Web and TV Interest Group Report September

From Web and TV IG

Web and TV IG Interim Report (September, 2011)

Executive Summary [Yosuke]

Typically, an executive summary will;
* be possibly 10% or so of the length of the main report
* be written in language appropriate for the target audience
* consist of short and concise paragraphs
* start with a summary
* be written in the same order as the main report
* only include material present in the main report
* make recommendations
* provide a justification
* have a conclusion
* be able to be read separately from the main report
* sometimes summarize more than one document
See wikipedia entry.

Main Report

Status Report [Kaz/Yosuke]

This section contains a kind of history of the IG. Outreach activities should be also included.

What has happened so far

The Early Stages

First Workshop Held

On September 2nd and 3rd, 2010, W3C held its first 'Web on TV' workshop in Tokyo, Japan, with the purpose of identifying key potential use cases and determining important requirements for smarter integration of existing Web standards, broadcasting and non-PC devices such as televisions and cell phones. Discussions among participants led to the identification of many potential use cases which made it difficult to classify them effectively. From these discussions, the workshop attendees concluded that an interest group was necessary to deal with complex issues at hand. After some deliberations and a name change, the 'Web and TV' interest group was launched in February 2011.

One hundred and forty four representatives from 60 organizations attended the workshop, and provided a very broad view of the issues related to the 'Web on TV' knowledge domain. The following industries and agencies were represented at the workshop.

  • Broadcasters
  • Telecom companies
  • Content provider
  • Device vendors
  • Publishers
  • Software vendors
  • Standardization organizations
  • Web application providers
  • Researchers
  • Japanese Government agencies

Digital TV demonstrations by Japanese public and commercial broadcasters kicked off the workshop, and impressed the audience with the advances they had made in the DTV area. This was followed by six panel sessions consisting of brief presentations of the attendees' position statements, which in turn were followed by heated discussions on use cases and requirements for smarter integration of Web and TV. These panel discussions focused on the following topics:

  • Existing Digital TV approaches
  • Proposals for smarter integration of Web and TV from vendors' viewpoints
  • Proposals for smarter integration of Web and TV from research viewpoints
  • The role of HTML5 in the Web on TV, esp. expectation for HTML5 as UI
  • The role of HTML5 in the Web on TV, esp. TV as the hub within home network
  • The role of HTML5 in the Web on TV, esp. Device APIs for TV

Over the two-day workshop, the attendees produced 70 use cases and requirements. This number was more than expected and so the participants voted to determine the top categories based on their level of interest. The nine categories listed below in the order of most to least interest are the result of the vote.

  1. APIs for TV functions
  2. Richer user experience
  3. Smarter integration with CE (Consumer Electronics)
  4. Content rights
  5. Personalization
  6. TV as broadcasting service (rather than a device)
  7. Accessibility
  8. Relationship with existing approaches
  9. Security
Charter

After the Tokyo workshop, the W3C launched a public mailing list focusing on 'Web and TV' discussions. In this mailing list, use case discussions continued while at the same time we started drafting the initial charter. Most of the discussion related to the charter was on how to define the scope of the charter. Some participants preferred a more abstract definition because of the scale of the 'Web and TV' knowledge domain, while others preferred a specific definition to help the group focus on current topics more precisely. After three months of much back and forth discussion, the final draft of the charter was announced to all AC representatives, some of whom made thoughtful comments which helped improve the published charter. The charter was completed at the end of January 2011, and on February 7, 2011 the IG was officially launched.

Charter: http://www.w3.org/2010/09/webTVIGcharter.html

Activity After The Official Launch of IG

Immediately following the launch of the IG on February 7, the Berlin workshop was held on February 8-9.

Second Workshop Held

On February 8th and 9th, 2011, the W3C held its second 'Web and TV' workshop in Berlin, Germany. The purpose of the workshop was to follow-up on the topics raised at the Tokyo workshop, and to discuss new topics and use cases brought up on the public mailing list. The workshop also aimed at expanding the already existing community of interested parties created after the Tokyo workshop, with a view to defining the charter of possible W3C Working Groups or Incubator Groups on the topic.

