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The ITU IPv6 IPTV Global Testbed has undergone a significant expansion with the connection of South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
The international ITU IPv6 IPTV Global Testbed was established by ITU-T in collaboration with Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Hokkaido Television Broadcasting (HTB) and OKI. The backbone to this international IPTV experiment is established through extended connectivity between SANReN and NICT's IPv6 research network, JGN-X (Japan Gigabit Network-eXtreme).
Core ITU standards underpinning the experiment include Recommendation ITU-T H.721's IPTV terminal for Video on Demand (VoD) and Linear TV, ITU-T H.762's Lightweight Interactive Multimedia Environment (LIME) for interactive IPTV services, and ITU-T H.264's video encoding. High-definition IPTV content encoded in H.264 is being delivered over IPv6 between CSIR and other testbed locations, interactively controlled by H.762 on H.721-compliant terminals.
The news marks the first-ever IPTV testbed in Africa. Rwanda's capital, Kigali, will be the next location to join the project with preparations already underway between ITU-T Study Group 16 (Multimedia) and Rwanda's proposed host of the testbed.
For more on ITU-T's work on IPTV, please see ITU's IPTV Global Standards Initiative.
ITU members have approved a new set of algorithmic models to monitor the quality of streamed audiovisual media. The model algorithms set out in the new ITU-T P.1200 series provide objective models for non-intrusive monitoring of the quality of User Datagram Protocol (UDP)-based video services, addressing both lower and higher resolution applications such as mobile TV and Internet Protocol TV (IPTV).
A major challenge in the management of IP-based networks is the provision of adequate Quality of Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS) for new multimedia services and applications such as IPTV, 3D video, and Internet media including over-the-top (OTT) video.
ITU-T Study Group 12 (Performance, QoS and QoE) is the expert group responsible for the ITU-T P.1200 series which offers tools to assess video quality in a scalable manner; proposing quality estimation models which operate by analysing packet-header and bitstream information as available from respective packet-trace data.The ITU-T P.1200 models are 'no-reference' or 'non-intrusive' in that their primary quality prediction does not require prior knowledge of the audiovisual stream being transported, being based solely on information as it is available on the network or inside terminals.
Recommendation ITU-T P.1201 "Parametric non-intrusive assessment of audiovisual media streaming quality" provides an overview of algorithmic models for non-intrusive monitoring of the audio, video and audiovisual quality of IP-based video services based on packet-header information. ITU-T P.1201.1 and ITU-T P.1201.2 specify model algorithms for lower and higher resolution application areas, respectively.
Recommendation ITU-T P.1202 "Parametric non-intrusive bitstream assessment of video media streaming quality" complements ITU-T P.1201 with an overview of bitstream-based algorithmic models for non-intrusive monitoring of video quality based on packet-header and bitstream information. ITU-T P.1202.1 and ITU-T P.1202.2 specify model algorithms for lower and higher resolution application areas, respectively.
The ITU-T P.1201 models cover audio, video and audiovisual quality estimates while the ITU-T P.1202 models focus on video quality, but the key difference between the two Recommendations is that ITU-T P.1201 models are restricted to the use of packet-header information whereas ITU-T P.1202 models exploit further bitstream information such as coding-related information.
Consequently, ITU-T P.1202 models can be more accurate in their quality predictions but in turn require non-encrypted streams to enable access to payload information. In addition, ITU-T P.1202 models are more complex and thus demand more computational power.
The model algorithms specified by the ITU-T P.1200 series provide individual estimates of audio, video and audiovisual quality in terms of the 5-point absolute category rating (ACR) mean opinion score (MOS) scale (described in Recommendation ITU-T P.910). The models are also capable of producing diagnostic information on the causes of quality degradations, as different types of performance parameters are derived during model calculations.
The series will in the future be extended to include transmission control protocol (TCP) and OTT video (considering both adaptive and non-adaptive streaming), and another natural progression of this work will be towards the monitoring of the video and audiovisual quality of 3D video.
More information on the work of ITU-T Study Group 12 can be found here.
Cooperation between ITU and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has produced a new metadata standard to enable rights information interoperability in IPTV services. The standard provides a framework for communicating data such as that accompanying material under copyright, to ensure that multimedia content can be shared legally across different platforms.
Recommendation ITU-T H.751 "Metadata for rights information interoperability in IPTV services" is technically aligned with IEC 62698 "Multimedia home server systems – Rights information interoperability for IPTV". The parallel standard is the product of collaboration between experts from IEC Technical Committee 100 (Audio, video and multimedia systems and equipment) and ITU-T Study Group 16 (Multimedia coding, systems and applications).
"Metadata" refers to data describing aspects of other data, or information about information presented in the form of "structured, encoded data that describe characteristics of information-bearing entities to aid in the identification, discovery, assessment and management of the described entities" (Recommendation ITU-T Y.1901).
IPTV metadata is information on multimedia services and content which provides a descriptive and structural framework for managing IPTV services spanning television, audio, video, text, graphics and data. "Rights information metadata" in particular refers to information on the rights granted to end-users of multimedia content, stipulating pre-defined 'utilization functions' including permissions to view/hear, copy, modify, record, excerpt, sample, store or distribute content; restrictions on times or hours content can be played, viewed or heard; and obligations such as payment.
To date, a lack of interoperability in rights information metadata has meant that consumers are at risk of being locked into solutions offered by a single service provider. A user's purchased rights to multimedia content are dependent on and bound to the rights held by the service provider. In addition, service providers employ different technologies and systems in the management of digital content and associated rights information.
ITU-T H.751 | IEC 62698 provides clear mechanisms or rules for flexible digital distribution that allows for simple exchanges of content, enabling service providers to implement common interpretation and integration of rights information. The standard targets interoperability to ensure that service providers and device manufacturers can easily exchange rights information across their current content management systems. It gives the high-level specification of the metadata for rights information interoperability (RII), defining the common semantics and core elements on RII. In other words, it finds the greatest common denominators in rights expressions (syntactic embodiments of rights) to encourage the mutual use of rights information.
The standard also specifies rights-related information – such as 'content ID', 'permission issuer ID' and 'permission receiver ID' – used to bridge between rights-related metadata. The rights information covered by ITU-T H.751 | IEC 62698 includes rights- and security-related metadata described in Recommendation ITU T H.750 High-level specification of metadata for IPTV services.
For the second year running, ITU-standardized IPTV technologies have been deployed in an international IPTV experiment held in conjunction with the Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan, 5-11 February 2013. The experiment ran over ITU's IPTV IPv6 Global Testbed and was successful in its ambitious attempt to employ ten software-defined networks (SDNs) simultaneously.
ITU headquarters in Geneva received high-definition IPTV content from the head-end server in Japan via a native end-to-end IPv6 connection, participating alongside broadcasters, government agencies, network operators, manufacturers and research institutes from Japan, Singapore and the Philippines.
IPTV services were used to live-stream scenes from Sapporo and to provide supporting Video on Demand (VoD) segments, accompanied by integrated social media tools and a remotely-provided captioning service. A particular achievement was the use of RISE, a next-generation Internet based on OpenFlow, to deliver IPTV content to Singapore where IPv4 and IPv6 were combined virtually (more on ITU and IPv6 here).
Core ITU standards underpinning the experiment included Recommendation ITU-T H.721's IPTV terminal for Video on Demand (VoD) and Linear TV, and ITU-T H.762's Lightweight Interactive Multimedia Environment (LIME) for interactive IPTV services.
Building on the success of similar events in 2012, Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Hokkaido Television Broadcasting (HTB) and OKI continue to provide the infrastructure underlying what has become known as ITU's IPTV IPv6 Global Testbed.
The experiment was organized by NICT and conducted over its IPv6 research network, Japan Gigabit Network-eXtreme (JGN-X). Other participating organizations included ASTEM, MediaEdge, NTT, NTT Communications, NTT Electronics and Sumitomo Electric Networks from Japan; the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) from Singapore; Ateneo de Manila University, Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) and the Information and Communications Technology Office of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST ICTO) from the Philippines; and Swisscom from Switzerland.
Such experiments – together with ITU IPTV Interoperability events – are important steps towards broadening the IPTV market through globally-interoperable services. Standardized IPTV will lead to a whole new market for innovation, and ITU standards will ensure this market remains open, competitive and accessible to all.
ITU-T Study Group 16 is producing the standards required to drive widespread adoption of IPTV. Global standards will lower the costs of these services for vendors and consumers, avoiding costly 'format wars' and enabling rollouts of the technology to a scale not achievable with proprietary solutions.
ITU headquarters in Geneva has hosted a showcase of ITU-standardized multimedia solutions targeting a better quality of life through innovations in high-definition content delivery, interactive entertainment, e-health services, and the accessibility of audiovisual media to persons with disabilities.
The demonstrations were given by prominent market players and research institutes for the benefit of delegates attending meetings of ITU-T Study 16 (Multimedia) and Study Group 9 (Broadband cable and TV); the expert groups responsible for IPTV and Smart Cable TV standardization, respectively.
IPTV demonstrations included ASTEM's (Japan) remotely-provided subtitling and captioning solution for IPTV services; a mobile IPTV service from South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research; and selected applications from ITU's 2nd IPTV Application Challenge: "A better quality of life".
The 2nd IPTV Application Challenge booth showcased an IPTV e-health application using Continua Health Alliance-compliant e-health devices integrated with ITU-T IPTV services, developed by the Institute for Infocomm Research (Singapore) and the NTT Service Integration Lab (Japan). The booth also featured an accessibility-oriented application from Chulalongkorn University (Thailand) designed to teach its user how to communicate using sign language.
Core ITU standards underlying the IPTV showcase included Recommendation ITU-T H.721's IPTV terminal for Video on Demand (VoD) and Linear TV, and ITU-T H.762's Lightweight Interactive Multimedia Environment (LIME) for IPTV services. The IPTV equipment was provided by OKI and Sumitomo Electric Networks.
On the Smart Cable TV front, KDDI demonstrated an implementation of Recommendation ITU-T J.296's integrated broadcast cable set-top boxes. The demo highlighted advanced smart cable features to undergo future standardization – a project currently being discussed by ITU-T's Focus Group on Smart Cable TV (FG SmartCable) which has approved an intensive action plan aimed at finalizing its deliverables by October 2013. The group has scheduled three physical meetings for 2013: in April, Cambridge (UK); June, Atlanta (USA); and September, Tokyo (Japan).
