The HbbTV Application Toolkit – HAT – presents a CMS for creation of HbbTV applications, which allows content creators without specific technical skills to build interactive TV applications and is developed by Fraunhofer FOKUS' Competence Center Future Applications and Media (FAME). So far HAT covers a simple themes collection which can be accessed through the editor UI. Here the content editor can choose from different layouts and designs regarding the background and color scheme. The layouts include basic modules, broadcast or IP-video, text, image and live blog. The live blog includes an external live blog coming via social media APIs. We see a great potential in the uptake of programme-related HbbTV apps creating new markets for developers and technology providers.

HbbTV Application Toolkit Editor

HAT provides an editor/CMS with a set of GUI templates that can be filled with text, images audio and video content via a responsive user interface for desktop and mobile devices alike. The content palette can be extended by customized modules, e.g. for display of social-media feeds.

The toolkit includes a collection of templates and modules, allowing control of all application elements including broadcast source, IP video source, images, text, picture gallery, social media feeds, popups and overall application layout. When creating more than one page, a navigation menu is automatically generated.

Benefits

• Fast and easy creation of programme-related HbbTV applications

• Provides a set of App templates tailored to the TV screen

• Content can be added via an easy to use web interface

• Supports HbbTV app developers by offering templates and modules like interactive video and photo gallery, text, menus, social media and companion screen support

Linked data for service quality and experience gain in DVB-T/T2 networks. Digital service broadcast suffers from misconfigurations at the source and dynamically changing signal propagation conditions. The lack of feedback leads to undisclosed service degradation and decreased experience. Selective professional monitoring is costly and often not enough to cover large areas. 

Our Broadcast Probing System offers cloud-based continuous near real-time monitoring of broadcast networks by utilizing massively distributed low-cost probes. Controlled either individually or in groups the probes are securely instructed to execute scheduled jobs like scanning, tuning and transport stream inspection. The collected spatiotemporal data links RF characteristics and stream quality (e.g. Signal levels, TS packet errors), multiplexed tables (e.g. AIT/HbbTV, EIT/EPG) and AV dumps to allow for live analysis, evaluation and integration into monitoring environments

Features and assets:

• Feedback channel for DVB-T/T2 networks to detect potential misconfigurations and service degradation 

•  Near real-time monitoring of digital service broadcasts (RF level, TS level, AV level, ETSI TR 101 290)

• Remote control of individual and groups of low-cost probes (Android, Raspberry Pi)

• Execution of scheduled probing jobs and secure instant access (PKI, TLS)

• Analysis and evaluation on live and historical linked data (JSON-LD)

• Integrates with existing monitoring systems and offers a comprehensive API (SNMP, MQTT, REST/HTTPS).

The Fraunhofer FOKUS Ad-Insertion Tools demonstrate standards-based dynamic ad-insertion techniques for HbbTV 2.0 and Over-the-Top delivery (OTT) via MPEG DASH and HTML5.
The solution allows for hybrid playout of Ad cue messages to both, broadcast and broadband world and supports conversion of SCTE35 to HbbTV and MPEG DASH specific events for ad signaling,
VAST and various ad types like display and video ads.

The Multiscreen Application Framework (MAF) is a proof-of-concept implementation of upcoming web standards and technologies related to key multiscreen features such as Messaging, Discovery, Application Launch, Content Presentation, Signaling, Synchronization, Push and Pairing of devices. MAF makes the development of multiscreen applications across different domains like Mobile, Smart TV, Smart Watch and In-Vehicle Infotainment faster and easier. The core of the framework is based on web technologies and enables access to underlying components using standard interfaces like W3C Presentation API and HbbTV 2.0 Companion Screen API. Each MAF component provides implementations for state of the art protocols and technologies like SSDP, mDNS, Physical Web, Airplay, Miracast, DIAL and UPnP and offers Software libraries and tools that can be easily integrated in applications on different platforms like Android, iOS, Cordova, LG WebOS TV, Samsung Gear, Android Wear and Node.js. Some MAF components provides also backend services that are accessible via REST interfaces and WebSockets.

Our solution supports displaying web content like HTML pages and videos on different types of presentation devices like HbbTV 2.0 Terminals, Chromecast and Apple TV and allows to control the playback using smart watches without the need to develop different applications for each of the addressed platforms. Furthermore, our solution enables the dynamic insertion of video advertisements according to the VAST standard with second screen support in both classic linear and on-demand TV content across a multitude of devices and platforms via DVB, HbbTV, and MPEG-DASH.