Future of Broadcast Television Initiative Launched
Technical executives from 13 television broadcast organizations from around the world today completed signing a landmark memorandum of understanding (MOU) to officially form the global Future of Broadcast Television (FOBTV) Initiative. Announced during a well-attended general session at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, the MOU builds on the Future of Broadcast TV Summit held in Shanghai, China, in November 2011, where world broadcasting leaders established a framework for cooperation to chart the future course of terrestrial television broadcasting.
The signatories of the FOBTV MOU believe that terrestrial broadcasting is uniquely important because it is wireless (supports receivers that can move), infinitely scalable (point-to-multipoint and one-to-many architecture), local (capable of delivering geographically local content), timely (provides real time and non-real time delivery of content) and flexible (supports free-to-air and subscription services). The attribute of wireless delivery of media content to a potentially unlimited number of receivers
makes terrestrial broadcasting a vital technology all over the world. Broadcasting is, in fact, the most spectrum-efficient wireless delivery means for popular real-time and file-based media content, according to the MOU. The MOU underscores the goals of the FOBTV Initiative, which include:
• Developing future ecosystem models for terrestrial broadcasting taking into account business, regulatory and technical environments,
• Developing requirements for next generation terrestrial broadcast systems,
• Fostering collaboration of Digital TV development laboratories,
• Recommending major technologies to be used as the basis for new standards, and
• Requesting standardization of selected technologies (layers) by appropriate standards development organizations
FOBTV is a voluntary, non-profit association that is open to any organization that signs the MOU. FOBTV is now forming a Management Committee that will include representatives of the founding members. FOBTV also will have a Technical Committee that will be responsible for solicitation and evaluation of technical proposals and recommending major technologies to be used as the basis for new standards. Participation in the work of FOBTV Technical 2 Committee will be open to all MOU-signatory organizations that have a direct and material interest in the work of FOBTV.
The complete MOU – signed by technical executives of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC), Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC), Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB), European Broadcast Union (EBU), Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Globo TV-Brazil, IEEE Broadcast Technology Society (IEEE-BTS), National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), National Engineering Research Center of Digital TV of China (NERC-DTV), NHK Science and Technology Research Laboratories (NHK), Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the Brazilian Society of Television Engineers (SET) – is available at: http://tinyurl.com/FOBTVMOUApril2012
