A Two-Day Dive into the Future of Hybrid TV
On November 12–13, 2025, the HbbTV community gathered in the vibrant city of Istanbul for the 13th edition of the HbbTV Symposium & Awards. Hosted at the elegant Swissôtel The Bosphorus, the event brought together broadcasters, technology providers, standardization bodies, and researchers from around the globe to explore the latest innovations and challenges in the hybrid broadcast broadband TV landscape.
(credit: Luca Pettazzi/HbbTV Association)
With a packed agenda, the symposium offered a mix of presentations, panels, and an unconference format: an open event format in which content, sessions, and discussions are spontaneously organized by the participants themselves.
Day 1: Conference – Vision, Innovation, and Industry Momentum
The conference day began with a keynote held by Vincent Grivet, Chairman of the HbbTV Association. He painted a picture of the changing media market and made it clear how quickly linear television is losing importance, while streaming platforms—above all YouTube—dominate global video usage. His message was clear: broadcasters must adapt in order to not only survive but thrive in this digital world.
(credit: Luca Pettazzi/HbbTV Association)
Throughout the day, numerous experts presented exciting projects and strategic insights. Ophélie Boucaud from Dataxis, for example, provided a data-based analysis of global TV and video trends and predicted that connected TV interfaces will overtake traditional pay TV platforms in household usage by 2027. Damien de Foucault gave a comprehensive overview of smart TV operating systems and their competition – from Google TV to Tizen and webOS to Roku.
(credit: Luca Pettazzi/HbbTV Association)
A special highlight of the symposium was the new QuickFire format. In four minutes each, the speakers provided compact insights into their topics – as a preview of the unconference the following day. Among other things, Amelie Jakob presented the transformation of the ZDF media library into a big-screen-first streaming portal that focuses on immersive content discovery, personalized recommendations, and sustainability. William Cooper explained the role of the Service List Registry for global app discovery via broadband and reported that over ten million DNS requests from 137 countries are already being processed daily. Ralph Edeine from Eutelsat showed how hybrid technologies such as DVB-I and HbbTV can modernize satellite television and presented the SAT.TV Connect app as a practical example.
We also had the opportunity to share exciting updates as part of the QuickFire format. Louay Bassbouss presented the latest developments in the CTA WAVE Streaming Media Test Suite, which represents a decisive step forward for HbbTV interoperability. This suite also serves as the foundation for other solutions such as the FAMIUM Streaming Media Test Suite by Fraunhofer FOKUS, which optimizes testing, debugging, and validation of media streaming and playback across various devices, platforms, and players. Naomi Schoppa highlighted the issue of provenance and authenticity in digital media and showed how technical mechanisms help to ensure the origin and trustworthiness of content in IP-based environments.
Louay Bassbouss & Naomi Schoppa provide a QuickFire update
The program was complemented by intensive roundtables, e.g., discussing the role of HbbTV in an IP-only future. It became clear that DVB-I is paving the way for an IP-based world and that HbbTV will remain relevant even in an IP-only environment. To address this transition, a new All IP Study Mission Group (SMG) has been established to evaluate the relevance and implementation of an IP-only HbbTV specification or alternative approaches for IP-only use cases (e.g., guidelines, white papers, test suite updates).
The day ended with the festive HbbTV Awards Ceremony, which recognized innovation and excellence in categories such as “Best HbbTV Technology Innovation” which was awarded to “Freely Account Linking: Everyone TV (UK)”, “Best Advertising Innovation Using HbbTV” which was awarded to “Pınar Protein Milk – Bringing the Energy of Volleyball Home: TVekstra (Turkey)”, and “Best Accessibility Solution in an HbbTV Service” which was awarded to “Sign language service in HbbTV with WebAssembly: CCMA – 3Cat (Spain)”1.
