It is clear that people are technology blinkered in this industry and it all depends where the pay cheque comes from that defines their technology choices.   I would have expected the consultants to be more unbiased or knowledgeable.If anyone would (as DVB-MHP Chairman) like me to send anyone the latest information about DVB – as it appears that you are all not very up to date on the latest deployments.  Otherwise go to http://www.mhp.org

Briefly:  In Germany MHP is a Hybrid Broadband Technology that is now moving into mainstream. There is NOTHING that can “better” than MHP for TV as it is based on JavaTV which is specifically built and used to control the applications and resources in the STB and iDTVs;  as opposed to a “Presentation Engine” that has been built to present simple graphics on the TV screen. MHP has a plug-in Browser, Flash Module Plug-in and can add all manner of additional plug-ins ie. It is ready for PVR, HomeNetworking and much much more. Two of the largest German Cable Networks have selected MHP or MHP based technology and it is in ONO Spain, ITI Poland, Telenet Belgium, INDI Belgium, MMPolska, Italy DTT, Norwegian DTT, 4 Networks in Taiwan, Skylife in Korea, Korea Telecom, All 6 Cable networks in South Korea, and many more!

The only Hybrid Broadband TV movement is the CE-HTML supporters that are trying to re-build MHP from HTML…So they have about 10 years to catch up. GEM (Globally Executable MHP) deployments are around 40 Million at the moment including BD-J which is part of the GEM movement.

Many Countries have selected the MHP and the MHEG standard such as South Africa for MHEG but it will be MANY years before they deploy as it is Business Model NOT technology that counts. SA is particularly LATE since the change of Government and the review of Digital Transition..

HBBTV is not a foregone conclusion as Bill Sheppard ( an industry veteran like me) says,” HTML based technology has proven VERY unsuccessful and history has proven that it failed and failed and failed again”. We have seen it since 1997: HBBTV is ATVEF which failed and DVB-PCF which failed and WEBTV which failed….So we think it might not get too far but a bit further and as MHP is already HBBTV why re-invent the wheel…OpenIPTV Forum even has GEM in its portfolio…Look at www.mhp.org and swot up a little.

MHEG is in the UK, NZ and Hong Kong which is hardly numerous compared to the MHP deployments. I do not know of any Asian deployments Chris…some trials but only HK…