In addition, an ETRI demo gave experts a view of the enhanced quality of images compressed using a hardware implementation of the newly consented ITU-T H.265 | ISO/IEC 23008-2 high efficiency video coding (HEVC). HEVC is the successor to the Primetime Emmy award winning ITU-T H.264 video compression codec. The new standard ITU-T H.265 will need only half the bit rate of its predecessor and this doubling of compression efficiency will be essential to the provision of high-quality video in mobile applications and ultra-high definition TV (UHDTV).
ITU-T Study Group 16 and Study Group 9 are producing the standards required to drive widespread global adoption of innovative multimedia solutions such as IPTV and Smart Cable TV. Global standards will lower the costs of these services for vendors and consumers, avoiding costly 'format wars' and enabling rollouts of the technology to a scale not achievable with proprietary solutions.
For more on ITU-T's work on Smart Cable TV, please see ITU-T's Focus Group on Smart Cable TV.
For more on ITU-T's work on IPTV, please see ITU's IPTV Global Standards Initiative.
An international experiment deploying ITU-standardized IPTV technologies has taken place 6-8 February 2012. IPTV services were used to live-stream scenes from the Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan and to provide supporting Video-on-Demand (VoD) segments.
ITU Headquarters in Geneva received the stream from the head-end server in Japan, participating alongside organizations from Japan, Singapore and Thailand in what is the first transcontinental broadcast of a live event using IPTV technology standardized end-to-end by ITU. The connection uses native IPv6 from ITU Headquarters to Japan.
Proprietary IPTV services have hampered the growth of this exciting new market, and such experiments - together with ITU IPTV Interoperability events – are important steps towards broadening the IPTV market through globally-interoperable services. Standardized IPTV will lead to a whole new market for innovation, and ITU standards will ensure this market remains open, competitive and accessible to all.
First approved in 2009, Recommendation ITU-T H.762, a "Lightweight Interactive Multimedia Environment" (LIME) for IPTV services, is the standard with which Sapporo's live-stream IPTV application complies. Hokkaido Television Broadcasting (HTB) developed this application, and is one of many broadcasters, manufacturers and research institutes involved in the IPTV experiments. The experiments have been organized by Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications (NICT) and are being conducted over its IPv6 research network, Japan Gigabit Network-eXtreme (JGN-X).
Other ITU-T IPTV standards also formed part of the infrastructure: H.770 IPTV Service discovery, H.721 IPTV terminal for VoD and Linear TV, H.701 IPTV Error correction, H.750 IPTV Metadata and the Primetime Emmy Award winning H.264 Video compression codec. The experiments also used Openflow, PCE/VNTM and sa46t.
For more on ITU's IPTV standardization work, please see ITU's IPTV Global Standards Initiative here.
IPTV-GSI, Geneva, Switzerland, 13 - 17 February 2012
TSB Circular 243
Registration form
Circular 220
Convening letter (TSB Circular 221)
Online registration
Internet of Things Global Standards Initiative (IoT-GSI)
ITU announced the winners of its IPTV App Challenge at ITU Telecom World 2011. The corporate app category was given to Discover Japan from NHK Enterprises (Japan) which offers users an introduction to the best of Japanese culture. The best individual/SME award split the vote and was awarded to 7 Days Gallery and Dengue Combat. Discover Japan highlights Tokyo's cutting-edge pop culture but also the traditional culture of Kyoto, a city steeped in over 1,000 years of history. With broadcast TV and video on demand as the areas of focus, the application responds to users' interests, providing answers to their questions, offering interesting information, and enabling them to shop online. 7 Days Gallery, by Alčve Mine and Eric Bréchemier is a digital space to promote new artists/designers. It organizes seven pieces of art work from one artist/designer in a collection, and presents a different collection for each day of the week. Users can browse the pictures with their remote control and find out more information on each of the piece of art, such as its title, description text, a web site (URL) and online shopping possibilities. Users can also find information about the artist including: their biography, portrait and web site. Dengue Combat is an interactive TV programme to promote awareness and knowledge to combat dengue fever. IPTV users are informed by watching a video programme about dengue fever. They can also find out the nearest medical care facility by providing their postal code and verify their knowledge of this disease by participating in a quiz. More details on the apps can be found at: www.itu.int/challenges/iptv.
Launched in July 2011, ITU's IPTV Application Challenge is a ground-breaking stimulus to innovation in this exciting new field of ICT.
Highlighting the rapidly expanding range of the IPTV ecosystem, this unique competition - the first of its kind and worldwide in its scope - presents an opportunity to develop IPTV applications running over either ITU-T H.761 Ginga-NCL or ITU-T H.762 LIME. Both platforms are open, flexible, easily deployed, and ensure high quality IPTV products.
In today's global economy, innovative applications compliant with ITU's IPTV standards represent an unparalleled commercial opportunity. However, no great idea would see the light of day without startup capital, and the best app submitted by an individual or small and medium enterprise (SME)* will thus be awarded USD10,000, courtesy of platinum sponsors; Sumitomo Electric Networks Inc., and Dentsu Inc. Winners will receive their awards in October, at the ITU Telecom World 2011 in Geneva, where a range of innovative applications will be showcased.
Before submitting an application, participants are required to register before 30 September 2011. An entry ID and application number will be assigned to participants on registration, and must be included in competition submission(s). Applications must be submitted by 5 October 2011 (Deadline extended).
* As defined in the rules
Geneva, 7 July, 2011 - ITU's latest global Application Challenge encourages developers around the world to create innovative IPTV apps running over ITU standards.
Applicants are encouraged to think creatively about the IPTV platform and the opportunities it offers. The best app submitted by an individual or SME* will be awarded USD10,000, thanks to platinum sponsors Sumitomo Electric Networks, Inc. and Dentsu Inc. There is a separate category for corporate entries, and winners will receive their awards at a special event at the ITU Telecom World 2011 show in Geneva in October.
While highlighting the rapidly expanding range of the IPTV ecosystem, this latest ITU App Challenge is designed to stimulate ground-breaking ideas from all corners of the globe.
"ITU has pioneered a raft of standards for IPTV, which are set to transform global viewing habits. Global standards such as these will be key to take-up," said Dr Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General, ITU. "With this technology we have all the advantages of traditional 'linear' TV combined with the flexibility that the Internet offers. This challenge offers a fantastic opportunity for people to be creative, and I hope we can inspire some truly innovative thinking."
Full press release
• Work will start to develop a new standard outlining the basic rules necessary to build national revenue assurance protection systems. The proposal to start the work notes that last year fraud in telecommunication networks decreased revenue of telecommunication companies by 12-15 per cent. • A new work item on reducing spam in mobile networks focusing on SMS/MMS was proposed and agreed. • In the area of cloud computing work will progress in two new areas. Firstly the collection of security requirements and a proposed framework outlining the cloud based telecom environment. In addition security guidelines for cloud computing will be developed to help service providers deploy cloud computing.
Two new ITU standards in the field of IPTV have recently been agreed.
The first – Recommendation ITU-T H.740 - will enable a greater level of two way communication in IPTV services. For example it will support interactive services such as voting and e-commerce while also allowing better provision for emergency alerts and audience monitoring. Simply put the standard prescribes behaviour for an IPTV terminal in the case of receiving these instructions from either a broadcaster or a user.
More technically, H.740 "Application Event Handling for IPTV services" provides a framework of application event handling in IPTV services. An application event is describes as a specific user interaction or occurrence related with multimedia content. One of the characteristics of the new standard is that it gives a careful provision of privacy protection, with differing degrees of security.
The second standard - Recommendation ITU-T H.762 - "Lightweight interactive multimedia framework for IPTV services (LIME)" gives a subset of html and javascript for use in IPTV terminals. LIME is described as being very strictly profiled so that it can be used on a resource-limited devices like TV-sets. LIME can support interactivity like widgets and portals, as well as AJAX-like applications on IPTV. LIME can be used with basic services like video-on-demand (VOD), linear (channel) service (over IP), and EPG (extended programme guide). The expected main user interface is a remote controller.
Meeting of IPTV-GSI - IPTV Global Standards Initiative
Geneva, 26-30 October 2009
See TSB Circular 56 for more information.
IPTV-GSI Home
Meeting of NGN-GSI - Next Generation Networks Global Standards Initiative
Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2–12 September 2009
NGN-GSI Home
Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2–8 September 2009
Meeting of Study Group 13 - Future networks including mobile and NGN
See ITU-T SG 13 Collective Letter 3 for more information.
Study Group 13 Home
Meeting of Study Group 11 - Signalling requirements, protocols and test specifications
Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2–10 September 2009
See ITU-T SG 11 Collective Letter 3 for more information.
Study Group 11 Home
The work has moved on from the foundation documents containing high-level architectures and frameworks to more detailed specifications. Experts say that this is an important milestone that will allow manufacturers to start implementing the specifications in their products.
A standardized IPTV environment could mean an end to walled-garden approaches where subscribers are limited to content from a particular service provider. It would for example make it easier for ex-pat subscribers to consume content from their countries of origin.
Among standards consented or approved recently include Recommendation ITU-T H.720 which gives the overview of the architecture and functional components of an IPTV terminal device and provides a high-level description of functionality necessary to support IPTV services. Also key is ITU-T H.721 which describes and specifies the functionalities of IPTV terminal devices such as set-top boxes and digital TV sets for IPTV basic services. The Recommendation also takes into consideration such conditions on content delivery as QoS.
Below is a list of recent ITU standards approved or 'consented' by ITU-T's Study Group 16:
See also New IPTV standard supports global rollout.
Membership of ITU-T gives exclusive rights to access working documents of standards under development – tomorrow's ICTs. The vast majority of all Recommendations are available in electronic (PDF) form free of charge to all once a final editing process is complete.
A major milestone for providing global IPTV has been reached with the approval of a new ITU standard, giving requirements for the support of IPTV services.
Experts say that standards are essential for the rollout of global IPTV services. While we have already seen a first generation of IPTV services, a second generation may see a change in regulation or market demand that will require interoperation between service and/or network providers. A potential outcome of this will be that a customer can go into a shop, buy an IPTV box, call their network operator and sign-up, and then access services from a range of third party service providers. It is to meet needs such as this the value of ITU's work on standardization will be realised.
