What is MHP?

The Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) is a specification developed by the Digital Video Broadcasting project (DVB) for interactive digital television. The MHP specification enables the reception and execution of Java-based applications on a receiver and the standard development work was extensively supported by Sun Microsystems and major consumer electronics manufacturers. It was first commercially deployed in Finland and many other countries announced they too would adopt the standard, but due to technical difficulties and the implementation cost, deployment stalled. The announcement in March 2006 of the MHP License Fees by Via Licensing (on behalf of the DVB patent pool) effectively halted further MHP deployment as most broadcasters baulked at the principle of paying to use the technology.

MHP is successfully deployed in Italy on the DTT network (but with large government subsidies on the receiver price) and on the SkyLife and Telenet Pay TV platforms in South Korea and Belgium respectively. The incremental cost of including MHP in a receiver is still significant so MHP is optional in other free-to-air markets where it is broadcast, resulting in very low audience penetration and consequent lack of interest from broadcasters. A subset of MHP has been included as part of the Blu-Ray standard for HD video.

MHP uses the Java programming language and includes:

• DSM-CC audio, video, text and still graphics objects presentation from the UK MHEG profile
• user interaction with the application
• support of  real time video and audio presentation

For further information see the DVB Project web site www.dvb.org