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 Standards
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Digital Asset Management Society Debuts at NAB
GSAM, the Global Society for Asset Management, made its official
debut at NAB 2003 with a roster of founding members including Ascent
Media Group, Artesia Technologies, Avid Technology and RightsLine.
Other new members include eMotion.
GSAM (pronounced "Gee-Sam") is the first international trade
and professional association to target the important and fast-growing
field of Digital Asset Management (DAM).
"Content is king, but only if you can manage it properly," said
GSAM Founder and Executive Director Richard Eberhart. "Effective
control of media and metadata is the key success factor for today's
broadcasters and for a host of other businesses, and the technology
to allow this is still emerging. We feel there is a strong need
for dialog and direction, and we aim to make GSAM a focal point
for this."
Among GSAM's goals as an organization are:
- Actively influencing standards that promote openness and interoperability
between enterprise systems.
- Reducing the complexity of the digital asset management field
by demonstrating best practices across multiple vertical industries.
- Providing an accessible forum for sharing of lessons learned
globally.
- Aggregating, promoting and sharing the expertise of thought
leaders in the field.
- Identifying the potential of new areas of the field as they
evolve and emerge.
GSAM is completely independent and vendor neutral, and with branches
in the USA, Europe and Asia, it is also truly international in scope.
"Here at NAB, broadcasting is of course the major focus," said Adrian
Scott, president of GSAM Europe, "but while Digital Asset Management
is absolutely core for TV and Radio, it is becoming equally important
to the needs of many other industries. These days everyone has a
need to organize, control and distribute digital content, and there
are many diverse enterprises that share common concerns in this
area. GSAM will help identify those issues, pool knowledge and experience,
and promote best practices. We aim also to bring suppliers and users
together in a highly constructive way."
GSAM offers Principal, Sponsor, Associate and Professional memberships
to customers, vendors, integrators and individuals involved in the
digital asset management field. The organization will serve as an
umbrella group for all aspects of activity and innovation in the
DAM arena.
GSAM will not be an events coordinator nor will it be a standards
body, noted Eberhart, but will be a true nexus of activity involving
many of these capabilities.
"GSAM is evidence of the trend we see at Astesia - that digital
asset management is growing up and starting to be seen as core and
common inftastructure," said David Lipsey, vice president of media
and entertainment of Artesia. "GSAM offers diverse constituents
a collaborative organization to learn from one another, to advance
our collective thinking on DAM and join together in a valuable discussion."
"The need for asset management, obvious for a long time, has been
made more-so by the increasing complexities of digital workflow
and increasing demands of enterprise storage - the world's getting
larger," said Peter Fasciano, co-founder of Avid. "GSAM will help
us in navigating this larger world and finding our way to a much-needed
common solution."
The GSAM web site can be found at http://www.g-sam.org
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GEM of a Standard From DVB
The DVB-GEM specification, standardised by ETSI (TS 102 819), was
part of the DVB Group's push at this year's NAB. Set to become the
first ever common worldwide standard for interactive television,
GEM (Globally Executable MHP) defines the APIs, protocols and content
formats that can be relied upon in all interactive television standards
and specifications that support globally interoperable MHP applications.
GEM provides a means of ensuring that MHP applications can be carried
over networks other than DVB. Where DVB has not been adopted, and
therefore where the original MHP standard cannot be implemented,
application interoperability is assured by combining MHP-based GEM
with the appropriate specifications from another body to produce
a GEM receiver.
"The aim of GEM is to provide true 'write once, run anywhere'
capabilities for MHP applications," said Peter MacAvock, Executive
Director of the DVB Project Office. "DVB has been pleasantly
surprised by the positive industry reception of the GEM specification."
Visit http://www.dvb.org
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Professional MPEG Forum Celebrates MXF Success
“The big news is that after three years of work by more than 50
organizations MXF has arrived as a technical and commercial reality!”
observed Gordon Castle of CNN.
NAB 2003 saw MXF confirmed as the key material exchange format for
the move to IT-based production.
Companies across the television industry announced MXF-based products
and systems at NAB. These companies included: Avid Technology, Leitch,
Matrox, Metaglue, MOG Solutions, Omneon, Quantel, SGI, Snell & Wilcox,
Sony Corporation, Telestream and Thomson Grass Valley.
