Late last week, Thompson Video Networks announced that they launched the H2B2VS project. This particular work in progress is aimed at investigating just how much the hybrid distribution of TV programs will be changed by emerging technologies. Heterogeneous broadcast and broadband networks that are using the HEVC video compression standard are becoming all the more important with the explosion of different technologies.

While Thompson Video Networks is leading this investigation, they are hardly alone. There are 19 different companies that are all working together to figure out the best way to work with HEVC standardization. The group of 19 different companies that reside in five different European countries will analyze and make suggestions on how the industry in their region will move forward.

"Today's broadcast networks have limited capacity that does not easily accommodate bandwidth-demanding new video formats such as 3D or 4K; thus, broadcasters face obstacles in adding these new services to their existing lineup. One valid solution is to use broadband networks to carry the additional information required by the new formats," said Claude Perron, chief technology officer at Thomson (News - Alert) Video Networks.

"In fact, several of our customers, both terrestrial and satellite operators, are modifying their business models to support broadband video services. The H2B2VS innovation initiative is a clear example of Thomson Video Networks' commitment to supporting these customers during this complex transition."

The H2B2VS project is working to address the needs that broadcasters are finding with the new technologies that are out there. This project will make it possible to quickly and easily prototype and test different solutions that member companies are able to come up with. Thompson Video Networks, for its part has already announced that it will adapt one of its top of the line products, the VIBE VS7000 multi-screen video encoding platform, so that it will actually support HEVC encoding and streaming.