IPTV, defined by ITU-T as "multimedia services such as television/video/ audio/text/graphics/data delivered over IP-based networks managed to support the required level of quality of service (QoS)/quality of experience (QoE), security, interactivity and reliability", is one of the most significant business cases and drivers for the deployment of next generation networks (NGN).
The standard, Recommendation ITU-T Y.1901, specifies high level requirements for the support of IPTV services, including requirements concerning service offering, QoS/QoE, service and content protection, middleware, content, network and end system aspects. Y.1901 and previously approved Recommendation ITU-T Y.1910, "IPTV functional architecture", plus various other IPTV related ITU-T Recommendations, constitute an initial set of IPTV standards enabling equipment vendors, including consumer electronics suppliers, to roll-out standardized IPTV products. Deployment of ITU-T compliant products will enable service providers to offer value added services like traditional (linear) TV, video on demand (VoD) and interactive TV over IP-based managed networks such as NGN.
Y.1901 has been developed with a truly international effort at ITU-T IPTV-GSI (IPTV Global Standards Initiative) events, with the active participation of administrations, service providers and equipment vendors from a large number of countries, including, but not limited to Canada, China, France, Japan, Korea, United Kingdom and United States.
ITU-T standardization activities related to IPTV continue in various ITU-T Study Groups, in cooperation with relevant standard developing organizations, forums and consortia, including ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum, ETSI TISPAN, Broadband Forum, Digital Video Broadcasting project and Home Gateway Initiative.
Charles Peter Sandbank, who was very well known to many in ITU, and was recently elected as Chairman to ITU-T's Study Group 9 has died aged 77.
Charlie, as he was affectionately known to friends and colleagues, started his long and distinguished career with STC making radio valves and later transistors. During his time here he developed some of the first semiconductor integrated circuits to be produced in Europe. Among his early papers were proposals for the techniques now commonly used in ASICS and the principle of surface mount.
In 1964 he was appointed head of the Electron Devices Laboratory at Standard Telecommunications Laboratories and in 1968 became Manager of the STL Communications Systems Division. While at STL he was responsible for the team which pioneered the use of optical fibres for communications and in 1976 built the world's first wide band digital optical fibre communications system (140 Mbit/s between Hitchin and Stevenage) installed in BT ducts. He edited one of the first books on the technology of optical fibre communications in which he proposed the optical amplifier as now commonly used in long haul systems.
In 1978 he joined the BBC as head of its Research Department and became BBC Deputy Director of Engineering in 1984. He made personal contributions to the BBC's work in electronic graphics; the 'BBC MICRO' project; HDTV and particularly digital broadcasting. NICAM stereo sound for TV was among the activities which he initiated while he was Head of Research. He played a leading role in the establishment of the technology and world-wide standards for Digital Television (a subject on which he also edited a book). The work he initiated at the BBC contributed to the establishment of the world's first terrestrial digital radio service in 1997 and TV service in 1998. After leaving the BBC in 1993 he became a Director of Snell and Wilcox Ltd and DTI Broadcasting Technology Adviser.
He was a founder member of the DVB project, the founding Chairman of the ETSI/EBU JTC and founding co-chair of the European Digital Cinema Forum. He was also the Royal Academy of Engineering's Visiting Professor in the Principles of Information Systems Design at the University of Bradford.
He was elected to the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1983, was also FIET and FInstP. He received Fellowships from the RTS, BKSTS and SMPTE for contributions to broadcast engineering and Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Surrey and Bradford.
In the ITU he participated actively since the late 1970s in ITU-R SG6 (previously SG10 and 11) and in ITU-T SG9 since its formation, acting as a Vice Chairman in the last two study periods before being appointed Chairman at WTSA-08 in Johannesburg. He played a major role in the drafting of the basic Digital TV Recommendation ITU-R Rec. 601, and more recently in the ITU-T network independent middleware Recommendations. He chaired the JRG1 the joint T/R Rapporteur group on middleware and was a co-chair of the joint activity of ITU-T SG9 and ITU-T SG9 on IPTV.
The first global standard offering an in-home, high-speed network capable of delivering room-to-room HDTV has been agreed by ITU.
The standard, published under the G.hn banner, promises high quality multimedia over power, coaxial, phone and other home wiring. It will give up to 20 times the throughput of existing wireless technologies and three times that of existing wired technologies.
IPTV-GSI - Internet Protocol Television Global Standards Initiative
Geneva, 24-28 November 2008
Registration Form
See TSB Circular 244 for more information.
A recent meeting of ITU-T's Study Group 12 saw consent – first stage of the approval process - on two key new standards for IPTV.
The first ITU-T Recommendation defines user requirements for Quality of Experience (QoE) for IPTV services.
Quality of Experience (QoE) is defined thus: The overall acceptability of an application or service, as perceived subjectively by the end-user.
The new Recommendation (ITU-T Rec. G.1080) defines QoE requirements from an end user perspective, agnostic to network deployment architectures and transport protocols. They are specified as end-to-end and information is provided on how they influence network transport and application layer behaviour. QoE requirements for video, audio, text, graphics, control functions and meta-data are provided.
The second ITU-T Rec. (ITU-T Rec. G.1081) consented defines performance monitoring for IPTV. The goal of this is to provide higher QoS/QoE to customers by identifying, localizing and quantifying service and network issues. IPTV performance monitoring can be software based, hardware based, or a hybrid.
Monitoring parameters, monitoring points and monitoring methods are defined that allow the service provider/network operator to monitor the performance of the service delivery to the end user.
Successful deployment of IPTV services requires performance to be monitored at the customer premise (e.g. set-top-box), key aggregation points such as DSL Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) or cable modem termination system (CMTS) and at interconnect points between disparate network domains. Performance monitoring can help:
IPTV standards are progressing rapidly through ITU-T's IPTV Global Standards Initiative (GSI). With successful first generation IPTV services offered by many service providers worldwide standards are seen as vital to boost next generation services where a customer may go into shop, buy an IPTV box, call their network operator and sign-up and then access services from a range of third party service providers. More Recommmendations are expected to be consented at the upcoming IPTV-GSI meeting 23-27 June in Geneva.
Next meeting of the Internet Protocol Television Global Standards Initiative (IPTV-GSI)
Geneva, 23-27 June 2008
See TSB Circular 221 for more information.
IPTV GSI Home
Internet Protocol Television Global Standards Initiative (IPTV-GSI) Meeting
Geneva, 30 April - 7 May 2008
See TSB Circular 199 for more information.
ITU-T IPTV experts Ghassem Koleyni and Simon Jones will lead a live web seminar (webinar) on IPTV standardization, May 7 at 1600 CET.
Click here to register, for the webinar hosted by industry analyst Heavy Reading. By registering you will be able to listen to and take part in discussion as well as view presentation slides.
Koleyni and Jones will present standardization from an ITU perspective with experts from other standards bodies, including the DSL Forum and ATIS, explaining how they have worked with ITU to produce the first set of global IPTV specifications, available here.
Malcolm Johnson, Director ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau said: "I encourage anyone involved in the deployment of IPTV services at any level to take this opportunity to learn about this important set of standards as well as quiz our experts on the topic.
We have already seen first generation IPTV services and as these mature we may see a change in regulation or market demand that will require interoperation between service and/or network providers. A potential outcome of this will be that a customer can go into shop, buy an IPTV box, call their network operator and sign-up and then access services from a range of third party service providers. It is to meet that need that the value of ITU's work on standardisation will be realised. "
If you can't join the live event registration will give access to an archive file of the event.
The first set of global standards for IPTV have been published in an online compendium.
The proceedings of the IPTV Focus Group (IPTV FG) are collected in an online document including a preface from the ITU Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) and the Chairman of the IPTV FG. They are the result of 20 months hard work by the Focus Group which has now been passed on to the IPTV-GSI (global standards initiative).
Malcolm Johnson, Director of the TSB says in the preface: "The results of the work of the IPTV Focus Group will lay the foundation for an area of ICTs that is predicted to attract up to 100 million subscribers in the next three years. It's easy to see why so many of the world's leading ICT companies have been keen to progress this work."
As well as the 21 deliverables, the publication gives an overview of the Focus Group, its management team and the group's activities and achievements focusing on: architecture and requirements; QoS and performance aspects; service security and content protection; IPTV network control; end systems and interoperability aspects and middleware, application and content platforms.
Press release
Click here for a document detailing some ITU-T highlights for 2007.
Do you remember your last video conference? Blurry faces on tiny screens, with sound that doesn't quite synchronize with the stilted movement of the lips. After the laborious setup of cameras and microphones, you seem to spend more time worrying about technical problems than talking about the topic at hand, with repeated loss of connection. As frustration grows, and attention wanders, it is difficult to avoid the feeling that you should have arranged a face-to-face meeting instead.
A new set of technologies – referred to as Telepresence – will give users the illusion of sitting on the opposite side of the remote party's conference table. High-definition (HD) video images and audio are transmitted via packed-based Next-Generation Networks (NGN), connecting conference rooms around the world, and covering distances of thousands of miles with zero latency. While the network infrastructure remains transparent to the user, vendors equip conference rooms with high-end displays, cameras, loudspeakers and furniture to enhance the conferencing experience. Telepresence-systems are already available on the market, and involved companies go as far as identifying the technology as a potential billion dollar market, for solution vendors as well as for network service providers (NSP).
A new ITU-T Briefing Report on Telepresence has been released as part of the Technology Watch function, which evaluates the market potential and different fields of application of Telepresence solutions in both, developed and developing countries. The report notes the standardization work currently going on in ITU, including the consideration of migrating currently used multimedia protocols, such as H.323 and SIP into a new generation of multimedia protocols, called H.325 or Advanced Multimedia Systems (AMS), that takes into consideration special aspects of security, flexibility, QoS, and support for mobile devices. This report is the second of a new series of Technology Watch Briefing Reports looking at emerging new technologies.
Study Group 9 consented Recommendations on IPTV and advanced HDTV proposals during meetings held Oct. 29 - Nov. 2, Louisville, Colorado.
The meeting saw participation from all around the world with several delegates from developing countries including Kenya, India and Trinidad and Tobago.
