Digital TV interactivity – What does it really cost?

The South African Department of Communications (DoC) confused and infuriated industry earlier this year when ex-Director General Mamodupi Mohlala stated that a standard for digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasts hadn’t been selected.

MultiChoice, e.tv, the Southern African Digital Broadcasting Association (SADIBA) and South African Communications Forum (SACF) have all publicly opposed the DoC’s position, citing the Broadcasting Digital Migration Plan (BDMP) published by the DoC in 2008 as well as the migration regulations released by ICASA earlier this year.

The BDMP stated that Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial (DVB-T) would be South Africa’s DTT standard. According to industry stakeholders this policy decision wasn’t unilateral, but came over the course of eight or nine years after two separate recommendations by government-appointed bodies of the European DVB standard for DTT.

According to the DoC it is investigating alternative standards such as the Brazilian version of the Japanese Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting, Terrestrial (ISDB-T) standard, as well as DVB-T2, the newer iteration of the DVB-T standard.

One of the features being compared is the interactivity provided by DVB-T and the Brazilian version (ISDB-Tb) of ISDB-T.

Interactivity adds cost to set top boxes

In order to receive digital television signals you will have to own a digital set top box (STB). This box is similar to an M-Net or DStv decoder.

To take advantage of the interactivity features provided by a broadcaster over whatever broadcasting standard they implement the STB must be able to accommodate it. This requires that middleware, which is a type of software, in the STB.

Special Advisor to the Civil House at the Presidency of Brazil, Andre Barbosa Filho, emphasised that no royalties are applicable on the ISDB-Tb standard, or its interactivity middleware, Ginga.

DVB-T has been criticised for relying on patented technologies that require royalties and licenses.

MultiChoice and e.tv have rubbished the claims made by ISDB-Tb proponents, with spokespeople from the two broadcasters saying that both ISDB-Tb and DVB-T are subject to the same patents. These include OFDM, the basic modulation system as well as MPEG2 and MPEG4, the compression systems.

Ginga open, but not royalty free

Bertus Bresler from Reunert/Reutech provided further information that showed that the famously open source Ginga middleware is also not royalty free.

According to a Farncombe report the Forum for the Brazilian Digital Television System (SBTVD, another name for ISDB-Tb, have negotiated a 15% discount from Sun Microsystems (now owned by Oracle) for the use of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that powers Ginga-Java.

The rate is roughly R3.17 (R$0.76) per STB that uses the JVM in Brazil and other Latin American countries.

Bresler says while the Ginga reference code is available for download it’s a long way from a fully functioning software application that has been certified and can run on an ISDB-Tb set top box.

They have received an indication that Brazilian software houses will charge between R14.63 (US$2) and R36.60 (US$5) per STB for Ginga based on volumes, added Bresler.

According to Bresler the cost per set top box for DVB-T middleware and MHEG-5 interactivity engine is about the same as the JVM cost of Ginga-Java. He added the caveat that the price may vary from vendor to vendor, or vary based on volumes.

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