Ocean Blue Software

Octopus White Paper

Project Octopus: An Ocean Blue paper on the
feasibility of combining HTML5, Adobe Flash Lite, DVB
and MHEG-5 as a single software solution for the
European DTV market.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................................................2
PART 1: CANVAS AND HYBRID BROADCAST BROADBAND TV (HBBTV).............................................................3
WHAT IS CANVAS? .................................................................................................................................................. 3
WHAT IS HYBRID BROADCAST BROADBAND TV (HBBTV)?.............................................................................................. 4
HBBTV VS CANVAS .................................................................................................................................................. 5
PART 2: THE PRESENTATION ENGINES .............................................................................................................5
WHAT IS HTML5?.................................................................................................................................................. 5
THE AUDIO AND VIDEO ELEMENTS .............................................................................................................................. 6
WHAT IS ADOBE FLASH LITE?.................................................................................................................................... 6
WHAT IS MHEG-5?................................................................................................................................................ 6
PART 3: THE CONVERGENCE.............................................................................................................................7
CONTENT IN DIFFERENT FORMATS ............................................................................................................................... 7
COMBINING HTML5, FLASH LITE AND MHEG-5.......................................................................................................... 8
HTML AND FLASH LITE IN MHEG-5 .......................................................................................................................... 8
A COMBINED SOFTWARE STACK COMPRISES OF DIFFERENT STANDARDS ............................................................................. 8
CONCLUSIONS..................................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................................10

Ocean Blue Software | ITV Television Centre, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3HG

| www.oceanbluesoftware.co.uk

Introduction
The global digital TV marketplace is faced with the growing problem of having a multitude of
different digital TV software standards. Consumer electronics corporations, such as television
manufacturers, would like to incorporate one software product which fits all software standards, is
this possible?
The emergence of the Canvas Joint Venture in the UK and the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV
(HbbTV) in mainland Europe (primarily France and Germany) has created such a dilemma for
consumer electronic corporations.
If the one product fits all concept is to happen, the following questions need to be asked;

Which software standard will win?

Will there ever be a de facto standard for terrestrial, cable and satellite broadcasting?
What influence will the internet play in digital TV?

The purpose of this paper, and project Octopus, is to give an overview of the proposed connected TV
solutions; take their known presentation requirements and explore the feasibility of generating one,
common, software solution. This solution could help answer a number of the questions posed
above. To that end the paper has been divided into three main parts;
Part 1: Gives an overview of the different technologies proposed
Part 2: Gives an overview of the different presentation engines being discussed
Part 3: Attempts to address how to combine the different solutions into one software product

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Part 1: Canvas and Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV)

What is Canvas?
The Canvas Joint venture is made up of three major UK terrestrial broadcasters (BBC, ITV and Five)
and British Telecom (acting as an ISP).
At the end of September 2009, members of the Canvas Joint Venture presented an overview of the
aims and outline requirements for Project Canvas to a gathering of DTG members (Including Ocean
Blue Software).
The key goal of Project Canvas is To define and promote a standards based open environment for
Internet-connected television devices.
The Canvas Joint Venture is asking the DTG to take responsibility for the development of the
standards and specifications of several key areas so that these specifications will form part of the
upcoming D-Book 7. However specification of the user experience (GUI and EPG) and the DRM will
remain the sole responsibility of the Canvas Joint Venture.

The basic Canvas architecture is shown below.

The DTG has set up six working groups to start work on these specifications; these groups will be
overseen by the Canvas / IPTV Steering Group;
1. SI and Metadata Group
2. Security Group (CA and possibly DRM implications)
3. Presentation Technologies Group
4. IP Delivery Group
5. Devices Group
6. Audience Measurement Group
Ocean Blue Software will be represented in the relevant working groups, including the Steering
Group.

Ocean Blue Software | ITV Television Centre, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3HG

| www.oceanbluesoftware.co.uk

What is Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV)?

HbbTV is an initiative that grew out of the Open IPTV
Forum, to address the need for a fully integrated
broadcast / IP solution for TVs and set top boxes.
European-wide Standard?
Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV, or HbbTV, is a pan-European initiative aimed at harmonising the
broadcast and broadband delivery of content to the end consumer through connected TVs and set
top boxes. The HbbTV specification was developed to manage the rapidly increasing amount of
available content targeted at the consumer. It is based on elements of existing standards and web
technologies including OIPF (Open IPTV Forum), CEA, DVB and W3C.
HbbTV products and
services will provide the
consumer with a seamless
entertainment experience
with the combined
richness of broadcast and
broadband. This
entertainment experience
will be delivered with the
simplicity of one remote
control, on one screen and
with the ease of use of
television that we are used
to.
Through the adoption of HbbTV, consumers will be able to access new services from entertainment
providers such as broadcasters, online providers and CE manufacturers including catch-up TV, VoD,
interactive advertising, personalisation, voting, games and social networking as well as program
related services such as digital text and EPGs.

