ATIS IPTV Interoperability Forum Releases Five New Standards

Standards-development organization, the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), last week released five new standards which it bills as establishing IPTV's "foundational framework." The standards, which were created by ATIS' IPTV Interoperability Forum (IIF), conclude Phase 1 of the IIF's three-phase Work Plan: Phase 1's goal was to standardize linear TV service over an IP network.
ATIS says that work has already begun on Phase 2 of the plan, which will focus on interactive services, including on-demand applications and pay-per-view programming. Phase 3, which is scheduled to begin in 2011, will focus on what ATIS describes as IPTV's "most demanding" applications, including multi-party video conferencing and next-generation gaming.

The newly completed Phase 1 standards documents are:
--"IPTV Linear TV Service" (ATIS-0800018), which is billed as establishing IPTV's "fundamental building blocks" for expansion into more advanced services, including pay-per-view and next-generation gaming.
--"IPTV Consumer Domain Device Configuration Metadata" (ATIS-0800022), which specifies the data structures (metadata) required to provide basic information needed to acquire IPTV content.
--"Media Formats and Protocols for IPTV Services" (ATIS-0800013), which is billed as a comprehensive listing of the protocols and media formats required for the implementation of IPTV-related services.
--"IPTV Terminal Metadata Specification" (ATIS-0800029), which ATIS says defines the data structure that facilitates the exchange of user-related data and the IPTV devices.
--"Fault Codes for IPTV" (ATIS-0800028), which includes a categorized listing of fault codes for IPTV functions and components.

Copies of the standards documents are available through the ATIS Document Center at: https://www.atis.org/docstore. "The IIF's completion of Phase 1 work is a significant step forward towards enabling tomorrow's innovative IPTV ecosystem," ATIS president and CEO, Susan Miller, said in a prepared statement. "Representing the IPTV ecosystem's companies, the IIF has distinguished itself as a leader in IPTV interoperability standards development. Going forward, the IIF's open, pragmatic approach will ensure it continues to lead in this paradigm-shifting technology's realization."