Type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Communication Services, Media & Entertainment |
Founded | April 12, 2022 in London, United Kingdom |
Headquarters | , United Kingdom |
Area served | Worldwide |
Website | www |
The Service List Registry (SLR) provides an online directory of audiovisual services, based on open standards for Digital Video Broadcasting. [1] The Service List Registry enables any compatible client device or application to query a distributed online database to retrieve lists of relevant media services and obtain technical details of how to access them over various delivery networks.
The federated online directory is based on the open DVB-I standard for Service Discovery and Programme Metadata, [2] developed by the European Broadcasting Union and the DVB Project based in Geneva. It is part of a suite of standards used to deliver digital radio and television services in Europe and many other countries around the world.
The purpose of the Service List Registry is to enable "Simple Service Selection on any screen". [3] It provides a means for internet-connected devices and displays to offer access to audiovisual services that may be delivered over various transmission networks. [4]
The SLR platform allows registered regulators, producers, distributors and service providers to administer lists of audio and video services available online and through traditional broadcast networks. [5]
Compatible devices and applications can use the Service List Registry to discover and access audio and video services from various sources, including fixed and wireless internet connections and traditional cable, satellite and terrestrial transmissions. [6]
The Service List Registry platform was developed to support DVB-I, a Digital Video specification developed by the DVB Project. The DVB established a group to begin the definition of DVB-I in October 2017. [7] Work on the commercial requirements for DVB-I began in January 2018 and the terms of reference were agreed in March 2018. [8] The initial service discovery elements were defined by November 2018. [9] The specification was approved by the DVB in November 2019. [10] It was first published as a DVB BlueBook in June 2020 and as an ETSI standard in November 2020. [11]
The DVB-I standard defines the technical function of a Service List Registry or SLR as an HTTP endpoint available at a known URL that, if queried, can return a list of Service List Entry Points. It does not specify how the SLR collects and stores such information. [12]
In June 2021, the DVB Project commissioned a reference implementation of a skeleton DVB-I Central Service List Registry as a proof of concept for verification and validation of the specification. [13] This was developed by Sofia Digital in Tampere, Finland and released as open source software in December 2021. [14] A federated system that allows a level of national control of regulated lists of appropriately authorized services was proposed in March 2022. [15]
Service List Registry Limited was incorporated as a separate entity in April 2022 to provide the service discovery platform. [16] The Service List Registry launched at DVB World in Brussels on 18 May 2022. [17] [18] Three months after launch, a pilot programme was announced for participants to join the Service List Registry. [19] The first public demonstration of the Service List Registry platform was provided at the international IBC Show trade convention in Amsterdam on 9-12 September 2022. [20]
As specified in the open DVB-I standard, a compatible device, display or application can make an online query request to the Service List Registry server, specifying parameters such as language, country or technical capabilities, and in response will receive a list of relevant audiovisual service offerings. From this the device is able to request one or more service offerings and receive a list of services with technical details of how to access specific service instances over various delivery networks. An internet connected device can therefore determine which services can be presented depending on available distribution systems.
Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) and European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
MHEG-5, or ISO/IEC 13522–5, is part of a set of international standards relating to the presentation of multimedia information, standardised by the Multimedia and Hypermedia Experts Group (MHEG). It is most commonly used as a language to describe interactive television services.
Programme delivery control (PDC) is specified by the standard ETS 300 231, published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). This specifies the signals sent as hidden codes in the teletext service, indicating when transmission of a programme starts and finishes.
Digital Video Broadcasting – Satellite (DVB-S) is the original DVB standard for satellite television and dates from 1995, in its first release, while development lasted from 1993 to 1997. The first commercial applications were by Star TV in Asia and Galaxy in Australia, enabling digitally broadcast, satellite-delivered television to the public. DVB-S was the first DVB standard for satellite, defining the framing structure, channel coding and modulation for 11/12 GHz satellite services.
Digital Video Broadcasting - Satellite - Second Generation (DVB-S2) is a digital television broadcast standard that has been designed as a successor for the popular DVB-S system. It was developed in 2003 by the Digital Video Broadcasting Project, an international industry consortium, and ratified by ETSI in March 2005. The standard is based on, and improves upon DVB-S and the electronic news-gathering system, used by mobile units for sending sounds and images from remote locations worldwide back to their home television stations.
DVB-H is one of three prevalent mobile TV formats. It is a technical specification for bringing broadcast services to mobile handsets. DVB-H was formally adopted as ETSI standard EN 302 304 in November 2004. The DVB-H specification can be downloaded from the official DVB-H website. From March 2008, DVB-H is officially endorsed by the European Union as the "preferred technology for terrestrial mobile broadcasting". The major competitors of this technology are Qualcomm's MediaFLO system, the 3G cellular system based MBMS mobile-TV standard, and the ATSC-M/H format in the U.S. DVB-SH now and DVB-NGH in the future are possible enhancements to DVB-H, providing improved spectral efficiency and better modulation flexibility. DVB-H has been a commercial failure, and the service is no longer on-air. Ukraine was the last country with a nationwide broadcast in DVB-H, which began transitioning to DVB-T2 during 2019.