According to Hugo Gaggioni of Sony, “The timing of MXF’s arrival
could not be better as broadcasters get serious about network infrastructures,
improved workflows and metadata management.”
To highlight this success the Professional MPEG Forum used NAB to
host “The Interoperability Center” together with co-sponsors TV-Anytime
and the AAF Association. The Center was the focus of interoperability
demonstrations between many of the above companies and industry
leaders confirmed the importance of MXF and its widespread adoption.
Gordon Castle of CNN stated “MXF is a key part our integration strategy
we intend later this year to integrate our playback, archive and
editing systems together on an MXF framework.”
The Professional MPEG Forum in collaboration with the AAF Association
initiated MXF and took it, with the support of the EBU, to SMPTE
for standardization. Key MXF documents have now entered the final
stages of the SMPTE process.
Pro-MPEG Chairman Nick Wells of the BBC commented: “MXF is of fundamental
importance to future television architectures. It is a key technology
enabling the revolutionary change towards IT based video production
and distribution. The BBC is only one of many broadcasters and program
makers that is planning major new investments based around the use
of MXF and AAF.”
At NAB 2003, the Pro-MPEG Forum announced a further program of work
to advance the concept of interoperability using MXF and to extend
its benefits across the television, digital cinema and facilities
sectors. Pro-MPEG has just completed a code of practice for streaming
high quality MPEG signals over professional IP networks. Interoperability
compliant with this new code of practice was demonstrated in the
Interoperability Center between Cisco, Path1, Sony Corp and Tandberg
TV.
Under the leadership of BTexact, future plans for the Pro-MPEG Wide
Area Networking Group include further interoperability testing,
a new code of practice for streaming other video formats over IP
and a new code of practice for the secure delivery of large media
over IP networks.
Visit http://www.pro-mpeg.org
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First Mobile Delivery of High-Definition 'ATSC'
At NAB2003, Microsoft and LINX Electronics collaborated to show
mobile delivery of HD and SD DTV on an ATSC-Like Transmission System
using Windows Media 9 Series technology.
The technical demonstration included an over-the-air broadcast from
a Sinclair Broadcast Group TV station (a company known for previous
opposition to the ATSC standard) to a van driving the streets of
Las Vegas.
With transmission technology developed by LINX Electronics, the
demonstration used a 6MHz channel using single-carrier VSB (Vestigial
Side Band). Operating in a half-rate mode for rugged transmission,
the LINX Mobile transmission system provided an available bitrate
of 9Mbps.
LINX Mobile is akin to the ATSC 8-VSB technology used in DTV in
the United States today. According to Microsoft, its Windows Media
Audio and Video 9 Series offers ideal compression for this kind
of reduced payload. The company claims it can deliver, at data rates
as low as 5Mbps, HD video plus 5.1 channel surround audio streamed
over the air from digital TV stations to televisions, PCs or other
devices. High-quality HDTV can now be achieved at one-third the
bit rate required for MPEG-2. Windows Media Audio and Video 9 Series
can also provide standard definition (SD) video at rates as low
as 1.5 Mbps.
"This demonstration is a great example of how Windows Media 9 Series
quality and compression innovation is helping to be a catalyst for
new forms of DTV delivery," said Amir Majidimehr, general manager
of the Windows Digital Media Division at Microsoft Corp. "The ability
to deliver D1 or HD video resolution in one-third the size of MPEG-2,
together with state-of-the-art transmission innovations from LINX
Electronics, offers a whole new range of devices and audiences."
"In some South American countries, the U.S. DTV standard, ATSC,
has been at a disadvantage because it does not include mobile capability,"
said Bob Rast, president of LINX Electronics. "It will now be possible
to adopt ATSC standards and include a dual-mode transmission standard,
one mode being the current ATSC 8VSB and the other being LINX Mobile."
LINX estimates that mobile capability could be added to a LINX ATSC-compatible
receiver chip (IC) for an incremental increase of only two percent
in area.
Though the LINX Mobile transmission is similar to ATSC 8VSB, present-day
receivers cannot receive the mobile signals. Thus, the existence
of legacy DTV receivers in the United States makes adoption of mobile
service problematic, and further study is needed to determine how
this divergence might be most effectively resolved.