Recommendation J.700 - IPTV Service Requirements and Framework for Secondary Distribution - defines service level requirements and an architectural framework for telecommunication networks to provide new services based on IPTV. It refers to "secondary distribution" which means use of a transmission channel for distribution of video/audio programs to users at large, for example by an over-the-air broadcast channel or by means of a fiber or cable network.
The Recommendation is extensive and includes requirements for network elements as well as customer premises equipment (CPE), including middleware application interfaces which consist of software libraries that provide uniform access to system services. It leverages existing deployed technologies, such as MPEG, DOCSIS, GEM (Globally Executable MHP), and IPCablecom to provide a smooth path for operators to integrate IPTV technology into their networks. While in the process of developing this Recommendation considerable liaison with other Study Groups and the IPTV Focus Group was carried out.
In addition to the IPTV work, Recommendations relating to second - and third - generation IPCablecom were consented. Equipment based on IPCablecom Recommendations, such as modems, set-top boxes, signalling equipment, interactive television application platform interfaces, digital program insertion, and others have had widespread implementation in networks in Asia, Europe, and North America.
The new Recommendations add to a suite of more than 25 which have been developed for cable and hybrid networks primarily designed for television and sound program delivery to the home.
Large screen digital imagery (LSDI) is a family of digital imagery systems that includes very large screen presentation of programmes similar to the non-digital IMAX and OMNIMAX systems. LSDI is described as an optimal approach to the presentation of high-definition television
(HDTV) programmes, to a collective audience on cinema-like screens in a cinema-like environment. An earlier approved Recommendation J.600 addresses use of a broadband service or channel for transferring audio or video information to a production center where post-production processing may take place before subsequent distribution. At this meeting work towards a new Recommendation - Network Service Operator's Requirements for Real-time Transmission of exLSDI Signals under Parallel Processing Functionality - was significantly progressed. This Recommendation is related to the transport of program signals conforming to the higher levels of the LSDI expanded hierarchy as used for contribution and primary distribution. The term contribution means use of a broadband service or channel for transferring audio or video information to a production center where post-production processing may take place before subsequent distribution. Primary distribution is the use of a transmission channel for transferring audio and/or video information from a production center to one or several destination points; for example, to a broadcast transmitting center or the headend of a cable distribution network. Work on LSDI takes place with interactions between ITU-T Study Group 9, ITU-R Study Group 6, and other bodies external to the ITU.
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ITU-T's multimedia Study Group 16 met in Geneva, July, with over twenty standards entering the final stage of ITU-T's approval process. The ITU secretariat says that the meeting saw record numbers of participants and contributions. Work on the use of tag-based identification (including RFID) for multimedia in particular saw great interest and progress.
Key achievements of the meeting include the setting up of new Questions – ITU-T's term for work area - to advance work on the third generation multimedia system that will replace the currently used H.323 and SIP multimedia protocols and a second Question on multimedia application platforms and end systems for IPTV. See separate stories – Third gen multimedia system work accelerates and Question on multimedia application platforms and end systems for IPTV.
A new Question – ITU-T's term for work area – on multimedia application platforms and end systems for IPTV will start work pending formal approval at the next meeting of Study Group 16.
Experts say that with the surge of multimedia services such as video streaming and the desire to offer IPTV services, the market is in serious need of standardized interoperable solutions, especially at the multimedia applications layer. Interoperability will provide benefit for all the players in the value-chain, especially at the multimedia applications layer, and encourage growth of this market.
This Question is intended to produce deliverables related to study IPTV platforms, including, but not restricted to middleware, applications, content formats and their uses, which will facilitate effective and interoperable use of the IPTV systems. The Question will be the recipient of a number of documents from the IPTV Focus Group and it will assimilate these into its work program with the intention of generating a number of standards (ITU-T Recommendations).
At the June 2007 meeting of ITU-T SG15, work continued on a draft new Recommendation to develop a single international standard for home networking transceivers using any metallic media in the home – phoneline wiring, data cable (e.g. CAT5), coaxial cable or powerline wiring.
Household connectivity is growing rapidly with more and more electronic devices and networks within the home distributing and using digital information and media. In addition, remote control of lighting, heating, appliance-use and security systems attached to the home are making the "digital home" a reality.
International standards that enable interoperability and security in the field of home networking are seen as key to bringing value and versatility to consumers, making possible the use of diverse products, services and sources, and therefore accelerating market development.
Work in ITU-T is coordinated by the Joint Coordination Activity on Home Networking (JCA-HN). Topics covered across the 13 different Study Groups of ITU-T include digital rights management (DRM), phone-line networking (including co-ax), IPTV, interactive video, set top box architecture and cable modems.
The work on ITU-T Rec - G.hn - next generation home networking transceivers - has now attracted a critical mass of contributors/participants with nine companies submitting 20 contributions on various topics. It is anticipated that G.hn will be completed in 2008.
Also at the June 2007 meeting of ITU-T SG15, it was agreed to start work on a draft new Recommendation G.hnta on home network transport architecture. The Rec will give a generic architecture based on the NGN functional architecture described in Recommendation Y.2012 "Next Generation Networks – Frameworks and functional architecture models" It will describe a platform for the development of future home network standards. The draft Recommendation G.hnta is complementary to draft Recommendation H.ghna currently under development by SG16.
Study Group 13 the lead for NGN in ITU met in April reached final 'approval' stage on two Recommendations and consented a number of others, as well as starting discussions on some new work areas. SG13 met concurrently with SGs 19 and 11 as part of the NGN Global Standards Initiative (NGN GSI).
Among inputs to a special 'futures' brainstorming session at the meeting were proposals on Mobile IPTV standardization and a "Future Vision beyond NGN". Mobile IPTV is described as IPTV to mobile and wireless networks. There was discussion on a possible standard that would be neutral in terms of the wireless technology and would cover architecture for NGN, authentication for user mobility and seamless connectivity for mobility, security, and signaling for scalable delivery of content.
The paper "Future Vision beyond NGN" proposed that the future beyond NGN is next generation ubiquitous networking. Study areas for ITU-T and particularly Study Group 13 could be media, identity and so-called ABC (for accounting, billing and charging) processing; open service environment, service and transport control; extending QoS capabilities for bandwidth, security, mobility, personalization and media; supporting a variety of NGN applications including fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), networked IDs, ubiquitous sensor networks (USN), home networking, IPTV etc. The paper also proposed that this work should be more closely linked with protocol development.
Another important document given the first stage approval known as consent defines the service requirements, service features, service architecture, and implementation scenarios of IMS based real-time conversational multimedia services. These include PSTN/ISDN simulation services. When these real-time conversational multimedia services are provided by using an IMS-based service environment, the implementations will use SIP protocol between the Service Support Functions and the Service Control Functions [ITU-T Y.2012] [ITU-T Y.2021]. IMS based NGNs which meet these service requirements will be capable of supporting real-time conversational multimedia services with new service features as well as allowing for new implementation scenarios.
Also consented were documents charting OAM requirements for T-MPLS based networks and QoS control architecture for Ethernet-based IP access networks.
Study Group 19 meeting at the same time consented a document outlining the general requirements for fixed-mobile convergence – a key application in NGN.
Study Group 11 meeting in Geneva, end April has consented three important documents charting protocols for quality of service (QoS) in NGN. The protocols will ensure interoperability between network elements and systems as well as giving service providers the ability to specify rules for specific communication types.
The announcement marks a significant step forward for ITU-T's NGN work. Protocol development is seen as the final stage of standards development following identification of the requirements, architecture, services etc. The Recommendations are a crucial part of the NGN standards package and a concrete realization of the functional architecture defined in ITU-T Rec. Y.2111 - Resource and admission control functions in Next Generation Networks.
The protocols agreed at the April meeting will guarantee that when a service request is made QoS needs are transmitted, ensuring that each network element provisions the correct level of bandwith and resources to ensure the class of QoS for that particular application. So – for example – more bandwidth can be allocated and guaranteed for IPTV than for voice.
The three ITU-T Recommendations include the specification of the physical entities involved in resource control signalling, the interfaces across which signalling takes place, and the mapping between these entities and interfaces and the corresponding functional entities and reference points in ITU-T Rec. Y.2111. An Appendix provides a further mapping between the interfaces and the protocol specifications which realize those interfaces.
The Recommendations refer to signalling used in different geographical parts of the world: ITU-T Recommendation H.248/Megaco used in for example Japan, COPS used for example in China and Diameter which is used in North America.
Another three protocols in the field of resource control were consented by Study Group 11 earlier in the year.
Two vice chairs of ITU-T's IPTV Focus Group will guest edit an upcoming issue of IEEE Communications Magazine. Chae-Sub Lee, of ETRI, Korea and Simon Jones, of BT, UK will edit the issue for publication February 2008.A call for papers has been issued on the broad topic IPTV Systems, Standards and Architectures. Papers are solicited on topics including IPTV standards progress, architecture for IPTV systems, deployment challenges, performance considerations, content management and security. Articles should be tutorial in nature, further guidelines can be found here.
Simon Jones, Vice Chairman of ITU-T's Focus Group on IPTV will present The importance of ITU-T's activities in IPTV Standardization at the IPTV World Forum, 5-7 March, Olympia, London, UK.The event comprises a free to attend exhibition, and tech demo zone area in which Jones is presenting. Additionally a conference will feature over 30 telcos and ISPs from around the world discussing IPTV service deployment issues
Standards that will ease the wide spread rollout of video over IP networks took a step forward in January.
IPTV architecture and requirements, two fundamentally important areas in standards work were progressed at a recent meeting of the ITU-T Focus Group on IPTV. There was general consensus in the meeting that FG IPTV will successfully develop documents which will accelerate introduction of IPTV to the global market. Setting the architecture and requirements in stone allows the rest of the work to continue with greater ease.
Meeting at the Microsoft conference center, Mountain View California, at the invitation of the Alliance for Telecom Industry Standards (ATIS) the group saw a record number of contributions and experts worked often late to keep up with the workload. Nearly 90 documents were dealt with in the fields of architecture and requirements alone.
Malcolm Johnson, newly elected Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau said in a message he sent to the event: "The excellent cooperation between ITU-T and ATIS is an example of the spirit of cooperation that I believe now pervades in the standards world... From what I have seen there is a great deal to be satisfied by in terms of the progress that FG IPTV has achieved so far."
