TV-Anytime: status and prospects - MediaNet Vlaanderen

TV-Anytime: status and prospects 

onTV.eu.com


Medianet presentation 

November 7 th 2003 

Colin Moorcraft 

CTO 

OnTV Europe Ltd 

http://onTV.eu.com 

colin.moorcraft@ontv.eu.com 

XML Schema Editor 

Metadata Working Group 

TV-Anytime Forum 

http://www.tv-anytime.org 

http://ontv.eu.com 2


Presentation overview 

• An Introduction to the TV-Anytime 

(TVA) series of standards 

• The relationship between TVA and other 

standards 

• TVA implementation and deployment 

• Conclusions 



Introduction to the TVA standards - 1 

Background: an international, cross-industry initiative to enable 

interoperability 

• The drivers: digitalization, network and local storage (PVRs/PDRs) and 

convergence of broadcast, multicast and other networked modes of distribution of 

multimedia content to the home 

• Users have exploding choice; they need much more powerful ways of discovering 

content (via metadata) and more reliable ways of acquiring it (via content 

referencing) 

• The users and all the actors in the value chain of multimedia/TV content creation 

and distribution would benefit greatly (as in GSM and the web) from open 

platform-independent, interoperable standards 

• The founding members decided not to reinvent the wheel; TVA is 

transport/platform agnostic; its initial focus has been on the key missing 

interoperable bits needed to realise the potential of PDRs (content referencing and 

metadata – plus some rights management ) 




Already achieved: the Phase 1 ETSI-approved specifications 

• ETSI recently (August - October 2003) approved and published the 

TV-Anytime Phase 1 series of specifications 

• The scope of Phase I was essentially limited to the broadcast and 

multicast model (with no return path or only a narrow one) 

Key elements include: 

• The CRID – location-independent content referencing 

• A metadata specification that encompasses both content description 

and user description (user preferences and usage history) 

• A web services framework to enable client applications to request 

and obtain metadata 




Work-in-progress: the Phase 2 specifications 

• Underlying premise: the networked home (a network in 

the home; the home in a network) 

• Wideband return path assumed 

• Peer-to-peer sharing of content to be addressed 

• New media types 

• Interactive services 



Relationship with other standards 

• MPEG-7 (a comprehensive metadata standard for all 

forms of multimedia) 

• DVB-MHP (Multimedia Home Platform: open standard 

for integrated multimedia in the home) 

• AAF/MXF (a metadata framework for metadata 

exchange for all the steps in the content creation and 

distribution process – up to delivery to the end-user 

[that’s where TVA steps in]) 



Implementation and deployment 

• Adoption by regional industry standards-setting 

bodies (DVB, ARIB and ATSC) 

• Early experience and preparations for deployment in 

the UK (Freeview, DTG) 

• Experience elsewhere (South Korea and Japan) 

• TVA-compliant products and services (onTV:meta) 



CONCLUSIONS 

• The Phase 1 TV-Anytime specifications are mature 

and ready for deployment 

• The metadata specification, in particular is being 

adapted and incorporated into digital television and 

related standards across the globe 

• The recently initiated Phase 2 work will ensure a 

degree of future-proofing for Phase 1 

implementations 



CONTACT INFORMATION 

Isabel Lopes Dias 

Business Development - Europe 

onTV Europe Ltd 

E-mail: isabel@ontv.eu.com 

Tel: +351-21-843 9965 


CTO 


E-mail: colin.moorcraft@ontv.eu.com 

Tel: +44 (0) 776 633 3067 



onTV.eu.com


Medianet presentation 

November 7 th 2003 


CFO 

onTV Europe Ltd. 


CTO 




In a nutshell … 

The onTV:meta TV Metadata Publishing 

Framework is a modular, customisable, 

standards-based system for the acquisition, 

creation, enhancement, management and 

publication of radio and television programme 

information (“metadata”). 

Capture the metadata once, and publish it in as 

many formats and across as many platforms as 

you want – using an easy-to-learn browserbased 

interface. 



Presentation overview 

• Content description using the TV-Anytime XML Schema 

• The technical basis of onTV:meta 

• onTV modules 

• onTV:meta:import 

• onTV:meta:publish 

• onTV:author/edit 

• The onTV offer 



Content description 

• Centrality of the CRID 

• Programme description 

• Programme groups 

• Segmentation 

• Classification schemes 



Technical basis 

• An XML-centric approach 

• Native XML repository/X-Query engine 

• XSL-T publishing pipelines for output 

• Java tying it all together 

• XHTML + Flash for UI 



Modules 

• onTV:import 

• onTV:publish 

• onTV:author/edit 



onTV:meta:import 

• application of conversion filters to externally sourced 

data in structured formats 

• direct import of data in TV-Anytime and onTV's 

extended TVA formats 

• validation of incoming data against the TV-Anytime 

XML schema 

• addition of supplementary information to facilitate 

metadata copyright management and the subsequent 

editorial and publishing process 

• incorporation of validated, pre-processed incoming 

data into the repository 



onTV:meta:publish 

• extraction of data from the repository 

(including advanced querying) 

• transformation into publication formats (e.g. 

TVA, proprietary EPG formats, Quark tagged 

text, HTML and PDF) 

• management of delivery of publication-ready 

data (e.g. via FTP) 



onTV:meta:publish 

• extraction of data from the repository 

(including advanced querying) 

• transformation into publication formats (e.g. 

TVA, proprietary EPG formats, Quark tagged 

text, HTML and PDF) 

• management of delivery of publication-ready 

data (e.g. via FTP) 



onTV:meta:author/edit 

• review of imported data and enhancement to 

meet editorial requirements 

• enrichment of metadata by addition of 

supplementary "missing" information 

(including precise programme classification) 

• origination of complete datasets for channels 

(e. g. authoring of descriptive schedules 

without import of any initial data) 

• updating of data at any time up to the point of 

publication 



The onTV offer 

• Use of any combination of onTV:meta modules on a 

subscription (ASP) basis 

• Provision of data in TVA-format (in association with usage of 

a combination of onTV:meta modules) - also on a subscription 

basis 

• TVA data enhancement (e.g. TVA-compliant classification; 

implementation of grouping and segmentation) - fee based 

• Customisation of user interface, import conversion filters and 

publication formats and processes - fee based 



CONTACT INFORMATION 


Business Development - Europe 


E-mail: isabel@ontv.eu.com 

Tel: +351-21-843 9965 


CTO 


E-mail: colin.moorcraft@ontv.eu.com 

Tel: +44 (0) 776 633 3067

TV-Anytime: status and prospects - MediaNet Vlaanderen

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