IBC is EBU’s main shop window. EBU’s opinions and recommendations remain among the most highly respected. EBU’s Technical Department has been very active in promoting hybrid radio and has developed an open-source implementation of a hybrid radio production platform in order to showcase this technique. EBU Members are launching services that aim to provide a bridge between an analogue/digital broadcasting environment and online services available on radio.

HbbTV, MHP, YouView, MHEG-5 are the subject of many conferences around Europe. Who’s doing what? What are the functionalities of each? How will these important technologies live alongside IPTV services, manufacturer’s portals and other Internet bluechip driven initiatives? EBU’s stand at IBC will demonstrate EBU-Member initiatives in this area to show what’s happening and what’s possible.

For many years, the EBU predicted that future HDTV production would move to a ‘full’ HDTV progressive format, and as a result has been in the crossfire of industry voices many times. But in time, products have been developed and 1080p/50, as the next generation master HDTV format, has reached a status where a full chain, from cameras, via production and contribution and finally distribution up to the set-top box and consumer displays can be realised with “off the shelf” equipment. The results will be shown in the IBC 2011 demonstration. The 1080p/50 full real-time production chain may allow consumers to reach the next quality level of HDTV, and content producers to add more value to their assets.

At the same time 3DTV has reached, from the hype of the past years, a maturity and reality level that attracts the attention of all broadcasters, either for production for the international market, or in some cases for distribution to the home. The EBU will show some of the innovative production highlights of EBU Members in 3DTV. 2011 has been a milestone year for the Framework for Interoperable Media Services (FIMS) Task Force setup by the Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and the EBU, which will greatly facilitate the transition to IT and file-based programme production. It will provide a universal interface language for broadcasters and equipment makers to interconnect IT production elements. The EBU Village will show a further demonstration of the system specification.

Lastly, broadcasters are also distributing via the internet to the home. Here again, decisions are required about the image format and which internet suitable video codec to use. Naturally, broadcasters want to limit the need for cross-conversions. Using the same image format like in production or linear distribution could be an advantage. EBU Technical will demonstrate how progressive image formats are used with two prominent internet-compression codecs at different typical internet bitrates. IBC participants will be able to suggest the resulting image quality for viewers in the home – on their second screen.

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