In opening comments, ATIS President & CEO Susan Miller shared with the 200 meeting attendees that IPTV is serving as a "change agent" for the industry, and "as both the business case and principal driver for accelerating deployment of the next generation network." Miller noted that for North American service providers in particular, "IPTV is a critical ingredient to bundled service offerings that encompass television services, mobile services, Internet access, and much more. We have seen in the last decade, enormous investments in broadband, and fiber deployments to the home and to the premise," said Miller.
Also important a document outlining terms and definitions in the field was created. While seemingly mundane this work is crucially important in ensuring consistency of comprehension in an area where many standards outlining different aspects of IPTV will co-exist.
Further discussion is expected on whether and how to treat the issue of redistribution of content to a point past an IPTV terminal device, and, in particular, how content protection and content management functions can or should apply in a home network environment.
Other issues examined and progressed were accessibility issues for people with disabilities, AV codecs and content format requirements. Output (and other) documents can be seen here.
The next meeting of FG IPTV will be held from 7 to 11 May 2007 in Bled, Slovenia.
The latest meeting of Study Group 12, Geneva, January, also saw
agreement on a definition for QoE. This, experts said, is particularly
important given the inclusion of QoE in the definition of IPTV agreed by the
ITU-T IPTV Focus Group. (See previous story).
of Experience (QoE)
overall acceptability of an application or service, as perceived subjectively by
the end-user.
1 Quality of Experience
includes the complete end-to-end system effects (client, terminal, network,
services infrastructure, etc).
2 Overall
acceptability may be influenced by user expectations and context.
Study Group 12 Vice Chair, Chuck Dvorak, said
that he expects that IPTV and other multimedia QoS and QoE issues will see
increasing attention in SG12 moving forward.
Dvorak also said that he expects that the
non-transport aspects of networks and services, for example call processing
performance, will also receive more attention. Additionally he says that he
expects SG12 will take a closer look at how to better address the needs of
developing countries in terms of QoS.
At Study Group 9's last meeting:
Tokyo, 2-6
October, 2006, Mayumi Matsumoto, Rapporteur for Q.5/9 made a short video giving
an excellent introduction to the Study Group's work.
The movie
contains footage of a demonstration of technologies for emerging broadband
services in the home including interviews with some of the exhibitors.
It's a
unique insight into a Study Group meeting and the events surrounding it. Watch
it here.
Recommendations (J.290-J.292) take into account advances in technologies and
architectures for delivery of multiple types of services – including video,
voice and data. The three include a core Recommendation along with two adjuncts
which provide for a cable solution and a media independent solution. The core
document (J.290) describes key functional aspects of the next generation
set-top box (STB), such as configurable security including downloadable
conditional access, advanced codecs, video over IP, QoS control and extension
of these functions to in-home networks.
describes the cable network architecture component of the next-generation STB.
When combined with companion Recommendation J.290 the architecture defines a
cost-efficient platform with capacity and flexibility to support growth of
on-demand video, high definition digital TV, managed in-home networks
connecting a wide range of consumer-provided devices, and future IP multimedia
services including IP voice, video telephony, and multiplayer gaming. It
reflects key functional aspects of the next generation cable STB, such as a
common application platform (globally executable MHP (Multimedia Home
Platform), which is the common core among OCAP (OpenCable project), MHP and
ARIB (Association of Radio Industries and Businesses), MPEG (Moving Picture
Expert Group) transport including advanced compression technology, and
downloadable conditional access (configurable security).
describes a core architecture that is not dependent on transport media for a
next generation STB which will allow service providers to offer existing and
new advanced services regardless of the transport media. In this Recommendation
it is assumed that all contents are transported on IP packets with an adequate
QoS controlled mechanism. The Recommendation reflects key functional aspects of
the next generation STB, such as network resource adaptability, secure two-way
authenticated communication and session resource management and a QoS-control
J.210-J.212 provide a basis for modularizing cable modem termination systems
(CMTS) and were designed as an extension to the DOCSIS Recommendations to allow
for flexibility and independent scaling of certain CMTS functions.
(data over cable service interface specifications) – defined in Recommendations
J.112 and J.122 - specifies transmission systems for interactive cable television
services - IP cable modems. It defines the requirements for the two fundamental
components that comprise a high-speed data-over-cable system: the cable modem
(CM) and the CMTS.
modular-CMTS (M-CMTS) architecture splits the CMTS function into three
fundamental components: the M-CMTS Core, the EQAM (downstream modulator), and
the Timing Server. Inasmuch as the modular components may be located on
different chassis, and potentially at different physical locations, the new
Recommendation J.211 (Timing Interface for CMTS) provides the robust and highly
accurate transport of timing signals from the Timing Server to the other
components of the M-CMTS network in order to ensure that the system components
work in lock-step.
J.212 defines the protocol used to tunnel downstream user data across an
Ethernet network between the M-CMTS Core and EQAM. Finally, the new
Recommendation J.210 defines the downstream physical layer modulator
requirements for the EQAM.
new Recommendation in the DOCSIS series, J.213, describes requirements on both
CMTSs and CMs in order to implement a Layer-2 Virtual Private Network feature
which allows operators to offer a Transparent LAN Service along the lines of
Carrier Ethernet.
Group experts say that the advancements will greatly extend the service
capabilities of broadband cable and other networks. The Recommendations were
approved by ITU-T Study Group 9, Integrated Broadband Cable Networks and
Television and Sound Transmission, during its October meeting in Tokyo.
SG 9's
Recommendations include key work in IPCablecom2, modular CMTS (cable modem
termination systems), next generation video set-tops, and architecture for
deploying an IP multicast video distribution network using network layer route
is a project initiated by SG 9 several years ago on time-critical interactive
services over cable television networks using IP. It is a suite of
Recommendations (J.160-178) which provides for telephony, and J.179 (IPCablecom
Multi Media), which creates a bridge that allows for the expansion into a full
range of multi-media services.
is contained in a new suite of Recommendations (J.360-363 and J.365-366) and is
designed to support the convergence of voice, video, data, and mobility
technologies through a modular non-service specific approach. This modular
approach allows operators flexibility to deploy network capabilities as
required by their specific service offerings, while maintaining
interoperability across a variety of devices from multiple suppliers.
These new
Recommendations define an architecture and a set of open interfaces that
leverage emerging communications technologies, such as the session initiation
protocol (SIP), to support the rapid introduction of new IP-based services onto
the cable network. IPCablecom2 is also based on Release 6 of the IP Multimedia
Subsystem (IMS), as developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP),
which is a SIP-based architecture for providing multimedia services.
wording of the title of the Question – ITU-T's term for work area – has changed
from Video to Visual Coding. This is to incorporate work in the areas of still
image, graphics, computer displaysand
medical imaging as well as the more traditional video sequences.
The Question
is home to video coding spec H.264 and an amendment to that Recommendation was
made to give new profiles supporting H.264's use in high-end studio
applications that use the 4:4:4 color sampling system.
From the
official wording of Question 6/16: "This Question will focus on the maintenance
and extension of existing video and still-image coding Recommendations, and
laying the ground for new Recommendations using advanced techniques to
significantly improve the trade-offs between bit rate, quality, delay, and
algorithm complexity. Video, still-image, and other visual coding standards
will be developed with sufficient flexibility to accommodate a diverse number
of transport types (Internet, LAN, Mobile,
ISDN, GSTN, H.222.0, NGN, etc.)."
Third meeting of the FG IPTV
Mountain View, California, USA
22-26 January 2007
See TSB Collective-letter 113 for more information.
FG IPTV Home
ITU-T will host the annual Broadband Europe
conference 11-14 Dec 2006.
BBEurope is an annual event which was initiated by the FP6-BREAD-project
(broadband for all in Europe: a
multi-disciplinary approach), part of the "BroadBand for
All"-strategic objective of the European Commission.
Peter Van Daele, Project Leader BREAD: "The concept of "Broadband For All"
refers to a situation in which broadband is not only available to every
citizen, but is actually used by all of them. In that respect it is a more
demanding concept than the traditional universal service obligation in
telephony, which merely stipulates the availability, at certain conditions, of
a given service. The usage of information and communication technologies via
broadband infrastructures by all citizens is a policy objective because it is
considered to be a key component of transforming Europe
into a knowledge-based society, thus enhancing economic growth and increasing
The BREAD project has amongst its objectives to develop a holistic vision
encompassing technical, as well as economical and regulatory aspects. Another
important aspect is of identifying roadblocks on European, national/regional
level and share visions and best practices on national level to EU level.
BBEurope brings together on an international level all the BroadBand players,
researchers, service providers, content providers, operators, manufacturers,
policy makers, standardisation bodies, professional organisations.
A diverse agenda will cover topics including NGN, IPTV, wireless access,
powerline, security, QoS, and broadband in rural areas. The event will conclude
with a panel discussion titled: Future Perspectives in Broadband. A 'full
preliminary' programme is available from the event's website, with the
call for papers ending November 10 when a programme committee will make a final
selection of the papers.
MacDonald, a member of the ITU team that created the new VDSL 2
standard, will take part in an upcoming Webinar
on this topic, Tuesday, November 21. The Webinar, the second on the topic that
ITU has contributed to, will outline what VDSL2 is, which are its competitive
differentiators and benefits, and how it allows service providers to compete
with cable and satellite operators - by enabling the delivery of enhanced
voice, video and data services over a standard copper telephone cable.
(Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) is a product of ITU-T, ITU's standardization arm, and
is the world's most widely deployed broadband access technology. It has
enhanced users' experience of the Internet, provided access to digitized
content, and fuelled the delivery of streaming video and the development of
online gaming by offering downstream data rates of up to 8 Mbit/s. Today, service providers must ensure their DSL offerings can
compete against other market options from cable operators. One way to do so, is
by offering services over VDSL2 (ITU-T Recommendation G.993.2) - very
high-speed DSL - a new version of DSL, which gives service providers the
ability to deliver even higher bandwidth and more enhanced services to consumer
and business customers.
up to 100 Mbit/s both up and downstream, a tenfold increase over ADSL
(Asymmetric DSL) VDSL2 provides for so-called fiber-extension, bringing
fiber-like bandwidth to premises not directly connected to the fiber optic
segment of a telecom company's network. By deploying VDSL2 operators expect to
be able to offer services such as high-definition TV (HDTV), video-on-demand,
videoconferencing, high-speed Internet access, and advanced voice services.
