The Open IPTV Forum e.V. today announced that it has signed liaison agreements with the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), the Digital Video Broadcasting Project (DVB) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to further drive for an interoperable end-to-end IPTV solution for Managed Network and Open Internet deployments in a global market.
These liaison agreements underline the Forum’s commitment to use existing and emerging technologies and specifications from standardization bodies and other industry associations. DLNA, DVB and ETSI specifications are the base for major parts of the Open IPTV Forum Release 1 specifications and the setup of these working relationships will foster the cooperation with these organizations, ensure proper reuse of specifications and further drive the alignment of the various IPTV specifications which is an important target for mass market IPTV deployments.
The liaison agreements allow for regular information exchange, the participation of observers and joint promotion activities in areas of mutual interest which center around all aspects of IPTV services delivered via Managed Networks, the Open Internet and the Home Network. They cover work on requirements, architecture, protocols and interoperability testing for media formats, meta-data, content delivery, network control, application execution environments and content and service protection among others.
These liaison agreements follow the establishment of the Open IPTV Forum as an Association in Germany (eingetragener Verein) earlier this year. They mark the next step of the Forum to deepen its ties with other organizations active in the IPTV area and will be followed by the establishment of similar partnerships with other relevant organizations over the next year.
Mr. Yun Chao Hu, Chairman of the Open IPTV Forum welcomed the working relationships, saying, “These working relationships with DLNA, DVB and ETSI mean that the Open IPTV Forum can reuse these organizations’ ‘best of class’ specifications. This ensures an optimal time-to-market for end-to-end implementations that will benefit IPTV consumers. I am really looking forward to the execution of these working relationships”.
“DLNA has supported the work of the Open IPTV Forum since its inception,” said Scott Smyers, president and chairman of the board of DLNA and a senior vice president at Sony Electronics Inc. “Our Alliance is committed to better, easier sharing of digital content throughout the digital home. We look forward to an ongoing relationship with the Open IPTV Forum to improve the synergies between IPTV delivery networks to the home network – ultimately improving the consumer experience worldwide.”
Walter Weigel, Director General of ETSI welcomed this relationship as an opportunity to more effectively position ETSI in the IPTV community.
