More on AIC -- an attempt to integrate multimedia and DTV...........
techweb.com
Group Seeks Integrated Multimedia, DTV
(09/20/98; 8:24 a.m. ET)
By Junko Yoshida, EE Times
LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands -- With a goal to
integrate 2-D, 3-D, and streaming content for digital TV
(DTV) programming, leaders from key international
technology-development forums gathered here last
week to launch a new initiative to harmonize the various
multimedia streams.
Founders of the Advanced Interactive Content (AIC,
pronounced "ace") initiative said they are hoping a
variety of advanced multimedia technologies -- thus far
developed and grown independently -- will finally
converge on a common platform. The group said it
plans to draft the spec before the end of this year.
Taking part in the AIC meeting were representatives
from the Motion Picture Experts Group, Virtual Reality
Modeling Language organization, and Advanced
Television Systems Committee (ATSC). The initiative
will "write an open specification to integrate and
harmonize VRML, MPEG-4, and Broadcast HTML
[BHTML] into a seamless stream," said Rob Glidden,
co-chairman of VRML 3-D Integrated Media Working
Group and one of 12 founding members of AIC.
Common Goal
To a certain degree, the new initiative shares a common
objective with the Intel-led Advanced Television
Enhancement Forum (ATVEF). Both aim to create a
content-programming platform for a broadcast
environment.
The AIC proponents, however, are going a few steps
further, according to Cliff Reader, a key player in the
MPEG-4 standard development and also an AIC
founding member.
"While many in the industry today are thinking how they
can add HTML to TV," Reader said, "our vision is how
we can create a rich set of 2-D and 3-D objects,
audiovisual streaming content in a broadcast
environment, for which HTML -- or an application like
seeing Web pages on a TV -- may be only a part."
ATSC's DTV Application Software Environment group
is examining two competing proposals, one by ATVEF
and the other being refined by the Broadcast HTML
team within the DTV Application Software Environment
group. BHTML, written in the emerging Extensible
Markup Language (XML), is designed for tight
integration with the Java framework.
Given that AIC lists the chairman of the DTV
Application Software Environment group as well as the
BHTML team leader among its founders, it's no
wonder the effort is already causing a stir among
ATVEF backers. (The DTV Application Software
Environment group chairman is Aninda DasGupta of
Philips Research; Ted Wugofski of Gateway is the
BHTML team leader.)
Some said they believe the motivation is to promote
BHTML, even if the ATSC doesn't wind up ratifying
that technology. One executive in the ATVEF camp,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity, warned,
"The AIC, not being a due-process standards body, is
in questionable territory if it presumes to invoke an
international platform standard based on BHTML."
AIC members vigorously disagree. AIC is founded
mostly by individual technical leaders of industry forums
and is committed to serving as integrator of disparate
standards. It is not a consortium of corporations vying
to promote a proprietary spec.
"This [AIC] is not yet another forum to set a standard,"
said Glidden.
Pointing to longstanding integration efforts between
VRML and XML, as well as between MPEG-4 and
VRML, Glidden said, "This is a natural extension of
what we have been doing at each of the groups."
Moreover, the initiative fills gap in work done by each
group thus far. Each member is responsible for sharing
any developments discussed in AIC with his original
standards body. Thus, after drafting a spec, the AIC
members would have to win over the appropriate
bodies and get the specification approved there. "We
see ourselves more as a facilitator," Glidden said.
As for BHTML, Glidden said, "Although we see
BHTML as a good technical solution, we have no
intention to replace the development work by the
BHTML team at the DTV Application Software
Environment group. Nor will our work within the AIC
be dependent upon their BHTML development. We
may end up finding a solution similar to BHTML, but
not necessarily BHTML itself."
Getting To The Crux Of The Problem
AIC founders appear to believe the problem they must
solve is fairly straightforward. Because there is no
well-defined way to integrate such key technologies as
VRML, MPEG-4, and BHTML, their job is to develop
and specify syntax and tools for this integration. More
specifically, they plan to add a BHTML stream to
MPEG-4, while defining "an integration of language and
interface between BHTML and VRML/Binary Format
for Scenes," or BIFS, said Glidden. In his view, BIFS
and VRML are dual representations of the same
content, BIFS in a binary form, and VRML in a textual.
As for tools, "The use of MPEG-4 in this integration
effort is a marriage made in heaven," said Reader.
MPEG-4, an object-oriented data representation, uses
the same tools as MPEG-2, compressed digital
audio/video streams. The two share the same timing
model, the same clock reference, and the same time
stamps.
"All these things allow a perfect synchronization
between MPEG-4's objects and DTV audio/video
streams, a precisely guaranteed quality of service,"
Reader said. "The exact lip-sync experience of
streaming can now be fused with 3-D graphics objects
and VRML."
The AIC founders said they believe no new technology
is needed for such an integration work. And while there
may be a few ways of integrating these tools, they hope
to specify just one.
The AIC initiative has already set a very tight and
ambitious schedule. The group will deliver the spec by
December and validate it in a working implementation
by March 1999. The group set the timetable by
mapping its efforts onto the concurrent time line set for
the open standards processes of MPEG, VRML, and
ATSC.
Noting that the dozen AIC founders are all experts in
actually writing specifications in their respective
standards organizations, "We set the schedule by
already allocating resources from our members," said
Glidden. He also promised commercial products based
on the new spec can be launched in the fourth quarter
of next year.
Content developed on a platform based on the newly
integrated spec will be delivered by using MPEG-2 or
IP transport protocols. The network infrastructure used
for the delivery of integrated 2-D, 3-D, and streaming
content can be a digital broadcast TV network or the
Internet. It's possible to have integration, in the same
device, of content coming from a broadcast and an
interactive (online) connection.
Anticipated applications leveraging the AIC spec
include graphic-rich electronic program guides with
related cross links and on-screen program previews,
home-shopping whereby consumers can inspect
products via streaming video and 3-D images, and
detailed 3-D replicas of historic sites. The spec might
also make it possible for viewers to access
bibliographical content and unused video footage.
Besides Reader, Glidden, DasGupta and Wugofski,
those listed as AIC founding members are Olivier
Avaro of France Telecom, chairman of the MPEG
Systems Committee; Don Brutzman, the VRML
consortium's vice president of technology; Leonardo
Chiariglione of MPEG; Rob Koenen, chairman of the
MPEG Requirements Committee; Chris Marrin of
Sony, a VRML consortium member; Rick Rafey of
Sony, the VRML consortium director; Pete Schirling of
IBM; and Neil Trevett, president of the VRML
consortium and vice president of 3Dlabs.
The AIC initiative is open to anyone interested in
participating in the specification process. The next
meeting is scheduled for mid-October in Atlantic City,
N.J. |