Importantly VDSL 2 offers carriers a solution that is interoperable with the
DSL equipment many already have in place. In addition, VDSL 2 will work with
both legacy ATM networks and next generation IP-based networks.
to take part in this online event here
A recent report from industry
analyst Gartner says that the number of households around the world subscribing
to IPTV services offered by telecom carriers will reach 48.8 million in 2010. Buoyed
by new service launches, IPTV subscribers will more than double in 2007 from an
expected 6.4 million in 2006 to 13.3 million according to Gartner.
agree that it is imperative that standards needs are met if these impressive
figures are to be achieved.
A key
achievement at the FG IPTV meeting in Korea was progress towards an
standardized IPTV architecture: The group agreed that IPTV architecture shall
allow for both NGN and non-NGN approaches to IPTV, and within the NGN-approach,
include both IMS and non-IMS based approaches.
Koleyni, chair of the group: "I am particularly happy that we have achieved so
much progress in Working Group 1 (service requirements and architecture). The
level of participation in this group is growing and progress is overall good. But
requirements and architecture are of such fundamental importance that getting a
fix on these points, at this stage, is very satisfying. In order to gain
momentum here we will convene an electronic meeting looking specifically at
requirements and architecture, 18-21 December."
The Korea meeting
agreed on the following definition of IPTV: "IPTV is defined as multimedia
services such as television/video/ audio/text/graphics/data delivered over IP
based networks managed to provide the required level of QoS/QoE, security,
interactivity and reliability."
The next
face-to-face meeting of the FG IPTV is scheduled for 22-26 January 2007 at the
Microsoft facilities , Mountain View, California, USA
(Silicon Valley) at the kind invitation of Alliance for Telecommunications Industry
Solutions (ATIS).
The FG
IPTV meeting was preceded by an ITU-T workshop. The event
attended by over 400 and held in Seoul
provided a view and examination of IPTV standardization, political and regulatory
aspects, business models and various case studies as well as technical
developments and service provider's operational aspects. A roundtable
discussion at the event concluded that global standardisation and
interoperability are key for further development of IPTV worldwide. Other
issues that might be further discussed at an international level, according to
the roundtable's twenty participants, include digital rights management (DRM).
Second meeting of the FG IPTV (Busan, Republic of Korea, 16-20 October 2006)
Input Documents
FG IPTV-ID-0105: Liaison Statement to ITU-T IPTV WG 6 [Source: Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG11] Posted: 2006-08-10
FG IPTV-ID-0106: ITU-T Study Group 13 response on QoS and Performance work for IPTV [Source: ITU-T Study Group 13 (Geneva, 17-28 July 2006)] Posted: 2006-08-10
FG IPTV-ID-0107: Communication on information from Daidalos to FG IPTV for information and action (transmitted also to all ITU-T Study Groups) [Source: ITU-T Study Group 13 (Geneva, 17-28 July 2006)] Posted: 2006-08-10
FG IPTV-ID-0108: Action for FG IPTV: IPTV based on NGN Architecture (transmitted also to ITU-T SG 9 and SG 16 for action) [Source: ITU-T Study Group 13 (Geneva, 17-28 July 2006)] Posted: 2006-08-10
FG IPTV Home
Second meeting of the Focus Group on IPTV(FG IPTV)Busan, Republic of Korea, 16-20 October 2006
See TSB Circular 107 for more information
IPTV Focus Group (FG IPTV) Home
This ITU-T IPTV Global Technical Workshop will review and examine IPTV standardization, political and regulatory aspects, business models and various case studies as well as technical developments and service provider's operational aspects.
IPTV represents a convergence between the traditional telecommunication and broadcast industries. And, as with any convergence a lot of work is needed to ensure interoperability. Globally accepted standards are clearly a key enabler for this.
With many of the conditions necessary for IPTV rollout in place - global IP connectivity over managed broadband infrastructure with such guarantees as QoS and security, and broadband connectivity with enhanced network capabilities - there is a strong demand for standards to ensure smooth service rollout and interoperability. The workshop will provide a review of the current status of IPTV work as well as an examination of where to go next.
More details
ITU-T Workshops and Seminars
Admin Documents
FG IPTV-AD-0001: FG IPTV Working Methods [Source: Chairman of FG IPTV] Posted: 2006-08-03
On 4 and 5 April 2006 the TSB Director convened a consultation meeting to consider possible measures to take care of the IPTV studies within the ITU-T (TSB Circular 71). A result of the consultation meeting was an agreement to establish, according to provisions of Recommendation A.7, a Focus Group on IPTV. A website for the focus group has been established at http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/IPTV/index.phtml
Subsequent to the agreement at the consultation meeting, TSAG, at its meeting 3 to 7 July 2006, decided that the parent of the IPTV Focus Group should be Study Group 13 and that a Joint Coordination Activity (JCA) should be established amongst the management of the concerned study groups to provide an interface to the IPTV Focus Group.
The IPTV-JCA will work primarily by correspondence but can also meet in association with meetings of Study Group 13 where necessary. In addition urgent issues requiring attention can be flagged up at any time and the JCA can convene as appropriate to take action.
IPTV Joint Coordination Activity (IPTV-JCA) Home
ITU-T's work on IPTV took a significant step
forward following a meeting Geneva,
July 10-14.
IPTV is being explored by media companies and service
providers around the world as a way to add value to their existing offerings,
and globally accepted standards are seen as essential in order that – for
example – a broadcaster in one part of the world can easily distribute
content in another.
The meeting of the IPTV Focus Group (FG IPTV) attracted over 150
delegates from the world's key ICT companies, over 100 input documents were
considered, and the first drafts of various output documents agreed. All
documents can be viewed on the group's webpage.
A key output document drafted at the meeting shows the
requirements for standardization in IPTV. Establishing this list is an
essential part of the standards making process. Also dealt with by the group,
and equally as important is outlining what standards already exist.
The meeting approved the establishment of six working
Meeting Report
FG IPTV-MR-0001: WG 1 (Requirement and Architecture of IP TV) meeting report[Source: WG1 Leaders]
Meeting Reports
FG IPTV-MR-0005: End Systems & Interoperabililty Report[Source: WG5 Leaders]
FG IPTV-ID-0104: AVS (Audio Video Standard Group) asking for A.4 and A.5 status [Source: Director of TSB ( Houlin Zhao)]
Output Documents
FG IPTV-OD-0031: Liaison Statement to ATIS IIF[Source: FG IPTV Chairman]
FG IPTV-OD-0030: WG 1 Living List (Architecture)[Source: WG1 Chair]
FG IPTV-OD-0029: List of the standardisation organisations relevant to IPTV[Source: WG1 Chairs]
FG IPTV-OD-0028: Gap Analysis Document[Source: WG1 – Architecture Chair]
FG IPTV-OD-0026: Working Document on Service Scenario for IPTV[Source: WG1 Leaders]
FG IPTV-OD-0023: Request for participation in ITU-T FG IPTV[Source: FG IPTV Working Group 5]
FG IPTV-OD-0022: Establishment of liaison relationship with FG IPTV[Source: FG IPTV Working Group 5]
FG IPTV-OD-0021: Initiation of IPTV End System Study[Source: FG IPTV WG5]
FG IPTV-OD-0020: Request for further discussion on IPTV End System Contribution[Source: FG IPTV WG5]
FG IPTV-OD-0019: WG 5 Working Document for IPTV End System[Source: Working Group 5]
FG IPTV-MR-0003: WG 3 (Service Security and Content Protection) meeting report[Source: WG 3 Leaders] FG IPTV-MR-0006: WG 6 (Middleware, Application and Content Platforms) meeting report[Source: WG 6 Leaders]
FG IPTV-OD-0018: IPTV Middleware, Applications, and Content Platforms[Source: WG6 (Middleware, Applications, and Content Platforms) Leaders]
FG IPTV-OD-0017: Liaison Statement to ITU-T SG 16[Source: FG IPTV WG6 "Middleware, Applications and Content Platforms"]
FG IPTV-OD-0016: Liaison Statement to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 on IPTV Middleware[Source: FG IPTV WG6 "Middleware, Applications and Content Platforms"]
FG IPTV-OD-0013: Liaison Report to DVB TM-CPT[Source: ITU-T Focus Group IPTV, Working Group 3 – Service Security and Content Protection]
FG IPTV-OD-0012: Liaison Report to ITU-R Working Party 6M[Source: ITU-T Focus Group IPTV, Working Group 3 – Service Security and Content Protection]
FG IPTV-OD-0011: WG 4 Living lists on IPTV network control aspects[Source: Technical Leader of WG4]
FG IPTV-MR-0002: WG 2 QoS and Performance meeting report[Source: WG 2 Leaders]
FG IPTV-MR-0004: Meeting Report of IPTV Network Control Aspects[Source: WG 4 Leader]
FG IPTV-OD-0002: Outline for draft text of WG2 deliverable on QoE requirements for IPTV[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0003: Outline for draft text of WG2 deliverable on Traffic Management for IPTV[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0004: Outline for draft text of WG2 deliverable on application layer reliability solutions for IPTV[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0005: Outline for draft text of WG2 deliverable on performance monitoring for IPTV[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0006: Liaison to DSL Forum on QoE requirements for IPTV[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0007: Liaison to ATIS IIF on QoS and Performance work for IPTV[Source: WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0008: Liaison to DVB Project on QoS and Performance work for IPTV[Source: FG IPTV WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0009: Liaison to ITU on QoS and Performance work for IPTV[Source: FG IPTV WG2 "QoS and Performance Aspects"]
FG IPTV-OD-0010: Working Document on "Requirements of IPTV Network control aspects"[Source: WG4 Leader]
FG IPTV-ID-0103: ITU-T Guide for Newcomers [Source: TSB]
FG IPTV-ID-0102: Liaison Statement from the CEA [Source: Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) – IPTV Oversight and Coordination Committee (OCC)]
FG IPTV-ID-0101: List of pre-registered participants to the 1st meeting of the Focus Group on IPTV, (Geneva, 10-14 July 2006) [Source: TSB]
FG IPTV-ID-0099: Opening remarks at the 1st meeting of IPTV Focus Group, Geneva, 10 July 2006 by Houlin Zhao, Director of TSB [Source: TSB]
FG IPTV-ID-0018 Rev.1: Proposal for hosting of the ITU-T 2nd FG IPTV Meeting and IPTV Technical Workshop [Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0002 Rev.1: Draft Agenda and work plan for first FG IPTV meeting [Source: Chairman of FG IPTV]
