HbbTV is not enough for Internet on the TV

Comments by mm1 Consulting & Management about the new TV standard

In the light of the HbbTV presentation at CeBIT 2010, mm1 Consulting & Management, the Stuttgart-based consulting company, expresses skepticism about the new hybrid solution for interactive television. “The Internet alone already provides more functionality today than HbbTV promises for the future. HbbTV alone provides only minimal added value and has already been overtaken by the rapid developments on the Internet,” explains Helge Di Marino, senior consultant and media expert at mm1.

Even if TV appliances offering Internet access in addition to television are now available in the mid-price segment, the predicted breakthrough has not yet happened. The reasons for this can be found, for example, in the frequent limitations with usage. HbbTV, also fittingly referred to as Videotext 2.0, creates a basis for hybrid applications which connects TV programs and interactive offers from the Internet. However, free access to the Internet with HbbTV is not possible for technical reasons due to the use of its own HTML variant.

As early as two years ago, with TVEED, a patented process, mm1 Consulting & Management had already presented a concept for integrating TV programs and interactive offers from the Internet without the need for a special HTML variation. Different to HbbTV, the information required for linking TV and Internet offers is transmitted via the Internet. This offers several advantages. In this way, the data for Internet pages that are to be shown with video synchronization can be loaded in advance and even complex web pages appear without delay. This means that even mobile end devices could provide interactive television with TVEED.

For mm1, it is especially important that the user can switch to using the Internet without missing the linear TV program. Time shifting of the respective TV program until the end of the Internet session is an ongoing feature of TVEED. In this way, Internet offers do not compete with the components of the offered TV program and the user enjoys a homogenous, interactive TV experience with the ability to switch seamlessly between both mediums. Volker Scholz, Managing Partner of mm1 Consulting & Management, sums up: “By enhancing HbbTV with TVEED, it would be possible to adapt flexibly to future usage scenarios at short notice. This would be a real gain for interactive television.”