The future DVB-I standard aims to deliver TV programmes over the Internet, so that they can be received and displayed by a variety of connected receivers (TVs, PCs, tablets, smartphones) with the same ease of use as today’s traditional TV programmes received from an antenna.

The new DVB-I services will be discovered by means of an installation procedure functionally equivalent to a frequency scan, and included in a channel list having a Logical Channel Numbering (LCN) harmonised with broadcast services.

MULTIDRONE is an EC funded project of the H2020 research programme.

Today, the satellite distribution of DVB-T2 multiplexes to terrestrial transmitters located throughout the territory requires dedicated transponders for the transport of the relevant T2-MI (Modulator Interface) streams, which are not directly accessible also for direct-to-home reception by standard satellite receivers. This causes duplication of the needed satellite bandwidth, with the associated costs. To overcome this problem, DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting) has activated a new ad-hoc group, named TM-T-JSI, with the purpose of defining an optimized way to transport DVB-T/T2 multiplexes from a national head-end to the terrestrial transmitters, while allowing at the same time direct reception via DVB-S/S2 commercial satellite receivers.

The integration of terrestrial and satellite telecommunication networks will allow the widespread distribution of OTT contents, offloading the CDN backbone during traffic peaks, for the benefit of the effective picture quality perceived by the users.