TV-Anytime

TV-Anytime, is a set of specifications for the controlled delivery of multimedia content to a user's digital video recorder (DVR). It seeks to exploit the evolution in convenient, high capacity storage of digital information to provide consumers with a highly personalized TV experience. Users in will have access to content from a wide variety of sources, tailored to their needs and personal preferences. TV-"Anytime" specifications are specified by the TV-"Anytime" Forum.

The TV-Anytime Forum

The global TV-Anytime Forum is an association of organizations which seeks to develop specifications to enable audio-visual and other services based on mass-market high volume digital storage in consumer platforms.

It was formed in Newport Beach, California, USA, on 27-29 September 1999 after DAVIC was closed down. It was wound up on 27th July 2005 following the publication of rfc 4078 (reference: http://www.tv-anytime.org/).

Its first specifications were published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) on August 1 2003 as TS 102 822-1 "'Broadcast and On-line Services: Search, select, and rightful use of content on personal storage systems" ("TV"-Anytime")'. RFC 4074 (The TV-Anytime Content Reference Identifier (CRID)) was published in May 2005.

TV-Anytime has more than 60 member companies, which include European (BBC, BSkyB, Canal+ Technologies, Disney,EBU, France Telecom, Nokia, Philips, Thomson) and Asian (ETRI,KETI,NHK, NTT, Dentsu, Hakuhodo, Nippon TV, Sony, Panasonic, LG, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba) companies and organizations, as well as USA members such as Motorola, Microsoft, and Nielsen.

The objectives

The TV-Anytime Forum has set up the following four objectives for their standardization work:

#Develop specifications that will enable applications to exploit local persistent storage in consumer electronics platforms.
#Be network independent with regard to the means for content delivery to consumer electronics equipment, including various delivery mechanisms (e.g. ATSC, DVB, DBS and others) and the Internet and enhanced TV.
#Develop specifications for interoperable and integrated systems, from content creators/providers, through service providers, to the consumers.
#Specify the necessary security structures to protect the interests of all parties involved.

Current status

During the fall of 2005, the second phase of the TV-Anytime specifications will be accepted by ETSI as a proper specification for TV content metadata. And the underlying reference mechanism, the CRID, will be turned into an Internet specification by IETF.

While there seems to be a strong interest in adopting the TV-Anytime specifications, among cable and satellite broadcasters, this specification has yet to be deployed in a practice. As opposed to the alternative metadata specifications, by American CableLabs, that have been deployed in the US for several years.

A licensing program for TV-Anytime is offered through Via Licensing Corporation. www.vialicensing.com.

ee also

* backstage.bbc.co.uk

References

* http://www.tv-anytime.org/ The TV-Anytime Forum. Accessed August 26, 2005
* http://www.etsi.org/ The ETSI web site.

* http://www.cablelabs.org/ CableLabs. Accessed August 26, 2005