Where did I here about "non real time" broadcasting before?? Bob Miller On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 10:03 AM, Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2008/02/28/daily.4/ > > TECH SPOTLIGHT: INTERACTIVE BROADCASTING > DIGITAL TV OPENS UP TWO-WAY OPPORTUNITIES > TVNEWSDAY, FEB. 28, 7:30 AM ET > > Richard Chernock, CTO of Triveni Digital, is leading the effort at > the ATSC to develop a standard for "non-real-time services" that will > allow broadcasters to offer near-on-demand news and weather, to > target ads and to download TV shows, movies and music. > > But it doesn't have to be that way forever. In fact, right now, the > Advanced Television Systems Committee is busy developing a standard > for what it calls "non-real-time services" as an add-on to the DTV > standard. > > It's not full-blown interactivity as you get on the Internet or on > cable, but it may be close enough. It has the potential for taking > broadcasting where it has never gone before. > > Richard Chernock is chairman of the ATSC committee working on > standardization of a non-real-time system. He is also the chief > technology officer of Triveni Digital, an LG Electronics subsidiary. > > And, for the moment, he is TVNEWSDAY's expert on broadcast > non-real-time interactivity. > In this interview, Chernock says that within certain limitations > there is little broadcasters can't do with the technology: they can > offer near-on-demand news and weather, they can target ads at > individual viewers and they can download TV shows, movies, games and > music. > And, he says, the interactivity will work not only with broadcasters' > fixed DTV service, but also with their planned mobile services. > > An edited transcript: > > What do you mean by non-real-time services? > > OK. Like most people, you probably watch linear television where > things are broadcast at a certain time. If you want to watch > something, you turn your TV on, you tune to the right channel and sit > and consume. Non-real-time services is essentially content that's > pushed to the receiver usually ahead of time so that it's available > to you to consume whenever you want. > So it's stored locally for recall whenever the consumer wants to use > it or consume it. > > That's different than how the Internet and cable VOD works. > > Essentially, yes. It is a bit different. Part of the reason for the > difference is that the Internet and VOD are point-to-point. Two-way > communication is possible with each person. In television broadcast, > it's really a one-way broadcast scheme. So setting up point-to-point > connections really doesn't work. > > Do you think the broadcasters' digital channel-19.4 megabits per > second-is sufficient for interactivity? > > Yes. You can do some very interesting things within the current bandwidth. > > How much of that bandwidth do you need to set aside for this kind of > service? > > It depends on what you want to do. There are some scenarios that > involve sending relatively small amounts of information that take > very little bandwidth. You can essentially trickle this stuff and you > can make quite a bit of use of that little bit. > > Talk about some of the possible applications. > > Targeted advertising. Cable is already working on the ability to do > targeted ad insertion at the home. All sorts of ads are downloaded > into the receiver. So, if you happen to be actively shopping for cars > and you tell your receiver that, the receiver is going to show you > ads for the kinds of cars you're looking for. Those might be ads that > you actually watch. > > And you're saying broadcasters could do the same thing? > > Yes. That's one possibility. My guess is that will be a very viable > thing for broadcast. The same exact kinds of mechanisms could be used > for enhanced television shows. > > What do you mean by "enhanced" TV?" > > Say a PBS show has extra content that somebody might be interested in > pursuing after they watch a show. It could be pushed out so when > they're done watching whatever the Nova show on dinosaurs was, they > could be informed that there's more content available, sitting in > their receiver. > Right now, they tell me to go to the Internet for the extra information. > > What's wrong with that? > > With non-real-time enhanced TV, I just push a button on the remote. I > don't have to go to my PC. I don't have to change from a 40-inch > viewing experience to a 19-inch viewing experience. > > What else can you do with this thing? > > You can do almost anything on demand in a television broadcast > environment. > > You mean entire TV shows could be downloaded this way? > > Or even movies. > > That sounds like it would take a lot of time and bandwidth to download. > > Not really. There's a popular movie released for VOD. It goes out > overnight during the wee hours when there are not many people > watching. It doesn't take long to get a full movie across that pipe. > This is all happening in the background. The viewers are not aware of > how long it takes because it's there when they want it. > > Of course, this all involves another set-top box to store the > programming, right? > > Not really. What's starting to happen is more and more storage is > becoming available. You know, the DVR is spreading around. There are > even televisions coming out with that capability built in. > So all you've got to do is get the DVR to recognize the broadcast > signal and record it. > > That's right. > But how many people could this system realistically support? > > Well, remember this is broadcast so it doesn't matter how many people > are receiving. One of the broadcast advantages over the Internet and > other things is that the signal goes to everybody. So if I put a > movie in and I decide I'm going to do it at night when I've got a > little bit of extra bandwidth, it doesn't cost me anymore to get that > movie to land on one person's receiver then 10 million. It reaches > all of them. > > But you can't have 1,000 people ordering 1,000 different movies. > > Right, this is aimed more at the very popular stuff. > > And you can use the technology to just send basic stuff like news, > weather and sports, right? > > And there's even somebody who came up with the notion of a > personalized news program. You send out different clips of news and, > depending on what you've set up in your receiver, it will filter it > out and create a news program just for you. > > So if I want to only get the fire stories, I can get the fire stories? > > That's right. These guys can get really creative. There's a whole > bunch of different scenarios that could be realized-download > services, music distribution, game distribution. There's also a > notion of pushing the station's Web content to the very edge and > leaving it in the receiver. So if you wanted to augment a news show, > instead of going over to your computer to look at wabc.com, you just > push the button and the site comes up on the TV. > > So what's going on over at the ATSC in terms of standardizing this? > > We're making significant progress. The goal is to have the standard > available by the analog turn-off date, February of next year. That's > what we're shooting for. > > This seems like a natural pay medium. Is there a way to encrypt and > charge for these services? > > Conditional access encryption will be part of the standard. It's not > going to be a requirement, but the option is there. The idea is to > leave it to the service provider to decide how they want to run their > business. > > You work for a technology company. Is there any push from > broadcasters to set this standard? > > The major push is coming from the broadcasters. > > We've been talking about non-real-time standard in fixed > applications. How would it work in mobile applications? > > Exactly the same way. One of our goals is to make sure that it's > compatible with the mobile standard. > > And so the non-real-time services could be just layered on top of the > mobile DTV standard that ATSC is working on. > > That's exactly what we're working towards. > > Is this Triveni's technology that we're standardizing? > > Actually, no. There are a number of companies. Triveni does have very > complete products in this space, but there are a few other companies > that have products. What we're doing is really looking at what's > available through different deployed products as well as looking at > standards that exist in the world. We're sort of picking and choosing > among the best. > > > Richard Chernock will present a paper on non-real-time services at > the NAB convention. It's scheduled for Tuesday, April 15, at 10 a.m. > in LVCC room S226/227. > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: > > - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at > FreeLists.org > > - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word > unsubscribe in the subject line. > >