DTT will have to compete with Internet television

This is the conclusion of the Trilogy research project promoted by the i2CAT Foundation and in which researchers from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Pompeu Fabra University and Ramon Llull University have collaborated.

The i2CAT Foundation has presented at MAC'09 the audiovisual advances of its research project Trilogy (FutuRE Internet technoLOGY)). i2CAT has released one of the most relevant results of the project: an experimental platform for the dissemination of live audiovisual content using a distributed infrastructure (known as P2P architecture). Albert Vidal, head of the i2CAT research area, has pointed out that it is “a platform that allows total freedom and that will revolutionize the way we consume and produce content, since any user, with a conventional computer, will be able to broadcast a recorded video in real time to thousands of users around the world.” The platform also allows the quality of the content to be adapted to the type of device it is directed at (television, computer or mobile phone) and the available bandwidth, so that “the receiver will be able to see the content with the maximum quality that their device allows,” adds Vidal.

The director of i2CAT also points out that from this Foundation they are "building the structure of what will be the television of the future: a television not subject to a specific device (television), completely flexible in use and with a quality up to three times higher than the current DTT." According to the person responsible for Research, "the future of television lies in these new methods of disseminating audiovisual content through the Internet (known as IP Television), since it will allow the necessary infrastructure to become cheaper or the flexibility to offer content and advertising adapted to users. Many efforts are being made to carry out the controversial analogue switch-off, but it is most likely that in the coming years DTT will have to measure itself against fully competitive Internet television, once all current obstacles have been overcome," he concludes.

The Trilogy research project has involved almost two years of work and has had the collaboration of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the Pompeu Fabra University and the Ramon Llull University. The work has been carried out in line with research on the Internet of the future that is being carried out internationally to overcome the great challenges that IP television currently has to overcome: image quality and the adaptation of the format to different devices. In this sense, the Trilogy project has achieved good results, among which stand out the obtaining of new mechanisms for sending large volumes of information on optical networks, audiovisual content transmission systems with three times higher quality than current digital television, applications that allow more efficient energy use of telecommunications networks or very small devices (sensors) that allow objects of different types to be connected wirelessly to the Internet and make them interact with each other (M2M or machine-to-machine Internet).