The TV-Anytime Forum (TVAF), in cooperation with the Pro-MPEG Forum and the Advanced Authoring Format (AAF) Association, is co-sponsoring the must-see Interoperability Centre at IBC 2003. The Centre (Stand 3.101) is located in a room of its own in Hall 3 of the Amsterdam RAI. TVAF will host a press conference in the Interoperability Centre at 17:30 on Saturday, 13 September, which will be immediately followed by the Pro-MPEG Forum press conference.

TVAF will present two demonstrations at IBC showing the usage of TV-Anytime standards to allow integration and interoperation of personal television products, applications, and services, with a focus on high-volume digital storage in consumer devices such as Personal Video Recorders (PVRs). One demonstration shows TV-Anytime metadata authoring, editing, aggregation, publishing, transmission and reception. For this demonstration, TVAF metadata feeds will be provided by British broadcaster BBC, Japanese telecom operator NTT and US media listing provider Tribune Media Services. The second TVAF demonstration presents the viewer experience provided by the segmentation features of TV-Anytime metadata, which allow access to specific clips of video within programmes, such as highlights of scoring plays during a sporting match. This demonstration also includes the use of PDAs to remotely access and control PVRs. The primary TVAF members involved in these demonstrations are the BBC, ETRI, INTRACOM, NDS, and onTV.

In addition, a consortium of Japanese broadcasters, as part of a project funded by The Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications (MPHPT) of Japan, will present a separate demonstration in the Interoperability Centre showing an integrated implementation of TVAF standards. The BBC will also show TVAF technology on their stand in the Interoperability Centre.

These implementations coincide with the imminent publication of the TV-Anytime Forum's Phase 1 specification set by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) as an ETSI Technical Specification. The new document, ETSI TS 102 822, is entitled Broadcast and On-line Services: Search, select and rightful use of content on personal storage systems, and will be available free of charge from the publications download area at www.etsi.org.

The ETSI specification will freeze the current output of the TV-Anytime Forum, and allow the specification to be normatively referenced by other relevant standards. Meanwhile, work has begun within the Forum on the next stage of TV-Anytime specification development (TVA Phase 2), which addresses more advanced features of multimedia content management and personal storage.

Further information on the TV-Anytime Forum is available at the Forum's website, http://www.tv-anytime.org. This site also contains details on membership, meetings and other activities of the Forum.

About the TV-Anytime Forum
Formed in 1999, the TV-Anytime Forum is developing open specifications for interoperable and integrated systems that will allow consumer electronics manufacturers, content creators, telecommunications companies, broadcasters and other service providers to most effectively utilize high-volume digital storage in consumer devices. The group invites participation from all interested organizations. At present its meetings are held at approximately two-month intervals in Europe, North America and Asia.

For further information, contact TVAF Chairman, Simon Parnall (sparnall@ndsuk.com) or TVAF's Administrator Mark Saunders (tv-anytime@ntlworld.com, or +44 1737 358 799).

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