Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB), an industry consortium behind technical standards that are primarily used in Europe, is moving forward on an initiative that will look into commercial requirements for standalone linear TV services that are delivered over the internet.

The focus of that work, under the DVB-I (internet) banner, aim to complement DVB-S/C/T standards and managed IPTV services that are tied to service over dedicated access networks.  DVB-I will also look to borrow commonalities with existing DVB specifications.

Thomas Stockhammer of Qualcomm Technologies is chairing the DVB CM-I group, and Peter Lanigan of TP Vision is on board as vice chair.

Keying on the emergence of OTT-delivered TV services to internet-connected televisions and to mobile devices, the initial focus of CM-I will be to collect relevant commercial and technical requirements “in order to provide a user perception of a linear TV channel that can be discovered and consumed over the open Internet and by regular TV equipment and user interfaces.”

“With hybrid services, OTT and online distribution growing in importance, DVB is applying its expertise and know-how in this all-important domain,” Peter MacAvock, DVB’s chairman, said in a statement. “DVB-I will complement the current DVB standards that form the basis of the way consumers watch TV today.”

RDK Management LLC said the Reference Design Kit, the common, pre-integrated software stack for IP-capable devices, has tacked on more support for Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB), a standard that is popular with pay-TV operators in regions such as Europe.

RDK Management, a venture headed up by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Liberty Global, said it has added in-band DVB Service Information (DVB-SI) to the platform for use by the RDK community, citing “significant contributions” by Arris Group. The announcement comes on the eve of the 2015 RDK Users Conference, slated to take place February 24 in Denver. 

The inclusion of DVB-SI will enable RDK-based set-tops, gateways and other devices to support critical, in-band table of contents and other data required for electronic program guides and other services. That in-band capability provides reliable data to MVPDs that operate one-way networks or are in the process of transitioning to interactive networks, “a common situation across Europe and other global regions,” RDK Management said.

The contributions, it added, will extend the RDK Media Framework to provide a common method for extracting DVB streams and to provide an open source reference DVB implementation that can be adopted by operators and suppliers that rely on DVB technology.

Aiming to expand its global scope, RDK Management announced last June that it was moving ahead with a plan to make its platform compatible with DVB technology, noting at the time that it was on a path to integrate in-band DVB-SI.

“Given the RDK’s global reach and appeal, it was imperative to deliver DVB-SI functionality to support legacy networks,” said Steve Heeb, president and general manager of RDK Management, in a statement. “Thanks to a dedicated working group led by ARRIS and Liberty Global, operators in Europe and other parts of the world can more easily adopt the RDK across their markets.”

RDK Management said it now has more than 200 licensees, a group that includes CE manufacturers, SoC vendors, software developers, and system integrators and more than 20 operators. MVPDs known to be part of that latter group include Comcast, Rogers Communications, Japan’s J:COM, TWC, Liberty Global, and Kabel Deutschland.