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EuTube
Host: Thomas Stockhammer Reporter: Thomas Stockhammer and Rufael Mekuria Session goal: Identify interest to create technical enablers, standards and prototypes for a global content distribution platform that is closer to commercial platforms such as YouTube
Summary of discussion:
Slides presented during session
Note: around 40 people in the room; very engaged conversation
Notes from Rufael Mekuria:
EUTube unconference session DVB World
- global open platform
- ingest of video
- process and store video
- distribute video
- discover and recommend
- monetize and govern
– all EU values
Youtube
- – algorithm vs pluralism
- – commercialization vs cultural diversity
- – data vs privacy
- – governance vs accountability
- – market dominance vs fair competition
- – global mod vs Europe mod
Elfed: is it like google youtube where the content is hosted and distributed or is the hosting done by different
commercial companies, so the eutube is just the discovery engine. Operational DVB cannot do. EBU operates
platforms.
Paul: Youtube started with user generated content and commercially etc,
Rafael: more focused on created decentralized platform, each broadcaster has its own node platform aims to be a hub
of content and content can be searchable. Looking second phase.
Andrei: maintain and effort, business model needs to be clear. Thomas: different models can exist, monitoring copy rights etc.
Rainer: likes the idea from ZDF perspective youtube Instagram TikTok, everything goes to third party, Instagram photo/short video aspect is interesting
: blockchain no third party to create a user profiles, peer tube community federated content self organizing system
Bram: application is so important as it does everything, backend rights etc.
Ireland: youtube is eu tube, broker from advertisement business incentive for content creators.
Andreas: grey area made youtube big, different types of content in terms of quality, getting the trust of content creators.
Guillaume: what type of users and how to make it attractive, business model.
Thomas: is it possible to provide technology to broadcasters.
ZDF: findability
tf: how to find, co-funded online platform
Klaus: platform certification
Rafael: niche platform
Valentijn: dvb ai
Thomas: tools from youtube review (didn’t capture all details).
guillaume: simplify take cost model into account
Thomas: broadcaster user generated content
paul: gather the requirements from broadcasters doing this
Thomas: technology overview, eu project
Next step: talk to broadcasters see what views are, consider a study on this topic
Notes from Thomas Stockhammer
📚 EUTube – An Idea
Thomas provides overview slides.
What is EUTuBe?
- A global open platform that performs five core functions:
- Ingest videos from creators (UCG and professional, live and on-demand)
- Process & store videos at massive scale
- Distribute video efficiently to viewers worldwide
- Discover & recommend relevant content
- Monetize & govern content (for example including public media fees)
- All of this is built with EU values, is open, is built on standards potentially from DVB and related orgs
What differentiates EUTuBe from YouTube?
YouTube’s most questioned aspects in a European context cluster around:
- Algorithmic power vs. media pluralism
- Commercial optimization vs. cultural diversity
- Data exploitation vs. privacy rights
- Platform governance vs. democratic accountability
- Market dominance vs. fair competition
- Global moderation rules vs. European constitutional tradition
At the same time
- EUTuBe must not pre-overregulated platform
- It is not a discussion club, it is execution
- It is an active community that executes, deploys, adapts, learns and makes use of all modern tools.
- It is continuous hackathon under some rules.
- Developers and contributors must be attracted
- It may be monetized by different means
Questions to be answered
- Are you aware of efforts in Europe, for example public media service providers, to initiate such an effort?
- What could DVB do to provide technologies in this domain?
- Would DVB-I be a first step to such a platform?
- What are required technical features for operating EUTuBE?
- What’s next?
Key Points
- Overview of YouTube core functions.
- Analysis of current privacy, governance, and market concentration issues.
- Design of the Mosaic proposal and its technical stack.
- Stakeholder motivations and open questions for implementation.
European Decentralized Platform
- A platform referred to as MOSAIC is developed as a EU funded project that is similar to the idea presented in the session.
- Goal: Create a multi‑node, decentralized hub where each broadcaster hosts its own content node.
- Key Features
- Search Across Nodes: Unified discovery engine for all broadcaster catalogs.
- B2B Focus (Phase 1): Enable content sharing among European broadcasters and creators.
- Future Consumer Access (Phase 2): Extend platform to end‑users.
- AI‑Powered Tools: Transcription, translation, and language‑barrier removal.
