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10 April 2000 TV-Anytime Forum brings competitors together for collaborative
event at NAB The TV-Anytime Forum makes its debut as an exhibitor at the National Association of Broadcasters Convention, Las Vegas, NV, April 9-13, 2000, in a special suite dedicated to the Forum's activities. This brings together demonstrations from 12 member companies and organizations worldwide and includes most of today's competing major vendors of personal digital recorders. "This is a remarkable collaboration between players from diverse industries around the world who share a common vision of combining the immediacy of television with the flexibility of the Internet," said Simon Parnall, Chairman of the TV-Anytime Forum. Exhibiting a range of hardware and software technologies associated with personal digital recorders are: Axcent Media, Liberate Technologies, Mediasite, Metabyte Networks, Microsoft Corp. with WebTV Networks, Inc., NDS, OpenTV, ReplayTV and TiVo, together with non-vendor organizations Independent Television Commission (ITC), Information Broadcasting Laboratories, and NHK. At NAB, the TV-Anytime Forum is publishing four key documents outlining requirements to be met for its up-coming series of specifications to define essential technologies for personal digital recorders. These cover the areas of Metadata and Content Referencing, and are accompanied by documents outlining business and usage models in the TV-Anytime environment, together with an overview System Description. "Digital Video Recording and associated Personal TV applications are coming center stage to consumer video worldwide," said Phil Goldman, Vice President, Microsoft TV Platform Group. "However, there is a danger of products that are obsolete within months and great applications and services, that can only find a small, proprietary product market. By standardizing on some of the underlying interfaces, we can create a mass market, that will benefit from the innovations of hardware and software companies, advertisers, TV producers and broadcast networks. We are happy to participate in the TV-Anytime Forum to help develop the standards that will create the foundation for innovation and for mass market acceptance." Formed in 1999, the TV-Anytime Forum is developing open specifications for inter-operable and integrated systems that will allow broadcasters and other service providers, consumer electronics manufacturers, content creators and telecommunications companies to most effectively utilize high-volume digital storage in consumer devices. "The promise of digital television will take another quantum step with the adoption of the standards being developed by the TV Anytime Forum. It will bring consumers more choice and convenience, putting them formally in control, while offering broadcasters, content providers and advertisers new opportunities to entertain, inform and get their message across," said Dr. Abe Peled, President and Chief Executive Officer, NDS. "We're laying the foundation for a substantially better television viewing experience," said Erik Ekkel, Director, Product Strategy, Philips Electronics. "Already, we've confirmed a strong consumer interest in such new concepts as Personal Video Recording. Hard-disk based storage offers consumers an unprecedented benefit, the ability to watch whatever they want, whenever they want. As an industry, we must agree upon basic underlying standards to ensure the kind of seamless interoperability and ease-of-use necessary for mass-market adoption. That is why we participate in the TV-Anytime Forum and its efforts to put basic industry building blocks in place." Membership of the TV-Anytime Forum has now grown to 68 organizations and includes all of today's major vendors of personal digital recorders, along with dozens of other companies involved in the emerging digital media industry worldwide. The TV-Anytime Forum invites participation from all interested organizations. Meetings are held at approximately two-month intervals in Europe, North America, and Asia. In December 1999, the Forum published a Call For Contributions (CFC) for essential requirements and technologies. Responses are invited from members and non-members in accordance with the submissions procedure contained in the CFC document. Together with the requirements documents, the CFC is available on the TV-Anytime Forum web site (www.tv-anytime.org.) The deadline for submission of candidate technologies for Metadata and Content Referencing is May 26, 2000. Meet representatives of the TV-Anytime Forum and see the demonstrations in Room N210 on the upper level of the Las Vegas Convention Center. A series of presentations by members is also being held in adjacent Room N209, Monday through Wednesday, April 10-12. The TV-Anytime Forum's rooms, which also contain static exhibits by the BBC, Canal+ Technologies, For more convenient AV Life, Fuji Television, Kargo, Media Corporation of Singapore, NOB and Philips, are sponsored by the exhibitors and also by IBM, Institut für Rundfunktechnik (IRT), NDS, NEC Electronics, Sharp Laboratories of America, and Sony. TV-Anytime information (including a complete list of member organizations and how to join the TV-Anytime Forum) is available at http://www.tv-anytime.org. Officers of the TV-Anytime Forum may be contacted as follows:
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