An up to date briefing on the latest in broadcasting technology R&D being carried out by Europe’s public service broadcasters, that's what the EBU Village offers every year. Amongst this year's line-up was the world's first broadcast of Super Hi-Vision via satellite using DVB-S2.
The EBU Village continued to celebrate the tidal wave of HDTV which is increasingly splashing into European homes. The Village showcased content in various formats, some including Dirac compression. The video formats ranged from current HDTV to 1080p/50, 1080p/300 and ultimately Super Hi-Vision. The Super Hi-Vision demo was facilitated by a new EBU-encouraged collaboration of broadcast media laboratories (BTF – Broadcast Technology Futures group) from Europe and Japan including BBC, RAI, and NHK. The consortium won an IBC Special Award for this achievement.
Content protection & copy management
FASTCOM showed DVB's Content Protection and Copy Management implementations for free-to-air broadcast. The demonstration included the first removable CI+/CPCM module implementing DVB free-to-air signalling. This signalling can be delivered alongside free-to-air broadcast DVB services. Content usage is controlled on a content per content basis and according to each individual broadcaster's needs and market requirements.
Radio and spectrum
Consumer Electronics equipment is no longer the bottleneck for digital radio deployment. That was the message of the WorldDMB presence in the Village and it was underlined with the publishing of the WorldDMB Digital Radio Receivers Profiles during the conference. EBU Eurovision operations showed how the exchange network can benefit from a combination of satellite streaming and on-demand traffic.
A number of other research projects were on display, including the European Projects Portivity (with the IRT), Arena (with the BBC) and P2P-Next. There was also a booth in the Village showing EBU TECHNICAL's support for broadcasters' interests in areas such as the Digital Dividend debate.
The EBU thanks all Village participants for their commitment.
