Commercial trial of DVB-I on the horizon for Mediaset

Collaboration with TV manufacturers is a critical factor for the success of DVB-I, according to Sara Tagliapietra of Mediaset, who presented during a DVB-hosted webinar this week. As the Italian broadcaster’s proof of concept moves into its third phase, a complete end-to-end DVB-I ecosystem has been established, including the participation of three TV set manufacturers.

Mediaset is exploring the idea of leveraging DVB-I to offer its viewers higher quality services over IP, i.e. Full HD, than the HD quality currently delivered over DTT, she said.

“We are considering to set up a DVB-I trial providing full HD IP channels with a DTT instance as fall-back. […] This commercial trial would allow to assess how a true DVB-I service works in a real production environment, with real customer experiences, and we think that the [higher quality] use case would be one of the most important or most interesting for Mediaset in this early stage of the DVB-I service era.”

Sara Tagliapietra, Strategic Marketing Manager with Mediaset, Italy

The webinar also included contributions from Simon Parnall (Ofcom) and Mika Kanerva (Sofia Digital) on the potential role and capabilities of a DVB-I CSR (Central Service List Registry), and an update from DVB CM-I chair Peter Lanigan (TP Vision) on recent and planned enhancements to the DVB-I specification itself. Mika Kanerva also referred to a DVB-I proof of concept that his company supported in Malaysia in 2019–2020, providing further evidence of the growing industry interest.

DVB-I is set to be a key topic at the upcoming DVB World 2022 unconference, taking place in Brussels on 18 May. Several demos are planned, along with a DVB-I plugfest led by DTG Testing.

A video of the webinar is available to watch on demand and the slide decks presented can be downloaded from the webinars section of the website. The DVB-I microsite includes a section on Services, where you can read more about the Mediaset proof of concept.