What is MHEG?

MHEG-5 is an open standard interactive TV (iTV) middleware – or application programme interface (API) – designed to allow broadcasters to provide interactive services that appeal to a wide audience cost-effectively. As digital television continues to be rolled out globally, iTV applications have been proven in a wide variety of markets to provide competitive advantage by significantly enhancing viewer “stickiness”.

MHEG-5 is a public standard with no known essential intellectual property rights nor associated license fees for broadcasters. It is now a mature technology and is deployed in a variety of markets.

MHEG-5 can be used to deploy a wide variety of applications; from basic “red button” services to platform wide EPGs, enhanced Teletext and mosaic/multi-screen
applications.

With the latest standard - UK Profile 1.06 - a strong conformance test suite has been developed by the UK Digital Television Group, ensuring interoperability for receiver manufacturers, broadcasters and content creators. The UK Profile, or its ETSI equivalent, provides a baseline specification that can, and has been, extended for other MHEG deployments worldwide such as for FreeView New Zealand.

UK Profile

The MHEG-5 UK Profile version 1.06 (or its ETSI equivalent, officially known as ETSI ES 202184 V1.1.1, 2004 MHEG-5 Broadcast Profile) provides a baseline specification that can, and has been, extended for other MHEG deployments worldwide. Commonly known as the UK Profile, it is the father of all MHEG-5 profiles and most commercially available products (or solutions) are based on this. All newer MHEG-5 profiles such as the Freeview NZ DTH and DTT profiles, or that being used by TVB Hong Kong are based on the UK Profile 1.06 or its ETSI equivalent.

The UK Digital TV Group (DTG) act as the custodians of the UK Profile and lead the specification and development tasks of all matters related to MHEG-5 in the UK. Please refer to the DTG website for the latest information on the UK MHEG-5 profile, corrigenda and interoperability issues.

History

MHEG is an acronym for the Multimedia and Hypermedia information coding Expert Group (MHEG). It was developed in the mid-1990s as part of the DAVIC (Digital Audio Video Council) standardisation effort to support interactivity and navigation of multimedia services on various small footprint devices.

MHEG-5 Markets

United Kingdom - Freeview (DTT), Freesat (DTH), TopUpTV (DTT PayTV operator)
New Zealand - Freeview (DTH & DTT including HD)
Hong Kong - TVB (DTT)
India – Digicable (Cable PayTV operator)

Trials that include MHEG-5 in the specification have taken place (or are going to take place) in Malaysia, Ireland, Turkey and South Africa with more to be announced shortly.