Aspect
YouTube (Current)
Mosaic (Proposed)
Ownership
Centralized (Google)
Distributed (broadcasters)
Content Host
Owned by platform
Self‑hosted or broadcaster‑hosted
Monetization
Ads, service fees
Public‑media fees, subscriptions, regulated ads
Governance
Global policies
European‑aligned regulations
Discovery
Algorithmic, opaque
Federated search, transparent
💰 Business Model & Funding Considerations
- Public‑Media Service Fees: Primary financing source; already allocated for public broadcasters.
- Advertising: Must comply with European regulations; could be a secondary revenue stream.
- Subscriptions: Optional, not opposed in principle.
- Emerging Models:
- Blockchain‑based rights exchange.
- Cooperative funding among broadcasters.
“The platform must remain attractive to developers and contributors while respecting regulatory constraints.”
👥 Stakeholder Motivations & Perspectives
Broadcasters & Content Providers
- Desire independence from commercial platforms.
- Need a common technical reference (e.g., DVB spec) to expose existing applications/content.
Users / Audience
- Seek high‑quality, easily discoverable clips (short videos, highlights).
- Prefer native navigation to official media libraries rather than third‑party hosts.
Developers & Innovators
- Want open APIs and federated content to build services on top of the platform.
- Emphasize low entry barriers and attractiveness to sustain contributions.
❓ Open Questions Raised in Discussion
- Hosting vs. Discovery
- Should the platform store content itself, or act purely as a discovery layer with external hosting?
- Content Scope
- Will it include only professional broadcaster material, or also user‑generated content (UGC)?
- Operational Responsibility
- Who will maintain the infrastructure at European scale?
- Monetization Balance
- How to combine ads, subscriptions, and public fees without compromising the platform’s mission?
- Trust & Creator Engagement
- How to attract and retain content creators amid concerns about rights and revenue sharing?
🛠️ Technical Gaps Identified
- Missing Open Specification: No standard for linking applications to content across platforms.
- Scalability: Need solutions for bandwidth, storage, and global distribution comparable to YouTube’s infrastructure.
- Federated Content Model: Explore peer‑tube concepts where independent nodes trust each other and share metadata.
- AI‑Generated Content Authenticity: Mechanisms required to verify provenance and licensing of AI‑produced media.
“Understanding YouTube’s operational stack helps pinpoint where DVB or other standards can fill gaps.”
We reviewed the operations of YouTube to understand where standards like DVB may matter and what is operational. Please check the slides.
🎯 Strategic Priorities & Path Forward
📌 Define a Viable Niche
- Accessibility‑first: Ensure the platform meets the needs of blind and hard‑of‑hearing users (audio description, sign‑language overlays).
- Language‑wide coverage: Offer native UI and metadata in all EU official languages, leveraging AI‑driven translation pipelines.
- Hybrid B2B/B2C model: Start with a B2B hub for broadcasters to share catalogues, then extend to end‑users once core workflows are stable.
🤝 Engage Broadcasters & Content Providers
- Survey the European broadcaster community to capture:
- Desired distribution formats.
- Current pain points (e.g., rights clearance, metadata quality).
- Co‑design a requirement specification that maps directly to DVB technical documents.
- Pilot with a small group of willing broadcasters to test ingestion, encoding, and federated discovery.
📚 Leverage Existing DVB Standards
- DVB‑SI (Service Information) → structured metadata for program guides and search.
- DVB‑IPTV → transport of adaptive streams over IP networks.
- DVB‑Rights Management → foundation for a European‑wide Content ID system.
🤖 AI‑Driven Decentralized Recommendation
- Deploy a personal AI agent (the “top‑box”) on the user’s device that:
- Pulls public metadata from all participating nodes.
- Builds a local relevance model using on‑device interaction data.
- Sends only aggregated similarity scores back to the network, preserving privacy.
Next steps:
Next steps:
– Potentially create a small study in DVB to structure the work
– Draft a questionnaire for broadcasters and content providers (on the general interest, what type of metadata, rights workflows, and multilingual requirements, etc,).
– Prototype a lightweight AI hub that can ingest public metadata and output a ranked list without sending raw user data. The main idea is the the recommendations are not done centrally, but in your personal AI hub
– Invite presentations of existing technologies and platforms such as MOSAIC.
– Map existing DVB specifications to each step of the pipeline identified above and identify potential gaps