The Institut für Rundfunktechnik GmbH (IRT) is the research centre of the German broadcasters (ARD

ARD (broadcaster)

ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...

 / ZDF

ZDF

Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...

 / DLR), Austria's broadcaster (ORF

ORF

ORF may refer to:* ORF , the Austrian public service broadcaster.* Open reading frame, a portion of the genome.* The IATA airport code for Norfolk International Airport in Norfolk, Virginia.* ORF format , Olympus raw image file format....

) and the Swiss public broadcaster (SRG / SSR

SRG SSR idée suisse

SRG SSR is the Swiss public broadcasting organisation, founded in 1931 as SRG-SSR. Headquartered in Bern, SRG SSR is a non-profit organisation, funded mainly through radio and television licence fees and making the remaining income from advertising and sponsorship.Switzerland's system of direct...

). It is located in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 and is responsible for the research and standardisation of broadcasting technology. Nowadays it is focused on digital technologies.

They invented important standards such as DAB

Digital audio broadcasting

Digital Audio Broadcasting is a digital radio technology for broadcasting radio stations, used in several countries, particularly in Europe. As of 2006, approximately 1,000 stations worldwide broadcast in the DAB format....

 and DVB-T

DVB-T

DVB-T is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial; it is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in the UK in 1998...

.

Institut für Rundfunktechnik is a founding member of the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV

Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV

Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV is both an industry standard and promotional initiative for hybrid digital TV to harmonise the broadcast, IPTV, and broadband delivery of entertainment to the end consumer through connected TVs and set-top boxes...

 (HbbTV) consortium of broadcasting and Internet industry companies (also including SES Astra

SES Astra

Astra is the name for the geostationary communication satellites, both individually and as a group, which are owned and operated by SES S.A., a global satellite operator based in Betzdorf, in eastern Luxembourg. The name is sometimes also used to describe the channels broadcasting from these...

, OpenTV

OpenTV

OpenTV is an interactive television company founded in 1994. Its main business involves the sale of set-top-box operating systems and software. On March 28, 2010 OpenTV became a fully owned subsidiary of the NAGRA Kudelski Group and officially delisted from the NASDAQ, where it was previously...

, Espial and ANT Software) that is promoting and establishing an open European standard (called HbbTV) for hybrid set-top boxes for the reception of broadcast TV and broadband multimedia applications with a single user interface.