Introducing advances in Conformance and Interoperability at the First International HbbTV Plugfest 2024

by Bob Campbell, Director of Engineering, Resillion

The recent International Plugfest, hosted by The Digital TV Group (DTG) and Deutsche TV-Plattform (DTVP), was a prime opportunity for our Resillion team to showcase our progress in simplifying the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) testing process. This was the first of three such events that will be held in various locations around Europe with the next in Italy this summer, and a 3rd in Germany in the 3rd Quarter.

Plugfests are incredibly valuable events for all companies interested in testing and validating the interoperability and compatibility of their AV products, software, content and apps, such as DVB-I, HbbTV TA and CTA WAVE testing, with others' implementations. Without events like these, delivering excellent user experiences would be a much harder process.

For the first time, our Resillion team demonstrated fully automated WAVE streaming media tests using Ligada iSuite to the manufacturers in attendance, showing them the benefits of the integration within Ligada iSuite to address some of the challenges faced by testers wanting to ensure conformance to WAVE standards.

What is the WAVE streaming media test suite? The WAVE streaming media test suite is part of the WAVE (Web Application Video Ecosystem) Project, which is owned and run by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) . It aims to improve how internet-delivered commercial video is handled on consumer electronics devices and to make it easier for content creators to distribute video to those devices. WAVE implemented a test suite which verifies device behaviour against requirements for hardware capabilities identified within the Device Playback Capabilities Specification.

What are we doing to help with the challenges? At a high level, our integration of the tests and tools from WAVE into Ligada iSuite, the leading HbbTV Test Harness, makes things simpler for a user familiar with HbbTV testing and therefore aids adoption of these tests. To help with setup, we're hosting an instance of the WAVE test suite Test Runner in the Cloud and have also created an HbbTV style test suite with the WAVE test media included for users to load into Ligada iSuite as they would with any other HbbTV test suite. To simplify running the tests, users can run the tests from within Ligada iSuite and benefit from the camera being fully automated, meaning it can run overnight with no manual operations required to copy media to the PC. Plus, since there's no need to remove a memory card, the camera position remains unchanged, reducing the risk of false negative test results. Users also benefit from results being posted one test at a time, meaning there is no need to wait for an entire test run to complete to check if the test environment is set up correctly.

We had really positive responses to our demonstration. Plugfest attendees particularly liked the common look and feel to HbbTV testing and the fully automated running capability. We've scheduled the release of the full version with the next release of Ligada iSuite, v7.1 in Q2 2024.

Following the Interoperability plugfest, HbbTV held a Test Event, an opportunity for HbbTV test material providers and manufacturers to get together and debug/validate as many tests as possible prior to the official HbbTV 2024-1 test suite.

Why were we in attendance? Our Ligada iSuite is the leading conformance test harness used by HbbTV receiver manufacturers to execute the HbbTV test suite. We're also a significant contributor of test material to HbbTV Test Suite and have implemented approximately 1,400 HbbTV test cases. For us it's a priority to attend every Test Event to help approve as many tests as we possibly can.

This time around, our primary focus was on validating the Targeted Advertising test cases that we're currently fixing. However, the scarcity of available Targeted Advertising device implementations presents a notable challenge. Despite this obstacle, we were able to run 24 Targeted Advertising test cases. We plan to follow up this event by approaching manufacturers directly to attempt to assure more tests can be approved by the next HbbTV Test Suite release.

To find out more about our Ligada iSuite for HbbTV offering, visit our dedicated webpage: https://www.resillion.com/services/device-testing/devices-testing/ligada-isuite-for-hbbtv/

Want to learn how we can help? Get in touch with one of our experts.

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