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Open discussion and open minds in Munich for DVB World 2024

22.03.2024

DVB World 2024 was billed as a place to have “conversations that matter on the future of media delivery”. For the almost 200 people who gathered in Munich on Tuesday and Wednesday, it delivered on that promise.

The event opened with a dense but dynamic conference programme on Tuesday afternoon, followed by an opportunity to go in-depth during Wednesday’s unconference, which featured 31 breakout sessions, pitched and hosted by attendees. There was also an exhibition space featuring demos of DVB-I, DVB-NIP, new video technologies, satellite beam hopping and more.

Attendees appreciated (to quote a typical example of feedback received): “The technical breadth and depth of the sessions, the great balance between programme and networking, and the engaging method of the unconference.“

Overall themes that emerged from the event included the clear agreement that service discovery is a major challenge for both broadcasters and operators, with DVB-I being a strong candidate to offer a solution. For those involved in the development of the DVB Native IP specifications, with the verification and validation work now complete, there is a clear drive to advance market introduction, while addressing some outstanding technical challenges. There was also plenty of evidence that the DVB Project is still the leading forum to develop solutions for the satellite industry, including beyond pure broadcast applications, and plays a key role in the streaming and coding sectors.

DVB Members can access the unconference session reports and the conference slides via the event website. See member.dvb.org for more information.

If you want to be informed about next year’s edition of DVB World, join our mailing list here.

Snapshots of DVB World 2024

(Photos by Tomas Hercog)

DVB Project chair Peter MacAvock opened the conference, remarking that attendance had increased from 120 in 2023 to almost 200 this year.
Head of Technology Emily Dubs, pictured here with conference host Eoghan O’Sullivan, provided an overview of all on-going work within the DVB Project.
The opening keynote came from Sophie Lersch, Senior Head of Distribution and Controlling at Bayerischer Rundfunk. She highlighted content discovery, costs and carbon footprint as BR’s main challenges in the hybrid world and identified DVB-I as having the potential to support broadcasters and the audience.
The other keynote speakers were (clockwise from top left) Stefan Kaiser (Zattoo), Kinji Matsumura (NHK) and Thierry Fautier (Your Media Transformation). All three, in different ways, focused on the challenges for the television industry as the world shifts to IP-based delivery and discovery of services.
The “Specs to Success” session, with five quickfire presentations, featured (clockwise from top left) Guillaume Bichot (Broadpeak) on open casting, David Peilow (ESA) on DVB’s work for non-geostationary satellites, Simone Ferrara (V-Nova) on multi-layer video coding, Thomas Stockhammer (Qualcomm) on 5G Broadcast and DVB-I, and Alexander Leschinsky (G&L) on hyper-personalized DVB-I service lists.
A panel discussion focusing on progress with DVB-I implementation included Jon Piesing (TP Vision), Remo Vogel (rbb/ARD), Marco Pellegrinato (Mediaset) and Veit Olischläger (BLM). With both Germany and Italy moving steadily towards full deployment, it was agreed that both regulatory frameworks and the need for compatible receivers were among the biggest challenges.
A session called “DVB Native IP: show me the money!” put the spotlight on typical use cases for DVB-NIP, looking at DTH video, entertainment in mobility settings, CDN edge caching, and distance education using file delivery. The speakers were Jill Mulder (EKT), Laurent Leveil (Eutelsat), Richard Lhermitte (ENENSYS) and Tom Christophory (SES).
Martin Gold (Youview) and Ophélie Boucaud (Dataxis) gave, respectively, technical and market persectives on targeted advertising, which is predicted to grow in importance for free-to-air broadcasters.
The conference programme closed with a look at the recent launches of UHD services on terrestrial networks in France and Spain, with Jacques Donat-Bouillud (France Télévisions) and Ángel Álvarez (Televés).
With plenty to discuss following the opening afternoon, not least ideas for the following day’s unconference, Tuesday evening’s gathering at the Augustiner Stammhaus was a lively affair!

Unconference day

Wednesday’s unconference – the third time the format had been adopted for DVB World – began with the opening circle.
There was no shortage of volunteers to pitch and host discussions, with a total of 31 ending up on the agenda.
All participants were invited to propose one or more sessions, explaining the goal before adding it to the agenda.
With up to seven sessions taking place in parallel at any one time throughout the day, there were many options for attendees… and often difficult choices to make.
The unconference sessions involved anything from 10 to 30 or so participants, with hosts encouraged to include all attendees in the discussions and to focus on identifying the next steps for the topic in question. These next steps, and the ‘owners’ of any actions arising from them, were noted during the closing circle and will be brought back into the relevant forums, whether within DVB working groups or elsewhere.
The exhibition area was packed with demos of existing and possible future DVB solutions.
The organizers wish to express their warm thanks to the supporters and exhibitors for DVB World 2024, as well as the staff of the smartvillage Bogenhausen.