MHP is the only truly open middleware system
MHP’s technology was developed using the tried and tested open procedures of the DVB Project and subsequently subjected to the rigours of standardisation by ETSI, leading to a stable set of detailed specifications. In developing MHP, the DVB Project was called upon to seek guarantees from the major technology provider for the core element of MHP, Java™. Sun Microsystems, a DVB member, and a dedicated team of DVB specialists drew up arrangements which would ensure that MHP would be like any other DVB specification, with DVB in a position to control its evolution. In addition, there were extensive IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) discussions which led to the strict but open and fair conformance and licensing arrangements described in detail in the Products and Conformance pages on this site.

The benefits of MHP...

...for Content Producers
A content producer typically develops content for a variety of platforms. For example, a content producer could be developing content for use on cable, satellite and terrestrial versions of his service, all running different middleware systems, and thus necessitating adaptation of the content to each of these platforms. MHP is truly open and powerful enough to meet all of the content needs for Interactive TV. For the producers of such content MHP is an attractive proposition, allowing them to offer their applications to a wide audience independent of specific proprietary middleware systems.

...for Broadcasters
One of the commercial drivers for MHP is that it facilitates the “horizontal market” - one in which the broadcaster is not directly responsible for the platform on which his services run. Thus the broadcaster can offer MHP services to a diverse population of receivers running MHP middleware.

Furthermore, because MHP is open, and thus attractive to content producers developing innovative content, it increases the broadcaster's choice of suppliers, and ultimately the attractiveness of the content itself.

...for Manufacturers
Before the development of open middleware systems such as MHP, manufacturers were in a position where vertical market set-top-boxes needed extensive support. In such a situation sometimes the cost of supporting the different middleware platforms exceeds the cost of manufacture of the set-top-boxes in the first place. This is unfortunate, as the aim of standardisation in digital television is to avoid different specific solutions for the same technical problem. Almost all digital television set-top-boxes comply to the DVB set of standards, but the middleware systems (and their costly support) have been operator specific.

MHP offers a solution where a single middleware platform can be deployed (and supported) as opposed to a plurality of platforms. Thus manufacturers can benefit from extended markets and greater economies of scale. Many manufacturers have also developed their own open MHP platforms, reducing licensing costs paid to third party middleware suppliers.

...for Government
MHP is a regulator’s dream. An open and stable middleware system supported by wide sections of the industry, MHP promises to ensure that there is open and easy access to a burgeoning iTV market.

Furthermore, digital television offers the opportunity to deliver services to populations who don’t currently have PCs, or the infrastructure (e.g. telephone lines) to support PCs. MHP is a key facilitator of this. Being an open system, it permits applications and services targeting social requirements – e-government, e-education, e-health - to be developed and deployed as part of the effort to bridge the digital divide. A requirement for deployment of such services beyond the elite is that they be available in a free-to-air environment, and MHP’s flexibility and openness is the best news for some time in this area.