Ocean Blue Software | ITV Television Centre, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3HG

| www.oceanbluesoftware.co.uk

HbbTV vs Canvas
Despite the fact they set out to achieve roughly the same thing, it is currently impossible to draw a
direct comparison between the two solutions.
MHEG will be a significant part of the Canvas Joint Venture strategy as this is inherent in the UK
broadcast infrastructure, however in mainland Europe there is no unified interactive legacy, so here
HbbTV will adopt HTML as the interactive solution, though to make this a truly pan-European
solution interaction with MHEG will have to be considered.
Also whereas HbbTV has made a commitment to CE HTML as their presentation engine, the decision
on what will be used in Canvas is not yet clear, there are several candidates but it is likely that HTML
and Adobe Flash are the main contenders. Canvas has also not defined the DRM and there is no CA
strategy apparent yet.

Main Features

Canvas

HbbTV

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

Yes
Yes
Yes
?
Yes
Optional
Yes
Optional

Common EPG (IP/Broadcast)

Broadcast (DVB)
VoD
Push VoD
Red Button Services
PVR
Interactive applications
Media Download

Part 2: The Presentation engines

What is HTML5?
HTML was originally conceived as a general purpose page mark-up language for web-based
information. It provides a means to create structured documents by denoting structural semantics
for text such as headings, paragraphs and lists, as well as for links, quotes and other items. It allows
images and objects to be embedded and can be used to create interactive forms.
HTML5 extends, refines and tidies up the HTML/XHTML elements found in HTML4. The new
elements introduced are, in general, semantically richer and functionally more complete than those
in previous versions. In addition some elements and / or attributes have been removed to
standardise the HTML model.
As well as specifying new mark-up elements, HTML5 specifies scripting application interfaces (APIs).
Included in this are APIs for;

2D drawing library using the canvas element

Mime type and protocol handler registration

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Timed media playback

Browser History Management
Offline applications and storage database
Document editing
Drag and Drop
Cross-document messaging
API for registering web applications with new protocols and media types

The Audio and Video elements

A particularly noteworthy addition is that of the API for playing video and audio, provided by the
video and audio elements. The audio element is used for natively including audio into a web page,
and the video element is used for natively including video into a web page. The big win here is that
rather than have a plethora of different Flash-based media players required to view content from
sites such as YouTube the functionality will be built into the browser.

What Is Adobe Flash Lite?

Flash Lite is a lightweight version of Adobe Flash Player, and is aimed at non-PC-based applications
such as CE devices and mobile phones, while still giving the opportunity for these devices to display
the same rich media content enjoyed on Adobe Flash PC applications, such as Shock Wave (swf) and
Flash Video (flv). Its ability to run on differing levels of hardware (e.g. Mobile phone, CE devices etc)
makes it a true multi-platform solution allowing content to be encoded once and delivered to
several device types.
Flash Lite can add audio and interactive elements without the use of other technologies such
as JavaScript. As with Flash, Flash Lite is able to read and redraw external XML content. Flash Lite 3 is
based on Flash 8, which bridges the gap between CE products and desktop content by supporting
H.264 video standard, as well as On2 VP6 and Sorenson video codecs. It also introduces the support
for FLV video content.
Flash Lite is well suited to embedded solutions, as it makes full use of the hardware acceleration
implicit in these solutions, both for graphics and media handling

What is MHEG-5?
Multimedia and Hypermedia Information Coding Expert Group (MHEG) is a set of standards that deal
with the presentation of multimedia objects such as audio/video streams, bitmaps and text. MHEG-5
is the standard that describes how interactive applications can be supported in the framework of
exchanged multimedia objects. MHEG-5 applications describe the objects that are presented to the

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viewer, as well as the behaviour in response to certain events such as user input events, timer
events and internal events.
While MHEG-5 can be used in any environment for the presentation of multimedia objects (for
example in educational settings), it is most commonly used in the broadcast world for two reasons:

Encoded MHEG-5 applications are fairly small (a few kilobytes of data) and do not need a lot
of bandwidth in the broadcast
MHEG-5 presentation engines are light-weight, which makes them suitable for running is
small and cheap set top boxes. This is becoming less relevant as computational power
increases (for the same price)

Examples of interactive MHEG-5 applications that are broadcast today include news, weather,
games, dating, information, gambling, chat, EPGs and advertisements.

Part 3: The convergence

Content in different formats

In terms of the future, the line between the content produced in one format or another is becoming
blurred witness the popularity of the BBCs iPlayer. This is only likely to become increasingly
blurred over the next few years. Solutions such as the proposed Canvas and HbbTV move the
technology even further with content providers from the broadcast and internet worlds looking to
share common resources but via different presentation engines.
From the average persons point of view they often do not care how content is delivered to them,
nor in what format; they want a single environment within which to select, view and interact with
that content. For example, if users are watching a live television broadcast, they may wish to click on
the red button and see a list of options available to them, including a hyperlink to the programs
website. They may select this link and view the resulting web pages. They may choose to do this
instead of the TV program, alongside the program or overlaid on top of it. While they view the site
they may identify a previous broadcast that they would prefer to watch. They may select this
program and start to view that instead (on demand style). While watching this downloaded program
they may still expect the red button to be available with appropriate links back to the original
website etc.
With the enhancements present within HTML5 and Flash Lite, users will increasingly expect this style
of rich environment no matter how the content is delivered. They will not wish to tolerate a lesser
experience while watching broadcast television for example.

