The French TNT 2.0 connected television specifications now include MPEG DASH support, but is it a mandate or an update?
One of the more interesting bits of news coming out of last week's IBC tradeshow in Amsterdam was that the French government has mandated the use of MPEG DASH in all connected televisions.
The full story is a little more complicated, due to the number of connected TV initiatives floating around Europe. France's connected television scheme, backed by industry and government groups, is called TNT. It currently stands at version 2.0, which was launched mid-2011. The recent move to add DASH support to TNT 2.0 is the source of the buzz.
TNT is a French-only subset of what is commonly called Hybrid Broadcast Broadband television, or HbbTV, a pan-European standard for interactive televisions that now stands at version 1.5.