Objectives

The main scientific and technological objectives of the project are
• to develop and establish knowledge data base(s) on MHP issues;
• to develop a virtual test center;
• to develop reference application modules;
• to develop guidelines and recommendations for the usage of MHP;
• to widely disseminate the know-how that is gained both inside as well as outside the project.

These activities will ensure the interoperability of MHP implementations and the MHP applications production chain (i.e. creation, delivery and execution of MHP applications). Apart from stabilising and pushing the usage of MHP, it will furthermore pave the way for a commonly agreed usage of the standard across platforms and application providers. Whilst the standard evolves, the jointly agreed knowledge of implementing it will evolve, too.

The knowledge data base is in the centre of the proposed development activities. It will be the central exchange point of all relevant information. The knowledge data base will be designed in a generic way to hold all questions and issues which arise during the process of implementing MHP decoders and MHP applications and testing them, plus other information surrounding MHP. Having access to such a pool of information is vitally important as, to date, a systematic collection of open as well as solved issues is still lacking. With access to the know-how that is being generated in and provided by the MHP-KDB project, the further development of MHP applications and technologies as well as the subsequent uptake of MHP will be advanced significantly.

With regards to the data base, the following is planned: it will be filled with information on how to solve and tackle the variety of issues and problems that are to arise in the MHP development arena.

Besides the consortium partners the whole MHP community on an European wide range will be addressed to contribute to this filling process by delivering their interoperability problems.

The project will make sure that valuable advice is available for all components within the entire value chain. The usage of the provided information and application code by the project partners, by third parties and within further standardisation work will allow to maintain the results of MHP-KDB as sustainable solutions that will be vital for the growth and competitiveness of the European media industry with regards to digital TV.