FG IPTV-ID-0001: List of Input Documents of the 1st FG IPTV meeting (10-14 July 2006) [Source: Chairman, FG IPTV (Ghassem Koleyni)]
Input Documents 81 to 100
FG IPTV-ID-0100: Establishment of a relationship with the ITU-T IPTV Focus Group [Source: JCA-HN]
FG IPTV-ID-0097: Application layer reliability solutions for IP TV services [Source: Digital Fountain]
FG IPTV-ID-0096: A Proposal for the discussion items regarding Middleware and Applications [Source: NTT]
FG IPTV-ID-0095: Outline of Security Requirements and Functions in IPTV Services [Source: NTT]
FG IPTV-ID-0094: IPTV Service Architecture [Source: NTT, KDDI, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba]
FG IPTV-ID-0093: Proposal on IPTV unified subscriber's identification [Source: China Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0092: Proposal on IPTV Service Management Architecture [Source: China Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0091: Proposal on IPTV service classification [Source: China Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0090: SIM application requirements on IPTV Terminal [Source: China Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0089: EPG system architecture and it's requirements [Source: China Netcom Group, P.R.China]
FG IPTV-ID-0088: Work Items for IPTV End Systems and Interoperability [Source: Cisco Systems, U.S.A]
FG IPTV-ID-0087: RTP/UDP/MPEG2 TS as a means of transmission for IPTV Streams [Source: Cisco Systems, U.S.A]
FG IPTV-ID-0086: Content Protection Framework, Elements and SDOs [Source: Cisco Systems, U.S.A]
FG IPTV-ID-0085: A Framework Architecture and Work Items for IPTV standards [Source: Cisco Systems, U.S.A]
FG IPTV-ID-0084: A proposal for the discussion items regarding the end systems and interoperability aspects [Source: NTT]
FG IPTV-ID-0083: Discussion on prospective study items for NGN signalling for broadband services [Source: NTT Comware Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0082: Introductions for AVS-P2 [Source: China Netcom, Huawei, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhe Jiang University, SVAGROUP]
FG IPTV-ID-0081: Proposal for Working Method of IPTV FG [Source: MII, China; Huawei Technologies]
Input Documents 61 to 80
FG IPTV-ID-0080: Zapping Delay and Video Codec [Source: ETRI, Samsung Electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0079: Compatibility of Traffic Descriptors in SDOs [Source: ETRI, Samsung Electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0078: Contents Protection Architecture for IPTV [Source: ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute)]
FG IPTV-ID-0077: Proposal on Feature Interactions in Overlay Networks for IPTV Services [Source: ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute)]
FG IPTV-ID-0076: Multicast Requirements for IPTV Service [Source: ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute)]
FG IPTV-ID-0075: Requirements on Metadata for IPTV Services [Source: ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute)]
FG IPTV-ID-0074: Architecture Requirement for Distributed IPTV Content Delivery System [Source: UTStarcom]
FG IPTV-ID-0073: Architecture Requirement for IPTV Authentications [Source: UTStarcom]
FG IPTV-ID-0072: Requirement for IPTV Terminal Middleware Architecture [Source: UTStarcom]
FG IPTV-ID-0071: Work on Requirements of IPTV Service [Source: ETRI]
FG IPTV-ID-0070: Desirable feature of IPTV system for DTTB re-transmission platform and an introduction of experimental IPTV system for ISDB-T [Source: Nippon Hoso Kyokai (Japan Broadcasting Corporation)]
FG IPTV-ID-0069: List of the standardisation organisations relevant to IPTV [Source: Alcatel]
FG IPTV-ID-0068: IPTV, IMS, A-RACF/RACS capability exchange. Architecture considerations. [Source: Alcatel]
FG IPTV-ID-0067: Architecture Working Group proposed orientations [Source: Alcatel]
FG IPTV-ID-0066: Proposal for SDOs and ITU-T SGs representatives steering group [Source: Alcatel]
FG IPTV-ID-0065: A discussion issue on the IMS-based IPTV service [Source: ETRI]
FG IPTV-ID-0064: Proposal about VCDN [Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0063: Key topics of IPTV security and content protection aspects [Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0062: Proposal about IPTV Service and Extended Channel [Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0061: IPTV Security Reference Model and Requirement [Source: ZTE Corporation]
Input Documents 41 to 60
FG IPTV-ID-0060: Proposal about IPTV Distributed EPG architecture [Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0059: Proposal about CDN architecture based IPTV media delivery system [Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0058: Architecture and Requirement of IPTV Network Management [Source: ZTE Corporation]
FG IPTV-ID-0057: IPTV terminal requirements [Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0056: Suggestion to IPTV standardization [Source: MII, China]
FG IPTV-ID-0055: Discussion on concepts "Service" and "application" in IPTV study [Source: MII, China]
FG IPTV-ID-0054: Functional Requirements and Architecture of the non-IMS based IPTV [Source: CATR of MII, Huawei]
FG IPTV-ID-0053: Functional Requirements and Architecture of the IMS-based IPTV [Source: CATR of MII, Huawei]
FG IPTV-ID-0052: Proposal studying NGN-based IPTV [Source: CATR of MII, Huawei]
FG IPTV-ID-0051: IPTV security requirements [Source: CATR/MII, China]
FG IPTV-ID-0050: Threats and risks for IPTV service [Source: CATR/China]
FG IPTV-ID-0049: Proposed requirements for IP access network in IPTV [Source: MII, Alcatel Shanghai Bell]
FG IPTV-ID-0048: IPTV Architecture [Source: MII, China]
FG IPTV-ID-0047: IPTV Service description - PVR [Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0046: IPTV Service description - ShiftTV [Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0045: IPTV Service description - Broadcasting TV(BTV) [Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0044: IPTV Service description - VoD [Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0043: IPTV Service Requirement [Source: CATR (China Academy of Telecom. Research, MII)]
FG IPTV-ID-0042: Proposal on IPTV definition [Source: MII, China]
FG IPTV-ID-0041: IPTV features required for accessibility for people with disabilities [Source: Gunnar Hellstrom, Omnitor / Andrea Saks, Accessibility Consultant]
Input Documents 21 to 40
FG IPTV-ID-0040: Requirement for Content Redistribution Usage [Source: LG electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0039: Multiple Service Provider Connectivity and Transparency of IPTV Service [Source: Samsung Electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0038: IPTV: Mobile Scenario and Architecture [Source: Samsung Electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0037: Core Requirements for IPTV terminal devices [Source: Samsung Electronics]
FG IPTV-ID-0036: Media Adaptation to Usage Environments for IPTV Services [Source: ETRI]
FG IPTV-ID-0035: Study of bearer network for the IPTV [Source: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.]
FG IPTV-ID-0034: requirement for P2P-based IPTV media delivery system [Source: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.)]
FG IPTV-ID-0033: Terminal Middleware High Level Requirements Contribution [Source: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.]
FG IPTV-ID-0032: IMS enabled IPTV architecture [Source: Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.]
FG IPTV-ID-0031: Proposal of IMS-based IPTV architecture on NGN [Source: Huawei, CATR]
FG IPTV-ID-0030: Proposal of Terms of Reference on Network and Control aspects of IP TV [Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0029: Architecture requirements for IPTV Global Service [Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0028: Interactive control Requirements for IPTV Service [Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0027: Commercial billing model of IPTV [Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0026: Classifications of IPTV service and its meaning. [Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0025: Overall definition and description of IPTV in the business role model [Source: KT (Korea)]
FG IPTV-ID-0024: Traffic Management support for IPTV [Source: Nortel Networks (Canada)]
FG IPTV-ID-0023: Digital rights management, an overview [Source: Nortel Networks (Canada)]
FG IPTV-ID-0022: IPTV Service Packages [Source: Nortel Networks (Canada)]
FG IPTV-ID-0021: Proposal to request of AVS video standard to be the must IPTV video format [Source: China Netcom, PCCW]
Input Documents 2 to 20
FG IPTV-ID-0020: On the Organization of the IP/TV Focus Group [Source: France Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0019: Definition of IP/TV Services [Source: France Telecom]
FG IPTV-ID-0018: Proposal for hosting of the ITU-T 2nd FG IPTV Meeting and IPTV Technical Workshop [Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0017: Technical issues on IP TV standardization [Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0016: Some classifications and discussion issues for IP TV service scenario [Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0015: Proposal of Terms of Reference on architecture and requirements of IP TV [Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0014: IPTV service scenarios using NACF over NGN [Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0013: User requirements for perceptual video quality monitoring of IPTV [Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0012: Some discussion issues on the IPTV service scenario [Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0011: Discussion issues about Y.ngn-mcast (NGN Multicast Service Capabilities with MPLS-based QoS Support) [Source: Korea (Republic of)]
FG IPTV-ID-0010: Starting point for IPTV requirements work [Source: Siemens AG]
FG IPTV-ID-0009: LS on IPTV Focus Group [Source: Chairman SG 16]
FG IPTV-ID-0008: ATIS IIF Initial Deliverables [Source: Chairman, ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF)]
FG IPTV-ID-0007: DSL Forum Liaison to ITU-T FG IPTV [Source: Gavin Young, DSL Forum Technical Committee Chair]
FG IPTV-ID-0006: IPTV Focus Group: Q.2/13 related work [Source: Q.2/13 Rapporteur Group (Kobe, 22-27 April 2006)]
FG IPTV-ID-0005: SG 17 interest in IPTV Focus Group [Source: ITU-T SG 17 (Jeju, Korea, 19-28 April 2006)]
FG IPTV-ID-0004: Summary of ITU-T Study Groups Security Related Activities [Source: ITU-T SG 17 (Jeju, Korea, 19-28 April 2006)]
FG IPTV-ID-0003: Liaison Statement on ISO/IEC 23004, Multimedia Middleware (M3W) [Source: Convenor]
FG IPTV-ID-0002: Draft Agenda and work plan for first FG IPTV meeting [Source: Chairman of FG IPTV]
part of celebrations for the 50th anniversary of ITU-T, you
are invited to vote for the most influential standards work from ITU-T.
work is behind many of the worlds most prevalent information and communications
technologies. Choose here from our shortlist which
you think has best shaped the ICT world of today, or feel free to suggest your
own idea.
