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HbbTV 2.0.1 explained

The HbbTV 2.0 specification was the result of more than 2 years work in HbbTV as well as partner organisations including DVB and the Open IPTV Forum. The specification is a major update to the previous HbbTV 1.5 specification.

Before 2.0 was deployed a set of minor updates were adopted to support the use of HbbTV in the UK. These updates were published as 2.0.1. As 2.0 had not been deployed it was deprecated in favour of 2.0.1. 2.0.1 also contains many fixes for issues identified during the development of implementations and test cases for 2.0.

the third version.

The key objectives of 2.0/2.01 were:

  • Adds new features to make existing services more attractive to the end-user or the service provider
  • Enables new services such as push VoD
  • Updates technologies from earlier specifications to the newer versions
  • Improves inter-operability between services and terminals

As a result, the main features of 2.0/2.0.1 are:

  • Support for HTML5
  • Companion screens support
  • broadcast and broadband stream synchronisation
  • Broadband subtitles
  • CI Plus 1.4 support
  • Push VOD support

Technology updates

The most significant technologies that have been updated were HTML, video codecs and MPEG DASH.

  • HTML and the technologies around it were updated to HTML5 and matching versions.
  • The video codecs were extended to support HEVC as well as MPEG-2 and AVC. HEVC is supported for both UHD and HD. There is significant interest in HEVC for HD to enable current services to be offered at lower bitrates than today.
  • MPEG DASH support was updated to refer to the profile of DASH defined by DVB. This includes a number of new features which make deployment of DASH services easier.

Companions screen support

A major theme of the specification is the addition of support for companion screens (tablets or phones). This includes support for:

  • An HbbTV application can ask for an app to be launched on a tablet or phone.
  • An app on a tablet or phone can ask for an HbbTV app to be launched on a TV or STB using DIAL, the same mechanism used by Netfilx and Chromecast
  • Apps running on a tablet or phone can exchange messages with an HbbTV application running on a TV or STB using the W3C/IETF websocket mechanism
  • An app on a tablet or phone can synchronise to broadcast delivered content on the TV using the DVB companion screen specification.
  • An HbbTV application can synchronise broadcast delivered video and broadband delivered audio / subtitles in the TV set or STB.

Other updates

Other significant additions cover privacy, broadband subtitles, DVB CI Plus 1.4 and push VoD.

  • Privacy has become a major concern for SmartTV in recent years. The W3C “Do Not Track” specification was added which enables consumers who do not wish to be tracked to clearly express this.
  • Subtitles for broadband delivered content was added based on work done in the EBU around the W3C TTML specification.
  • In TVs that support HbbTV 2.0.1 and DVB CI Plus 1.4, integration between the two has been added to enable a CI Plus CAM to descramble protected broadband-delivered AV content initiated by an HbbTV application and to provide data to the application.
  • Support for delivering files containing AV content to a hard disc in a STB (or a flash card in a TV) for later consumption has been added. This could be relevant for content that needs higher and more reliable bandwidth than is available in a particular market.