A strong showing for the DVB community at IBC2023
A busy and buzzing IBC2023 for the DVB Project showed that the organization’s relevance and influence remain as strong as ever after 30 years of existence. From start to finish, even on the traditionally quieter final day of the exhibition, the DVB booth welcomed a steady stream of visitors eager to find out what the latest DVB-I and DVB-NIP developments might mean for them.
Demonstrating progress
The headline topics for DVB at IBC2023 were the same as for last year: DVB-I and DVB Native IP. However, both stories had evolved considerably over the intervening 12 months, and there was real progress to be shown.
For DVB-I, live services from both Germany and Italy were showcased. The German pilot announced the launch of its second phase just ahead of the show, while the market trial that is taking shape in Italy generated much curiosity among visitors. The handout that was available on the DVB booth provides more details about both trials, as well as on the additional DVB-I features and developments that were shown by DTG Testing, Huawei, Eutelsat and Vestel. (The latter has just announced its plans to release the first DVB-I-compatible smart TV.)
Broadcasters and regulators from other countries also indicated in conversations on the booth that trials and further developments for including DVB-I were under way.
DVB-NIP – Native IP Broadcasting – has also taken big steps towards deployment in the past year, including its inclusion in a public tender by the government of Peru to provide distance education and other public content to remote regions of the country.
On the DVB booth at IBC2023, a showcase of DVB-NIP gateways from four different companies receiving services from a number of different satellite feeds showed how vendors are embracing the new standard. Another use case that was highlighted on the booth was the use of DVB-NIP to feed 5G networks.
There’s more information about the DVB-NIP demos at IBC2023 in the handout that was distributed on the booth.
Quiet moments on the booth were few and far between with representatives of the many demo partners kept busy with presenting the solutions and answering questions.
30 years young
DVB celebrated its 30th anniversary with a party on the 23rd floor of the nhow hotel on the opening night of IBC. More than 200 members and friends of the Project dropped by to enjoy the food, drinks and musical entertainment.
Elfed Howells (Huawei), who chairs DVB’s Promotion & Communications Module, was a special guest for a set behind the decks, entertaining the crowds with some old school tunes.
Another special guest on the evening was Prof. Ulrich Reimers, who was instrumental in the founding of the DVB Project all those years ago. While speeches were kept to a minimum on the night, Ulrich kindly shared a few brief insights with a very attentive audience. It was the icing on the DVB birthday cake!
Prof. Reimers had also visited the booth earlier that same day to see how the new generation of DVB specifications was coming along. We took the opportunity to snap this photo of DVB’s first Technical Module chair with its current TM chair, Jon Piesing (TP Vision).
A deserved award
The German DVB-I Pilot was presented with IBC’s Special Award for Innovation on Sunday evening in Amsterdam. Several members of the project team were present for the ceremony, with rbb’s Remo Vogel (fourth from left above) accepting the award on behalf of all the partners.
With DVB being one of the stakeholders in the German DVB-I Pilot, Head of Technology Emily Dubs and DVB’s Chair Peter MacAvock were also present for the ceremony, joining Remo Vogel for this photo opportunity.
International DVB
Visits to the booth included delegations from India, USA, Japan and China.
The Chinese delegation included officials from the AVS Workgroup of China, who met with DVB’s chair to exchange signed copies of the formal liaison agreed earlier in the year.
Representatives of the key broadcast organizations in India – Prasar Bharati, Doordarshan and All India Radio – took the opportunity to meet with Emily Dubs and view the DVB-NIP and DVB-I demos, following DVB’s previous demonstrations of DVB-NIP at BES India 2023.
DVB elsewhere at IBC
PCM chair Elfed Howells presented some of the findings of the forthcoming report from DVB’s study mission on Energy-Aware Delivery and Consumption during a conference session on sustainability organized by the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society. ATSC president Madeleine Noland was also on the panel, which was moderated by Peter Siebert.
The recently concluded work of a Joint Task Force between DVB and 5G-MAG led to the publication of ETSI TR 103 972 v1.1.1, deployment guidelines for DVB-I over 5G. The IBC Technical Papers conference included a presentation on the work of the task force by Thomas Stockhammer (Qualcomm), co-authored with Frédéric Gabin (Dolby) and Richard Bradbury (BBC), during a session on 5G technology convergence with broadcast.
A video of the presentation is available here.
The German DVB-I Pilot, in addition to being available live on the DVB booth, was also demonstrated on the booth of the European Broadcasting Union. DVB-I was the subject of a panel session on the booth on Saturday afternoon, asking whether DVB-I empowers public service media. (In case you missed the session, the short answer was “yes”!)
