PRESS
RELEASE
Arlanda, Sweden 6:th March 2001
NorDig members agree on DVB-MHP
NorDig* reached an agreement on March 6, 2001, on a successive transition
to a common and open standard for interactive services etc. The
TV audience will in the future receive and use interactive services
from various operators in one way only. TV companies and content
producers will develop and produce their services in a common system,
very much in the same way that HTML works for the Internet.
The members of NorDig have reached an agreement to use DVB-MHP
(Digital Video Broadcasting-Multimedia Home Platform). DVB is the
European distribution standard for satellite and cable as well as
terrestrial transmission. DVB now also covers a system for interactivity.
Today the Nordic operators work within different systems. The agreement
follows the European aims for a standardisation within digital TV.
The work within NorDig is based upon accepted European and international
standards.
The agreement of March 6 means that the NorDig members are committed
to making the transition to DVB-MHP at the latest in 2005.
As from the end of 2001 all NorDig members will recommend the market
to support only set top boxes that meet the specifications of NorDig
I. And from the end of 2002 they will only offer their customers
boxes that operate interactive services via DVB-MHP.
From that time on there will be no new interactivity in the present
boxes only, but they will still function in the nets where systems
like Open TV and MediaHighway are used. The present digital set
top boxes can be used also after 2005 for conventional TV reception
including teletext as well as the interactive services from today’s
systems.
The DVB-MHP standard for interactive services will be used in the
new digital nets that will be built in the near future; i.e. the
terrestrial nets in Finland, Denmark and Norway.
Since the start NorDig has been working on specifying the demands
of different aspects to be met by digital set top boxes. These demands
are now linked to the plan for the transition to DVB-MHP. NorDig
is at the moment trying to find the practical forms for testing
digital boxes. The aim is to brand boxes that live up to the right
standard with a NorDig logo.
The NorDig members are the most important TV and telecommunications
companies and operators in the Nordic countries - Sweden, Norway,
Finland, Denmark and Iceland. The members have since the start 1997
worked for a transition to a API common system for interactivity.
They agree that the transition to DVB-MHP will stimulate the market
for digital TV, not the least the development of added services,
as well as the convergence of the Internet and digital television.
- Choosing an open solution is a break through for Nordic co-operation
and a clear signal to the rest of the world, says Arne Wessberg,
head of the NorDig board, director general of YLE but also president
of EBU. - I am convinced that this will stimulate the development
of digital TV in all our countries. I hope that all Nordic households
soon will be able to use the digital interactivity offered to them.
For further information please call:
Arne Wessberg YLE, Chairman NorDig Steering Board Tel +358 9 14
80 5000
Jan-Olof Gurinder, SVT, Chairman NorDig Executive Committee Tel
+46 8 784 00 00
Hans Fjøsne, Telenor, Chairman NorDig Technical Committee
Tel +47 22 77 73 20
Translation from Swedish, SVT Info, March 2001
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