- https://www.hbbtv.org/13th-hbbtv-symposium-and-awards-2025/awards/ ↩︎
(credit: Luca Pettazzi/HbbTV Association)
The evening provided the perfect opportunity for networking, exchange, and celebration—against the impressive scenery of the Bosphorus.
Day 2: Unconference – Open Dialogue, Shared Challenges, Collective Solutions
The second day of the symposium had an informal format. The unconference sessions gave participants the opportunity to shape the agenda themselves, suggest topics, and engage in in-depth discussions on the issues that matter most to the community. It was a day marked by openness, exchange, and genuine collaboration.
Complex challenges were discussed and practical experiences shared in smaller expert groups.
(credit: Luca Pettazzi/HbbTV Association)
One important session was dedicated to the topic of sustainable streaming, led by Amelie Jakob. The discussion focused on the entire streaming chain – from content production to the energy consumption of end devices. The central question was: Where do you actually start calculating? Is it about end-to-end consumption, or does the energy of the underlying infrastructure and its construction also have to be taken into account?
(credit: Luca Pettazzi/HbbTV Association)
It quickly became clear how important it is to take a holistic view of sustainability. That is why we are conducting research in the field of green streaming in collaboration with ZDF. You can find out more here.
Another focus was on the role of education: How can we raise viewers’ awareness of energy consumption? And how can we create simple ways to reduce individual consumption – for example, through optimized TV settings?
The discussion also showed that cross-industry collaboration is crucial to developing sustainable solutions. This is because the research results available to date vary considerably in some cases, underscoring the complexity of the issue. Sustainability in streaming is multidimensional and requires consideration of all levels.
It was an intense and inspiring exchange that made it clear that the future of streaming must be thought of not only in digital terms, but also in terms of sustainability.
Unconference Sessions Schedule
Equally exciting was the debate moderated by Jon Piesing on native versus JavaScript DASH players. Here, participants exchanged experiences on performance, caching strategies, and the prospects for media playback on HbbTV devices. We are maintainers for dash.js, which is also very popular on HbbTV devices playback type 3. It has specific HbbTV-related features such as preloading and WebVTT support for HbbTV. You can find more information here.
Another topic was the commercialization of DVB-I, which focused on the tension between standardization and market fragmentation. The discussion revolved around the question of how innovation can be reconciled with interoperability and a fair value creation model.
The session on AI for smarter TVs offered a glimpse into the future. 3CAT and the EBU presented a proof of concept for voice-controlled interactions via mobile apps, which sparked numerous ideas for future standardization initiatives.
We were also actively involved in the unconference day and were able to organize two sessions of our own. Louay Bassbouss moderated a lively discussion on coordinating testing across HbbTV, CTA WAVE, and DVB. Together with the participants, approaches were developed to better align testing tools and practices. One particularly interesting proposal was the use of GitHub tags to make versioning and traceability more transparent.
Unconference Session Circle
Naomi Schoppa continued the debate on provenance and authenticity that she had initiated the day before. The group delved deeply into the technical aspects of content verification, particularly in the context of disinformation and deepfakes. With the shift to an IP-only world, media content and its protection are taking on a whole new priority. This raises key questions: Where should content verification take place? What elements in DVB-I are worth protecting? We took these and other open questions away with us from the discussions.
One thing is clear, however: there is a great need for protection mechanisms for HbbTV and especially for DVB-I. The discussions showed how important it is to further develop standards and technologies to ensure trust and security in an increasingly IP-based media world.
The unconference day ended with a joint wrap-up session in which the most important findings were compiled and next steps were defined. The palpable energy and shared commitment to innovation left everyone involved feeling inspired and motivated for the road ahead.
Looking Ahead
The 13th HbbTV Symposium made it clear: the future of television is hybrid, interactive, and IP-driven. As the industry navigates this transformation, the HbbTV community continues to play a pivotal role in shaping standards, fostering innovation, and ensuring interoperability.
We look forward to continuing these important conversations—and to seeing many of you again at the next HbbTV Symposium!