In Digital Video Broadcasting, the Common Interface is a technology which allows decryption of pay TV channels. Pay TV stations want to choose which encryption method to use. The Common Interface allows TV manufacturers to support many different pay TV stations, by allowing to plug in exchangeable conditional-access modules (CAM) for various encryption schemes.
TV-Anytime is a set of specifications for the controlled delivery of multimedia content to a user's local storage. It seeks to exploit the evolution in convenient, high capacity storage of digital information to provide consumers with a highly personalized TV experience. Users will have access to content from a wide variety of sources, tailored to their needs and personal preferences. TV-Anytime specifications are specified by the TV-Anytime Forum.
Globally Executable MHP (GEM) is a DVB specification of a Java based middleware for TV broadcast receivers, IPTV terminals and Blu-ray players. GEM is an ETSI standard and an ITU "Recommendation”. GEM defines a set of common functionalities which are independent from the signaling and protocols of a specific transmission network and enables to write interoperable Java applications for TV. GEM is not intended to be directly implemented, but rather forms the basis for broader specifications targeting a particular network infrastructure or class of device. GEM defines profiles for different device classes (targets) – these define the set of available features of GEM for this device class. Currently GEM defines targets for broadcast, packaged media (Blu-Ray) and IPTV. Combinations of these targets can be combined into a hybrid GEM platform, which enables to build devices with multiple network interfaces, such as a combined broadcast/IPTV set-top box.
DVB Content Protection & Copy Management, often abbreviated to DVB-CPCM or CPCM, is a digital rights management standard being developed by the DVB Project. Its main application is interoperable rights management of European digital television, though other countries may also adopt the standard.
IP over DVB implies that Internet Protocol datagrams are distributed using some digital television system, for example DVB-H, DVB-SH, DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-C or their successors like DVB-T2, DVB-S2, and DVB-C2. This may take the form of IP over MPEG, where the datagrams are transferred over the MPEG transport stream, or the datagrams may be carried in the DVB baseband frames directly, as in GSE.
DVB-T2 is an abbreviation for "Digital Video Broadcasting – Second Generation Terrestrial"; it is the extension of the television standard DVB-T, issued by the consortium DVB, devised for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television. DVB has been standardized by ETSI.
ETSI Satellite Digital Radio describes a standard of satellite digital radio. It is an activity of the European standardisation organisation ETSI.
High-definition television (HDTV) describes a television or video system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since at least 1933; in more recent times, it refers to the generation following standard-definition television (SDTV). It is the current de facto standard video format used in most broadcasts: terrestrial broadcast television, cable television, satellite television.
The DTG is the association for British digital television broadcasters and annually publish and maintain the technical specifications for digital terrestrial television (DTT) in the United Kingdom, which is known as the D-Book and is used by Freeview, Freeview HD, FreeSat and YouView. The association consists of over 120 UK and international members who can participate in DTG activities to varying degrees, depending on their category of membership.
MPEG-4 Part 20, or MPEG-4 Lightweight Application Scene Representation (LASeR) is a rich media standard dedicated to the mobile, embedded and consumer electronics industries specified by the MPEG standardization group. LASeR is based on SVG Tiny and adds methods for sending dynamic updates and a binary compression format.
Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) is both an industry standard and promotional initiative for hybrid digital TV to harmonise the broadcast, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), and broadband delivery of entertainment to the end consumer through connected TVs and set-top boxes. The HbbTV Association, comprising digital broadcasting and Internet industry companies, has established a standard for the delivery of broadcast TV and broadband TV to the home, through a single user interface, creating an open platform as an alternative to proprietary technologies. Products and services using the HbbTV standard can operate over different broadcasting technologies, such as satellite, cable, or terrestrial networks.
Discoverability is the degree to which something, especially a piece of content or information, can be found in a search of a file, database, or other information system. Discoverability is a concern in library and information science, many aspects of digital media, software and web development, and in marketing, since products and services cannot be used if people cannot find it or do not understand what it can be used for.
SAT>IP specifies an IP-based client–server communication protocol for a TV gateway in which SAT>IP servers, connected to one or more DVB broadcast sources, send the program selected and requested by an SAT>IP client over an IP-based local area network in either unicast for the one requesting client or multicast in one datastream for several SAT>IP clients.
Timed Text Markup Language (TTML), previously referred to as Distribution Format Exchange Profile (DFXP), is an XML-based W3C standard for timed text in online media and was designed to be used for the purpose of authoring, transcoding or exchanging timed text information presently in use primarily for subtitling and captioning functions. TTML2, the second major revision of the language, was finalized on November 8, 2018. It has been adopted widely in the television industry, including by Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), European Broadcasting Union (EBU), ATSC, DVB, HbbTV and MPEG CMAF and several profiles and extensions for the language exist nowadays.