Tag Archives: Companion Screen

HbbTV 2: Down with the language barriers

On television, language barriers are reconciled by translations or subtitles. Thanks to artificial intelligence, audio tracks can now even be converted into foreign languages largely automatically and with much less effort. New features co-developed by IRT make it possible to offer viewers individual language versions via the TV speakers or via smartphones and headphones. A …

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“Inter-Device Synchronization” using HbbTV2

The “inter-device synchronization” feature of the HbbTV2 standard allows the playback of IP AV streams on a mobile device in lip-sync with the broadcast TV image on the TV. One of the most important use cases for this is the provision of additional audio versions via mobiles and headphones, e.g. for use in a family …

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VisualMedia in Action

Embedding Social Media in Broadcasting

Social media content is becoming an ever more integral part of broadcasting. By incorporating social media services, it is not only possible to include user-generated content, but also to provide a more immersive and engaging experience for the viewers by using social media platforms as interactive feedback channels. Including this content directly into broadcasts, however, …

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The Tinkered TV Companion

What we’ve done We have built a companion-screen application for the children’s quiz programme “1, 2 oder 3“. The app allows children at home to play along, just like the children in the show, using a floor pad. The floor pad uses a Raspberry PI single-board computer to connect to an HbbTV application on the …

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2-IMMERSE MotoGP multiscreen experience with HbbTV 2 retail devices

Partners in the EU-funded project 2-IMMERSE have developed a platform for multiscreen services. The architecture of the 2-IMMERSE platform has been built around the HbbTV 2 specification, mainly using the new companion-screen protocols for app-to-app communication and inter-device media synchronisation. At the beginning of the project there were no TV sets implementing the HbbTV-2 standard available. …

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Synchronised Holograms

Synchronising an augmented-reality experience to a broadcast programme on an HbbTV 2 device Version 2 of the HbbTV standard, introduces several new features. Probably the most interesting set of features target at combining mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones with HbbTV devices. These so-called companion-screen features allow creating distributed media experiences, in the sense …

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Discovery, Launch and App-to-App Communication in ARD-Mediathek

In cooperation with ARD-Mediathek we extended the Android version of the VoD portal of the ARD network to demonstrate companion-screen features of  the HbbTV 2.0 specification. Users of can launch a desired video clip on a desired HbbTV 2.0 device and remotely control the playback of the video on the TV from the mobile app. The app makes use of …

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