The HbbTV Consortium, a group that develops and promotes the hybrid broadcast-broadband standard, has named Kirk Edwardson, head of marketing and sales engineering at Espial, and Regis Saint Girons, CEO of httv, to head a marketing initiative to push the open standard beyond Europe.
The standard, the consortium said, has been deployed across Europe where there are over 2 million active HbbTV receivers in Germany and a half million active receivers in France.
HbbTV is gaining momentum in other markets around the world, spreading to Asia and even the Americas. But, according to the HbbTV Consortium--which was founded in 2010 and comprises 60 TV broadcasters and CE companies--the pan-European initiative supporting an open standard for hybrid delivery of broadcast and broadband services through connected TVs and set-tops has a ways to go when it comes to international recognition.
The industry standard, at its core, allows digital television content from a number of different sources including traditional broadcast TV, internet, and connected devices in the home to be displayed on a single screen via ether a connected digital TV with the appropriate software or a hybrid IPTV set-top box with a range of input connectors that include Ethernet and at least one tuner for broadcast TV.
While "over the last several years, HbbTV has gained significant market momentum and international support," the organization wants "to further increase the presence of HbbTV in Europe and the rest of the world with a renewed marketing focus that will push hybrid television services closer toward becoming a standard feature on connected TVs everywhere," Klaus Illgner, HbbTV president said in a Broadband TV News story.
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