPL licensed software for transport stream broadcasting supporting HbbTV dat

Security and privacy concerns

"About 90% of Smart TVs Vulnerable to Remote Hacking via Rogue TV Signals"
Rafael Scheel developed a radio frequency-based remote exploit using HbbTV that provides root access. He provided counter measures in a 2017 presentation to the European Broadcasting Union Media Cybersecurity Seminar. Academic research by

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

revealed possible security flaws in HbbTV. According to the blog of Martin Herfurt (referenced in the Columbia paper), the HbbTV standard allows an attacker to inject

malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

into an HbbTV-enabled smart television that can cause it to do various things like modifying the content being displayed, mining

Bitcoin Bitcoin (abbreviation: BTC; Currency symbol, sign: ₿) is the first Decentralized application, decentralized cryptocurrency. Based on a free-market ideology, bitcoin was invented in 2008 when an unknown entity published a white paper under ...

s, or attacking other devices connected to the network that the television is connected to. The HbbTV Association has responded to the reports with a statement "HbbTV welcomes and appreciates the academic research on security threats in set-top boxes and TVs based on our specifications. The HbbTV Association continuously reviews such situations and has determined that there is limited potential for a security breach based on this research. Nevertheless, as ever, our upcoming HbbTV specification will include further appropriate security solutions." In 2013 researchers from TU Darmstadt found widespread non-consensual use of

web analytics Web analytics is the measurement, data collection, collection, analysis, and reporting of web Data (computing), data to understand and optimize web usage. Web analytics is not just a process for measuring web traffic but can be used as a tool for ...

technologies, such as third-party cookies, in HbbTV content to track viewing patterns.

References

External links

HbbTV website

The latest version of the ETSI TS 102 796 standard
— V1.6.1 for HbbTV 2.0.3.
OpenHbb project (in French)

Major HbbTV developer

HbbTV and DVB-I Resources

OpenCaster website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hybrid Broadcast Broadband Tv Audiovisual introductions in 2009 2009 establishments in Europe ETSI German inventions French inventions Consumer electronics Digital television Television technology Interactive television Satellite television Set-top box