The first televisions with native DVB-I compatibility are on sale in Italy, in support of pilot trials by major Italian broadcasters. The latest release of the Italian UHD Book is a significant step towards the deployment of DVB-I in Italy, with the intention to make DVB-I compatibility mandatory for televisions to be sold in that market. The remaining requirement will be the publication by AGCOM, the Italian communications regulator, of rules for the allocation of logical channel numbers for online distribution.
Telefunken brand televisions manufactured by Vestel are now on sale in Italy with prominent promotion of native support for the DVB-I standard.
The UltraHD Forum Italia has published the latest release of its UHD Book, version 2.1, which sets the baseline requirements for high-definition and ultra-high-definition receivers for the Italian market. It now declares mandatory support for the new DVB-I standard, subject to four conditions, three of which have been met.
The DVB-I specification was ratified as an ETSI standard in November 2020. Proof of concept trials by major Italian broadcasters have shown the interoperability of an end-to-end system. The results of the trials have been used to develop the conditions for a new reference Italian “bollino” mark for the certification of receivers compliant with the latest UHD Book.
The remaining condition will be the approval by AGCOM, the communications regulator in Italy. This is expected to be complete by the summer of 2024. There will then be a “sunrise” period of 18 months for market implementation. After this, television sets in the Italian market will be required to have completed a DVB-I certification process.
The UltraHD Forum Italia says in the foreword to the UHD Book that it “hopes that this approach will give more confidence to the operators of the supply chain and at the same time spread awareness about the involvement and commitment to be given to allow the introduction of DVB-I technology in the best conditions of use for its success.”
The DVB-I standard provides an online service discovery mechanism enabling compatible applications, devices and displays to access audiovisual media services delivered over traditional digital broadcast transmissions or over fixed or wireless online networks and present them in a unified way.