Happy 20th birthday DVB!

The Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) standard is 20 years old. The DVB Project, the organisation that has overseen its development and its progress over the past two decades has been taking stock.

The DVB Project is an alliance of about 200 companies. It originated in Europe but its membership is now worldwide. Its objective is to agree specifications for digital media delivery systems, including broadcasting. It is an open, private sector initiative with an annual membership fee, governed by a memorandum of understanding (MoU). The first MoU was signed in September 2013. At the time, it represented a novel way of developing standards, as the DVB website (www.dvb.org) explains.

The DVB Project has its origins in the European Launching Group, formed by broadcasters, consumer electronics manufacturers and regulatory bodies to oversee the development of digital television in Europe. The original members were joined by the major European media interest groups, consumer electronics manufacturers, common carriers and regulators. This expanded group drafted the MoU and renamed itself the Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB).

DVB says its work has been guided by a deep understanding of what the market requires, as identified by its Commercial Module (CM). This ensures that its focus remains on the most commercially relevant areas. DVB specifications are then developed by the Technical Module (TM) with the Steering Board overseeing the work of these two modules. Within the CM and TM around a dozen sub-groups are active at any one time, working on specifications for broadcast and data delivery over satellite, terrestrial and cable networks as well as signalling and other specifications, including those for IP-based networks and companion devices.

The group says this separation of commercial and technical discussions has proved to be very successful. “It enables market requirements and use-cases to be defined before looking at technical options in detail. It provides a purposeful focus for technical work, preventing lengthy discussions in technical groups about whether particular functionality is required or not. It provides effective separation of the different types of expertise required for commercial as opposed to technical discussions.”

The technical specifications developed by the group are passed to the European standards body for media systems, the EBU/CENELEC/ETSI Joint Technical Committee, for approval and are then formally standardised by either CENELEC or, in the majority of cases, ETSI.

There are now several major versions of the standard: DVB-T and DVB-T2 (for terrestrial broadcasting), DVB-S and DVB-S2 (satellite); DVB-C (cable); and DVB-H (handheld). DVB-S and DVB-S2 are used in virtually every country in the world. DVB-T and DVB-T2 have been adopted or deployed in more than 140 countries. DVB-T2 has been adopted in 32 countries and deployed in 24 other countries. DVB-C is also widely used.

The organisation claims there are approximately one billion DVB receivers operating worldwide and that, at the end of 2011, DVB had a global market share of 68 percent of which 40 percent was satellite, 37 percent cable and 23 percent terrestrial distribution.

Looking to the future, DVD’s executive director, Peter Siebert wrote in the organisation’s magazine, DVBScene: “There is always something new on the horizon. ... At present, we are working on important technologies for the near future: resolutions beyond HD, second screen, the next generation of CI Plus, OTT and IPTV.”