Anthony Smith-Chaigneau says the MHEG-5 alliance is wrong to compare the technology with MHP and that the UK is not as advanced as it thinks.
The MHEG-5 Alliance has responded to the recent announcement and changes in the DVB-MHP specification FTA licensing terms recently reported in Broadband TV News.
The IMPALA claims fail to highlight that MHEG-5, in the UK, is an industry-driven mandate. That makes it successful because manufacturers have no choice, not because broadcasters really use it or even offer sophisticated interactive services’’ that make it a must-have. No mention that it was called slow and clunky and switched off by Five.
MHEG-5 has struggled to make any impression in other markets even whilst the MHP suffered over the last three years from its licensing issue! It made no impression abroad until a former UK digital television engineer migrated to New Zealand…rather a coincidence, I feel.
IMPALA says that it would highlight the differences between the UK and New Zealand but fails to mention any difference except that there are a small number (two!) It also fails to mention that MHP/GEM is operational across terrestrial, cable, satellite and IPTV. Moreover, BD-J is the core of Blue-Ray under GEM (Globally Executable MHP) and MHP/GEM is successful in the following countries: Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Norway, Switzerland, Korea, USA (MHP based), Saudi Arabia, Taiwan and soon to be seen in other locations across the various transmission systems including DTT. It is absurd to compare the two technologies.
The DVB considered MHEG-5 during its deliberation on the middleware back in 1998 and it was not selected. However, there are elements of MHEG-5 in the DVB-MHP specification and common mechanisms employed (e.g. DSMCC). MHP is more sophisticated than MHEG-5 and it is supposed to be was built to be. The two products cannot be compared, they are not equivalent and I have said time and time again that this is comparing apples to oranges. The hundreds of thousands in the Java based programming and development community alone for GEM based products makes the 40 or so MHEG5 developers look like a shaky proposition. There is nothing to compare in this subject.
A presentation entitled ‘Making Money in MHP’ was made at DVB World 2008, and it was not a vendor of middleware but an operator (with broadcasters on the network) showing the benefits of this interactive engine and the resounding success of interactive TV.
Italy is extremely successful in DTT with MHP. IMPALA claims have no ground. The UK and New Zealand are not a resounding success in comparison to other interactive TV markets.
FTA is now free from MHP licensing fees and we expect that the important aspect is the business model not the technology. Interactive TV actually adds value, as shown in Italy and all the other countries where it is deployed. Broadcasters that are considering this route should not be duped by pricing scaremongering but really look at the whole dynamics of FTA iTV and choose the technology that will lead them into a convergent world of interactive TV hybrid such as IPTV+DTT, DVB-S+DTT and DVB-C+DTT and ask which technology has been designed for this (GEM) and by which standardization organization (DVB). Let’s not forget Blu-Ray DVD and DTT convergence which is on the way and how will we do multiple interactive middleware residing on top of BD-J (GEM).
We agree that MHP does cost slightly more at receiver level, but the boxes are of better quality, have more bells and whistles and retail from €70 upwards. €70 is not expensive, I am sorry, but it is just not.
There is, of course, investment in head-end equipment for the control and delivery of interactive applications. These are equitable across many different interactive TV offers and scaremongering about other system costs without outlining the differences in black and white has no ground; it is an absurd way of promoting your technology.
