Towards Next Generation Hybrid Broadcast Broadband, Results from FP7 and HBBTV 2.0

Hybrid Broadcast Broadband Television (HbbTV) is a widely-supported technology that enables broadcasters to run dedicated smart TV applications as a browser overlay on their TV channels. Next generation HbbTV is being developed in the EU-funded HBB-Next project, and being contributed to the standardization process of HbbTV 2.0. HBB-Next has designed and implemented several next-generation HbbTV frameworks, including multi-user identification, synchronisation between media streams and devices, multi-user recommendations, user-tailored reputation scores for applications and cloud offloading. Integrated proofsof-concepts are presented in the IBC Future Technologies zone. The HbbTV standards body has selected a wide set of features for HbbTV 2.0 in four categories: browser, terminal, companion screen and media. About 35 broadcasters, TV manufacturers, technology providers (some from HBB-Next) are actively contributing. Support of second-screen, media synchronisation, and user identity management are high on the HbbTV 2.0 features list. This paper presents the technology developments by HBB-Next and its contributions to HbbTV 2.0, with attention also to user experience and business considerations.