The first meeting of the Focus Group on IPTV (FG IPTV)
will take place 10-14 July in Geneva.
The official announcement is here,
and a new webpage has
gone live detailing how to participate, significant dates and news among other
FG IPTV will coordinate and promote the development of
global IPTV standards taking into account the existing work of the ITU study
groups as well as Standards Developing Organizations, Fora and Consortia. It is
open to any individual from a country which is a member of ITU who wishes to
contribute to the work.
Work in the video coding space progressed,
following meetings taking place in Geneva in
Also, the beginning of the month saw the Japan launch of
a new mobile terrestrial digital audio/video broadcasting service using H.264
and called "1seg". The video compression standard (full
name ITU-T Rec. H.264 or MPEG-4 pt.10/ AVC) jointly developed by ITU-T SG16 and
the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is now being deployed in products from companies
including Apple, Sony, BT, France Telecom, Intel, Motorola, Nokia, Polycom,
Samsung, Tandberg and Toshiba and in services such as over-the-air broadcast
television, the new HD DVD and Blu Ray disc formats, and a large number of
deployments of direct-broadcast satellite-based television services.
In Geneva,
a new Recommendation was consented that will allow the use of a 'back channel'
to convey the level of loss or corruption in video messages and if necessary
apply measures to compensate for that. So, for example, at the content delivery
end, an encoder, upon determining that a message is not getting through properly,
may decide to reduce the message to its bare essentials resulting in a
lower fidelity for the end user. Alternatively, the encoder
and decoder can deploy intelligent recovery mechanisms. This will better
support Recommendation H.264's use in environments that may be more susceptible
to error, for example in mobile telephony and IP-based video conferencing.
The new Recommendation has been drafted in such
a way that it can be applied to existing (e.g. H.262, H.263, H,264) and
future video coding standards.
The work took place during co-located meetings
of the Joint Video Team (JVT) and ITU-T Study Group 16, home of media coding
work in the ITU. Over 90 documents were considered by the JVT group, which
is the ITU-T and ISO/IEC joint project to enhance standard video coding
performance, and is home to H.264/AVC.
An amendment to H.264 added support of
new extended-gamut colour spaces, which are recently-specified
enhanced methods of measuring and representing the brightness and color of the
objects in video pictures. Also, in relation to H.264, work continued
on developing new profiles supporting H.264's use in high-end studio
applications that use the 4:4:4 color sampling system and on developing
scalable video coding (SVC) extensions of the standard as well.
Director of ITU's Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), Houlin Zhao,
has convened a meeting 4-5 April 2006 in Geneva
to explore standardization in Internet Protocol Television (IPTV).
IPTV rollout is expected to grow at a brisk pace in the coming years.
Many of the world's major telecommunications providers are exploring IPTV as a
new service. It is increasingly seen by operators as an important part of a
triple play package of voice, video and data services. Standardization is key
if service providers are to offer good quality, and provide the value-adds such
as video on demand services which will inevitably drive the market.
Zhao is convinced that standardization in the field is an urgent need. "IPTV is
becoming an increasingly important service in the market, and more and more
ITU-T Members have said that they are facing challenges from technical as well
as regulatory issues," said Zhao. "We have received a number of proposals to
strengthen our work on IPTV standardization in order to meet the needs of
market players and users. I encourage ITU members and ITU partners to provide
contributions and to participate at the meeting. I am confident that this will
be a very productive and successful meeting."
The meeting will examine; the situation and challenges of IPTV service at the
national level; the situation and challenges of IPTV service at the
regional/global levels; the actions and development of IPTV-related service by
SDOs; technical and regulatory challenges and the ITU's role and expected
actions in IPTV standardization.
More and online registration here.
© Copyright 2017, ITU
The information presented within this blog comes from various organizations around the world. ITU encourages users to seek more detailed information from the original source through the links provided.
Links to third-party websites are provided for the convenience of all users. The ITU is not responsible for the accuracy, currency or the reliability of the content on these third-party websites. ITU does not offer any guarantee in that regard nor does ITU endorse the third-party organizations, their sites or content.


text:
Garbon faces Malone for Dem tax collector nod in Mt. Pleasant Township
In the nomination race for the position of tax collector Mt. Pleasant Township, Democrat Andrea Garbon, who was appointed to the post in February of 2012, faces challenger Laura Malone for the party's nomination in the May 21 primary, according to unofficial records of the Westmoreland County Election Bureau.
Republican challenger Mary A. Hontz is running unopposed for the GOP nomination in the primary, also according to unofficial bureau records.
Garbon is a lifelong resident of Norvelt and a 1990 Mt. Pleasant Area graduate.
She was appointed tax collector on Feb. 1, 2012, to fulfill the remainder of a four-year term vacated by Helen Schachte, the township's former tax collector. The term expires Dec. 31.
"I find the position to be interesting and I want to contribute to the community," Garbon said. "I want it to be a friendly office that is helpful to taxpayers."
In 2009, Garbon earned a Bachelor of Science in business and marketing, with a focus on accounting, from Seton Hill University in Greensburg.
"I thought it would be a great opportunity to utilize that degree," she said in reference to her current position.
Garbon previously was employed for 15 years in various production related positions at Latrobe Brewing Co.
For several years, she has also served for several years as assembly secretary an as a regional auditor for the fraternal National Slovak Society of the USA.
"I believe those skills also contribute and help to meet the needs of the office here," she said.
When Garbon took over as township tax collector, the office was not computerized, she said.
"I've been implementing a new computer system that meets the needs of the tax office," she said. "It's more efficient, it has better tracking ability, and it gets information to taxpayers more quickly, and to other parties involved, also."
If elected, Garbon said she will continue in her efforts to further modernize the office to better meet the needs of the public.
Malone has been employed as secretary to the business manager at Mt. Pleasant Area School District since 2007.
In addition to overseeing payroll and health insurance benefits for district faculty and staff, along with addressing the pensions of retirees, Malone has for several years received reports from tax collectors throughout the district.
"I'm very good with numbers and I'm very confident," said Malone, who added that she has obtained a secretarial degree from Bradford Business School and has taken courses through the mail in accounting by the Chicago Institute. "I'm very positive I can work with the school district as tax collector."
She previously worked for 10 years as office manager at Hi-Lite Industries Inc. in Hempfield Industrial Park before the company closed in 2006.
If elected, Malone said taxpayers can expect her to be organized and responsive to any of their concerns.
"I'll be very accessible to them any time," she said, adding that she would also work to upgrade the office's technological capabilities. "I'll have an answering machine, and phone calls will be returned within a day."
Malone added that she would establish evening and Saturday hours, particularly as she gets started in the post.
She said she would also make it her mission to work with the district to make sure the district receives tax dollars in a more timely manner.
"With my background, I think I would be better suited for that, seeing it from this end and wanting to learn more about it," Malone said.
She also said she is cognizant of the fact that, if elected, her current job responsibilities would have to be altered to avoid any conflicts of interest.
"There are some things at the district that would have to change if I did indeed win," Malone said. "I'll know May 21 if I'm going to be on ballot in November."
• Hontz, a township resident since 1985, is a member of the township's board of auditors, a position she obtained via write-in campaign.
She has 31 years employment experience in both commercial and residential mortgages for a major Pittsburgh bank.
"The last 11 years, I have traveled every day to Pittsburgh or the Butler exit of (Pennsylvania) Turnpike; dealing with commercial, residential mortgages, taxes and escrows, so I thought I would be a natural fit," said Hontz, who earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration/management from the University of Pittsburgh.
As a township auditor, she and her board colleagues took steps this year to realign the vacation time of the township supervisors to sync with that of their employees.
"It gave supervisors the ability to be on the job with their crews more often, which helps the community," Hontz said.
Last year, Hontz worked with the board to bring the amount paid by supervisors for health insurance coverage more in line with their workers, she said.
"So when they asked their workers to pay a little more, they were already doing that," she said.
If elected, Hontz said she would bring a new and improved brand of customer service.
"My computer skills are excellent, and my experience and knowledge would make me a fit," she said.
Though she is running unopposed, Hontz encouraged voters to write her in on the Democratic ticket, as well.
A.J. Panian is an editor for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-547-5722 or email@example.com.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Legends and Tales - Chandalar
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Legends and Tales - Chandalar
The Chan Dar have many names in the lands. Often whispered as The Twelve, The Soul Reavers, or simply the Nameless, the unspoken haunt every child's dreams regardless of race or creed. No one will speak of them in open conversation, to do so brings their wrath, and their wrath is terrible beyond a simple death but an utter end of existence.
Their names are spoken in hushed conversations at night under dark moons and low fires. You all know their names and fear their presence.
No one has ever seen them. To see them is to end. Utterly.
And yet they are known, everyone knows their names.
MÓRRÍGHAN is the great Queen of the Chandalar. Terrible and unseen for ages, she abides in a plane beyond the reach of all mortals.
When the winter nights are dark and coldest, NECHTAN roots around for fodder and prey. He is dark as cold winter.
RÍOGHNACH, the mortal Queen. Little ones call her princess three times in a mirror and quickly succomb, or so the rumor goes.
The little deer OISÍN is a peaceful, tiny beast, luring you in close until it is too late.
MUIRNE lives amongst us all, he is the heart of the fest, and will feast on your heart with MEBD, the bottom of the bottomless, he finds you at the end of your barrels.
The handsome fey LIR will guide you in the forest, down the pleasant trail to your doom.
FION the white rules with FEIDLIMID the magnificent. They are all powerful in the mortal and immortal lands, they rule the Chandalar and the realms.
In the dark of the night, FEARGHAS with catch you and only kill you, if you are lucky, and pretty.
CONOR cares not for beauty or timing, his pack will hunt you should you mention his name but once.
Ever the watcher, BRAN keeps tabs on all, master of the birds, keeper of the ravens, it is his small chirpers that get's the word back to the Chandalar.
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