#NABshow: Future of Broadcast TV

FOBTV is an initiative started in November 2011 in a Shanghai to select major technologies to be used as the basis for new standards - it is not a standards initiative but a search for new common technologies and an effort to standardize. Mark Richer (ATSC) is the chairman of FOBTV and Phil Laven of DVB is the Vice Chairman. The committee has been tasked to develop use cases, develop technical requirements based on the use cases, issue RFPs and recommend major technologies to be used as the basis for new standards

The importance of FOBTV is in the fragmented nature of standards: DVBT, DVBT2, ATSC exemplified by the  map of current standards you can see here.

The technical committee:

• Wenjun Zhang (NERC-DTV)
• Yiyan Wu (CRC)
• Namho Hur (ETRI, Korea)
• Dr. Toru Kuroda (NHK, Japan)

Use Cases
By Peter Siebert and Jim Kutzner - DTV  (Presented by Peter Siebert, from Geneva)

The following use cases were gathered by the FOBTV comittee:

1. DVB Scenarios: Harmonized world standard

Have a worldwide harmonized terrestrial broadcast standard

Support for mobile reception

Integration with mobile broadband and wifi services

Support of hybrid services, whjite space and dynamic broadcast

2. Immersive experience and new services

Resolution beyond HD

Higher dynamic range video

Improved 3D experience

More realistic audio

Companion devices such as tablets and smart phones (second screen)

Multiview presentation and screen subdivisions (e.g. with screen size getting larger imagine two people watching two different movies on the same screen via split-screen)

3. More efficient use of spectrum

FOBTV to be the most efficient standard

Support of White Space scenarios

Hybrid broadband/broaddcast scenario including including local storage

Cooperation/integration with 3GPP/LTE mobile networks

4. Smart interaction and personalization

Messenger type applications

Support of social services

Targeted advertisement

Standardized interactivity supporting a wide range of applications

Integration with other devices

5. Accessibility

Support of special services (e.g. Braille, clean audio, etc)

Delivery of accessibility content to second screen

Dialogue enhancement (ability to remove background noise to focus on the dialogue for hearing impaired)

The technical committee was formalized in 2012 and will issue RFPs by the end of 2013. They analyzed 61 use cases and the 12 Scenario categories based on the use cases. The technical aspects of mobile broadcasting, spectrum utilization, network interoperability and bi-directional communication under urban-rural dual structure.  This last piece is about the ability for dynamic TV and broadcast for internet to have bi-directional capabilities.