The Sinclair Broadcast Group participated in the mobile service
demonstration by transmitting the signal using its local Las Vegas
DTV station, KFBT-DT, Channel 29, using an Acrodyne high-power UHF
transmitter.
"Windows Media 9 Series and LINX innovations can open many doors
of opportunity for the broadcast industry," said Nat Ostroff, vice
president of new technology for the Sinclair Broadcast Group. "Today
the single largest impediment to reaching a large DTV audience using
an over-the-air system has been the lack of adequate indoor reception
with simple antennas.
"Demonstrating the ability to reach small portable sets as
well as mobile receivers offers a host of new consumer and commercial
applications and revenue opportunities for DTV, including free and
subscription data to PCs, mobile devices and family cars."
Also participating in the demonstration were SpectraRep which provided
system integration expertise, B2C2 which provided the PC interface
for the LINX receiver and Tandberg Television which provided its
hardware-based real-time encoder.
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Khronos Group Moves on Next Stages of Complementary
OpenML and OpenGL ES Specifications
The Khronos Group, a consortium dedicated to creating open standard
APIs to enable the authoring and playback of rich media on a wide
variety of platforms, used NAB to announce that Falanx, MEI/Panasonic,
Neomagic, Sanshin and Swell Software have joined the Group as Contributing
Members.
Working together, each Member participates in either one or both
Khronos Work Groups in the development of OpenGL ES and OpenML;
royalty-free, open standard APIs that enable authoring and playback
of dynamic media on a huge range of platforms and devices. The Group
is inviting all companies to quickly get involved, as it says the
vision of widely deployed, rich 3D media will become a reality later
this year with the public release of the OpenGL ES 1.0 Specification.
The Groups says this will create new classes of content-hungry platforms,
each with many millions of potential new users. The OpenML 1.0 SDK,
scheduled for release later this year, will enable developers to
capitalize on this huge, emerging market opportunity and easily
integrate video, audio and graphics capabilities into their application
suites, making these applications portable over multiple operating
systems, CPU architectures and add-in hardware devices.
The OpenML 1.0 specification was completed in 2001 and can be used,
royalty free, by any adopting company that desires to integrate
OpenML functionality into hardware or software products.
The next-generation OpenML 1.1 specification will incorporate new
features and services to further enhance dynamic media authoring.
More information about OpenML and the 1.0 spec is at http://www.khronos.org/openml.
“The OpenML API enables different hardware manufacturers to provide
standardized interfaces that allow software companies like Discreet
to support a much wider range of peripherals,” said Jean-Luc Dery,
product development manager at Discreet. “Currently, a lot of resources
are spent building custom interfaces to each hardware device. With
OpenML, Discreet will be able to focus more on improving and defining
new creative tools and be assured compatibility with any OpenML-compliant
hardware device.”
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Internet Streaming Media Alliance
Releases Content Protection Spec
The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), a global alliance
of nearly 40 industry leaders in content management, distribution
infrastructure, and streaming media, announced that it is releasing
for peer review a new content protection specification which will
serve as the technical foundation for the secure delivery of streaming
and download media content. Finalisation of the new content protection
specification is expected in June following a two-month period of
peer review. The specification provides a single, end-to-end encryption
scheme for streaming media and file downloading that can easily
integrate with different key and rights management solutions and
licensed content protection devices. The specification builds upon
the ISMA's v1.0 specification released in 2001, which defines an
end-to-end, implementation agreement for streaming ISO-compliant
MPEG-4 video and audio over Internet Protocol networks.
"The ISMA's new content protection specification represents a significant
next step toward greater market adoption of multi-vendor, interoperable
streaming media products and services," said Tom Jacobs, ISMA President.
"It builds upon existing open standards and provides a core technical
foundation for the protection of digital content. It will ultimately
enable a wider range of high-value content to be distributed by
content owners and help to promote greater product and service interoperability.
"ISMA's goal is to bring the same level of ubiquity and interoperability
to streaming that such broadly used technologies as HTML and HTTP
have done for the World Wide Web. ISMA's new specification is to
secure media delivery what secure sockets layer (SSL) and HTTPS
are to secure web communication." Jacobs noted that the new specification
is based upon open standards and technology, including the National
Institute of Standards & Technology's (NIST) 128-bit AES encryption
standard, which has been embraced by the consumer electronic and
wireless communities. As such, Jacobs said that the ISMA's content
protection solution is "unencumbered by any additional royalty fees
and intellectual property concerns."
