The workshop helped Chinese TV/STB manufacturers to understand the latest Freeview Play technologies and get closer to the UK market.

Freeview Play, based on the HbbTV 2.0.2 specification, is already actively used in over 2 million UK homes and is fast becoming the largest hybrid TV service in the UK.

In early November, 2018, Digital UK and the BBC led a Freeview Play workshop in Shanghai, organized by SERAPHIC, the pioneering open standard hybrid TV solution provider, and invited leading TV/STB manufacturers and SoC vendors to attend. This workshop was a chance for industry players to gain a better understanding of Freeview Play as well as new innovations coming for 2019 and 2020.

Freeview Play offers more than 70 live digital TV channels, including 15 HD channels with rich OTT content aggregated with the popular CPs (Content Players), like BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, STV Player, All4, Demand 5 and UKTV Play with more to come in the future. It offers a true hybrid interface, allowing UK consumers to switch between live and on-demand viewing seamlessly. Viewers can also access OTT content from their Freeview Play device.

Freeview Play is expected to grow further, anticipating 5m devices to have been sold by the end of 2018. Digital UK is strengthening and simplifying Freeview Play certification of TV and STB products to ensure Freeview Play becomes the new normal TV. Alex Russell, Head of Technology Partnerships at Digital UK commented “We work closely with all our partners to make sure Freeview Play continues to deliver for our viewers. Discussing Freeview Play and the technology behind it, is really important to us, being able to share knowledge and expertise in this way enables us to continue developing and optimising Freeview Play.”

From the very beginning of Freeview Play specification development, SERAPHIC continually participates in Freeview Play implementation and adoption together with manufacturers and SoC vendors, who are mostly located in APAC region, the center of global DTV supply chain. It is among the front-runners in providing Freeview Play 2018 solutions, which has been adopted by renowned manufacturers to roll out compliant devices in the UK. It is now following the newly published Freeview Play 2019 specifications.

The workshop participants were able to directly discuss their current and future products with experts in Freeview Play technologies, the product requirements and the certification process. “It has definitely accelerated our development and certification in the UK.” A new comer said.

James Jackson, Director of Technology at Digital UK commented, “Being able to have sessions like this is so important to us, we get to hear feedback from our partners first hand, enabling us to work together much more effectively.”

Xinwen Xue, VP Product Management at SERAPHIC, said, “SERAPHIC is honored to work together with Digital UK and help organize this workshop. The UK market is where we have great interest and much experience. We’re excited to assist domestic manufacturers to get closer to the fastest growing technology in the UK.”

About Digital UK

Digital UK supports Freeview viewers and channels. The company manages strategy, policy and service development for digital terrestrial television (DTT) in the UK and provides day-to-day technical management of the Freeview Electronic Programme Guide (EPG). Digital UK is owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Arqiva and has also led development of Freeview Play, a hybrid platform bringing together free-to-view DTT and catch-up services in a range of TVs and set-top boxes.

About SERAPHIC

SERAPHIC Information Technology is dedicated to providing internet-related software and web-based solutions to all TV/Video related terminal devices including Smart TVs, set-top boxes, over-the-top devices, game consoles, etc. SERAPHIC’s product offering includes TV Browsers for HTML5, HbbTV, OpApp, Freeview Play, YouTube TV, Sraf Lite, TV Portal and Open Browser as well as Web TV solutions. The company targets digital TV and consumer electronics markets in Europe, Latin America, Australia and Asia Pacific. For more information about SERAPHIC, please visit www.seraphic-corp.com or send an email to info@seraphic-corp.com.