open IPTV forum (OIPF)

The Open IPTV Forum e.V. (OIPF) was founded in 2007 as a pan-European initiative. The Forum is composed of companies from the equipment manufacturing, communications, telecommunications and entertainment industries. Member companies include Ericsson, France Telecom, Nokia, Siemens, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony and Telecom Italia.

The goal of the OIPF Forum is to develop an end-to-end specification for Internet television (IPTV), based on existing open standards. For this purpose, the OIPF divides IPTV transmission into the area for the end devices, gateways and head ends. The end consumer should be able to use IPTV just as easily as television, ideally as plug-and-play. This would open up the mass market for IPTV.

The simple solution for Internet TV developed by the OIPF is intended to make the end consumer independent of the IPTV technology behind it. However, this means that all companies involved in IPTV, its development and transmission, need a special tool with which their own products can be integrated into a universal plug-and-play solution. This tool is one of the OIPF's development projects and is incorporated into the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV( HbbTV) solution.