The specification is also compatible with established Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF) specifications. Key Features Key features of the
ISMA's new specification include end-to-end encryption for the secure
delivery of streaming and download content at the content level.
This allows media content to stay encrypted throughout video delivery
over IP networks and remain encrypted on player devices. The content
protection scheme has been designed for easy integration with many
different types of rights and key management systems providing content
owners with maximum flexibility to manage business and technology
decisions.
"In developing this specification, we spent a significant amount
of time gathering feedback from major content owners," Jacobs said.
"As a result, our specification does not bind them to utilize specific
rights and key management systems or pre-selected solution vendors.
This allows content owners to retain control over critical business
processes and related decisions."
Visit http://www.isma.tv
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VEIL Interactive Technologies Joins MOBILearn
Consortium
VEIL Interactive Technologies, provider of content-driven digital
solutions for interactive television, announced at NAB that the
company has teamed up with the MOBILearn Consortium to explore new
ways to use mobile environments to meet the needs of learners.
The Consortium's MOBILearn Project will establish a new m-learning
architecture and will support creation, brokerage, delivery and
tracking of learning and information contents, using ambient intelligence,
location-dependence, personalization, multimedia, instant messaging
(text, video) and distributed databases.
The primary objectives of the MOBILearn Project include:
- Defining theoretically-supported and empirically-validated
mobile teaching and tutoring models
- Developing a reference mobile learning architecture that is
attractive to key actors in Europe and beyond
- Developing a business model and associated implementation strategies
for successful EU-wide deployment of mobile learning
- Gaining large-scale use of project results by all interested
parties in Europe
As a member of the MOBILearn Consortium, VEIL Interactive will
contribute to three Project work packages: WP2 - User requirements
and evaluation, WP6 - Context awareness subsystem and WP8 - Mobile
media delivery subsystem.
VEIL Interactive's Director of Global Integration, Martha A. Karlovic
said in making the announcement, "As a member of this team, we are
going to be setting the standards and applications for future mobile
educational/training efforts on a global basis. We are very pleased
and honored to be a part of such a visionary group of organizations."
VEIL's interactive television (iTV) platform incorporates the company's
data transmission technology into handheld electronic devices such
as PDA's, laptops, and mobile phones; converting them into iTV-readied
devices that receive data from VEIL-encoded video. VEIL-enhancement
offers the ability to interact with an encoded television content
anywhere that the video signal can be seen.
The MOBILearn web site can be found at http://www.mobilearn.org.
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Salsberg Takes Helm of RTNDA
The Associated Press' Bob Salsberg has taken over as chairman of
the world's largest professional organisation devoted to electronic
journalism - the Radio Television News Directors Association. The
RTNDA represents news executives in more than 30 countries.
A 12-year AP veteran, Salsberg is the broadcast editor for the Associated
Press bureau in Boston and has served on the RTNDA board of directors
since 1995.
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Hi-Def PVR/ATSC Push from Zenith
Champion of the ATSC digital TV standard, Zenith Electronics, used
NAB 2003 to demonstrate its new HDTV personal video recorder. A
source of unease for content providers, this world first set-top
box combines ATSC tuning with 80-gigabytes of hard disk storage
for storage and playback of more than eight hours of HDTV programming.
Features include basic on-screen navigation using a PSIP-based electronic
programme guide, Dolby Digital recording, live pause, variable rate
trick play, a variety of fast and slow motion capabilities, record
file management, aspect ratio control, and RGB, component, S-Video
and A/V outputs.
Signalling an aggressive new US digital television strategy, Zenith
Electronics also used NAB to announce a 50 percent reduction in
the factory price of its DTVMOD-30 ATSC VSB modulator.
The modulator creates an 8-VSB Trellis encoded signal from an ATSC
MPEG-encoded bitstream. The modulated signal uses a standard 44MHz
intermediate frequency output, which is upconverted to the desired
channel and used by low-power digital transmitters for terrestrial
broadcast.
The company claims the reduction in price of the modulator reflects
the economies of scale driven by the rollout of digital TV in the
US.
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