Ocean Blue Software | ITV Television Centre, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3HG

| www.oceanbluesoftware.co.uk

Combining HTML5, Flash Lite and MHEG-5

HTML and Flash Lite in MHEG-5
The MHEG-5 standard includes support for hypertext objects. The specified behaviour is very
minimal, but this can be further profiled and extended. For example, it is possible to use an HTML
presentation engine to manage the content of an MHEG-5 hypertext object to the extent that a web
application could be embedded inside an MHEG-5 application.
However, although the above is certainly possible, mixing two presentation engines is a problem
when only one of the engines is available in a certain environment. An MHEG-5 engine is not
normally available in a PC environment, and an HTML browser may not be currently available on a
low-end set top box.
A more natural way to extend MHEG-5 is by invoking an external application (Resident Program).
The MHEG-5 application can find out whether the receiver supports rendering of HTML5 or Flash
content, and if so, it can launch a browser that would present web content related to the
programme or the broadcaster. This would separate the external activity (e.g. voting or getting extra
information) from the normal viewing, while allowing each rendering engine to deal with the type of
content that is most suitable. This leads naturally onto a combined MHEG-5 / HTML5 / Flash Lite
environment.
A Combined Software Stack comprises of Different standards
A combined MHEG-5 / Flash Lite / HTML5 standard would allow a unified environment within which
content for each of the mediums would be handled in the same way. Such an environment would
act as a container for both web-based content and digital broadcast TV content. The ubiquitous set
top box would become a content viewing environment in which appropriate rendering engines are
used depending on the type of material (much in the same way the current HTML browsers will
render content based on its MIME type). This does mean that the set top box will need to be able to
support such an environment, however as the constraints placed on such boxes ease, the processing
capabilities will and indeed are already increasing. A future in which a set top box can run a browser
such as Opera is very near and this combined environment is a practical proposition.
Within the unified MHEG / Flash Lite / HTML5 container, video, audio, graphics and JavaScript
applications could co-exist with MHEG-5 applications. Those elements requiring execution and
display via the HTML5 engine could be handled by the embedded HTML5 engine while those
elements requiring MHEG-5 support could be handled by an embedded MHEG-5 engine. The
diagram below (Figure 1.0) illustrates this concept.
MHEG applications and the Internet?
This would allow MHEG-5 applications to contain embedded links / URLs to the web. In turn it would
allow content downloaded off the web to contain links to program guides that could be selected to
show digital TV broadcasts. In effect the set top box container merely determines which rendering
engine to use based on the content requested at any time. This container environment is made
possible as HTML5 provides various extension points for new protocols, APIs and a richer execution
environment. Thus the container itself could be an extended HTML5-compliant browser.

Ocean Blue Software | ITV Television Centre, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3HG

| www.oceanbluesoftware.co.uk

MHEG-5
Apps

Web
Apps

Other
IP Apps

Application Manager

MHEG-5
Engine

HTML5
Engine

Flash Lite
Engine

Presentation Engines
DVB Stack
Hardware

Figure 1: HTML5, Flash Lite and MHEG-5 Browser-Based Container Environment

As a concrete example of the richness of this environment, imagine watching a live broadcast
program that allows viewers to vote on some aspect of the show; directed viewers could select the
red button and select the voting link, this could display in a bar to the side of the show; a web page
allowing the viewer to select their options. This page could include pictures of the items being voted
on; JavaScript to enable suited interactions, asynchronous communication with a server to capture
the vote and notification of the submitted vote. All within a unified user experience.

Conclusions
MHEG-5 applications, Flash Lite and HTML5 content can work together to complement each other.
This can be done by providing a rich user experience where IP connectivity and system resources are
available, while supporting interactive services in environments with minimal resources.
The combination of different European software standards into one software stack is feasible and
do-able. This could result in economies of scale for CE vendors in producing one digital TV receiver
device for the European marketplace.
The Octopus project is an Ocean Blue Software development to create a proof-of-concept software
product that operates on a single chipset and is based on the technologies discussed in this paper.

Ocean Blue Software | ITV Television Centre, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3HG

| www.oceanbluesoftware.co.uk

References
HTML5 differences from HTML4: http://dev.w3.org/html5/html4-differences/
HTML5 Quick Reference Guide: www.veign.com/reference/html5-guide.php
HTML5 Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html5
Ocean Blue MHEG FAQ: www.oceanbluesoftware.com
W3C HTML Working Group: www.w3.org/html/wg
Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group: www.whatwg.org

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Ocean Blue Software | ITV Television Centre, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3HG

| www.oceanbluesoftware.co.uk

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