In the wrap-up session of the workshop, the participants agreed that some sub groups or task forces should be formed to discuss specific topics more efficiently. As a result, the workshop chairs suggested the following candidate topics for possible task force or monitoring activity within the Web and TV IG:

  • Adaptive streaming over HTTP
  • Home networking
  • Metadata
  • Accessibility
  • Profiling / Testing
  • Extensions to HTML5

Task forces

HNTF: Home Network Task Forche launched

During the 2nd Web & TV workshop in Berlin,discovery and control of devices and services in the local area IP network was identified as a prerequisite for most multiple screen scenarios and some of the participants expressed interested in outlining requirements and make a gap analysis with currently available technologies in order to identify areas where some specification effort may be needed. In order to handle this discussion, the Home Networking Task Force (HNTF) was created.

MPTF: Media Pipleline Task Forche launched

Current status

Hollywood workshop

19-20 September, 2011 To continue the global conversation on key issues in Web and TV convergence Focus on the needs of content creators and distributors Call for Participation: http://www.w3.org/2011/09/webtv/ Also the group's f2f meeting (Member-only event)

The first F2F meeting

21-22 September, 2011 Collocated with the Third Web and TV Workshop Discuss the Interest Group Report Provide the requirements to W3C Working Groups And start to define new standards for Web and TV integration Initial Draft Interest Group Report Generating an initial draft of the Interest Group Report (here!) The draft report should be going to be published at: http://www.w3.org/2011/webtv/wiki/Web_and_TV_Interest_Group_Report Initial requirements arising in the Web and TV Interest Group To be updated as new use cases and requirements emerge or mature Topics: Second-Screen Scenario (harmonization of multiple devices) Metadata Content Protection Accessibility APIs for TV control etc.

Hot topics

More task forces being considered

TBD

Interim report
  • Initial requirements arising in the Web and TV Interest Group
  • To be updated as new use cases and requirements emerge or mature
Cooperation with HTML working group

TBD

Topics

This section deals with the topics dealed with in the IG, either suggested in the workshops or discussed over the mailing list. 

<for each topic>

[TOPIC SHORT NAME] [Yosuke will allocate appropriate writer to each topic after we clarify list of topics in "workshop so far" sub-section.]

Short description of the topic, maybe mentioning when it was mentioned.

Analysis on the topic

This section contains the result of analysis on the workshops' topics from the viewpoint of 'Relationship to TFs' and 'Rough
Classification'.

Relationship to other topics

We clarify its relationship to the topics in workshops and TFs.

Rough Classification of Topic

Though we've not yet discussed all of the topics from the workshops in depth, we could probably
develop rough classification on them. It would help us to grasp the big picture of 'Web and TV' knowledge domain.

Topics should be classified into following categories.
1. Topics that should be done by a new Working Group.
2. New requirements for existing Working Groups. The IG should make sure that the right requirements
   get passed to the right Working Groups.
3. Work that is satisfactorily done outside W3C and has industry-wide consensus. We should document
   this for the record but should not try to re-create existing standards within W3C.
4. Work items, where it is unclear where they should be done.

Liaison and Dependencies

This section can be some kind of a reverse look up index of previous section from the viewpoint of the
destinations.  We may drop this section if the number of relationships is small.

Task Forces

Basically, the outputs from TFs should be in line with the definition of deliverables described
in the charter. But the exhibition of them should be relatively flexible; e.g. we should adopt
the documents already developed in a TF as is, if they conform to the definition. In such cases,
only two sections—summary and status—are mandatory.

If we create new TFs by the end of August, we should create their sections in this section: e.g., based
on the discussion in the workshops, it would be expected to create new TFs to deal with following topics.

* Web and Broadcasting
* Accessibility
* Metadata
* Profiling / Testing 
* Contents Protection
* Web and IPTV 

In this report, new TFs, if we have, will cover following items briefly.

* status
* timeline / schedule
* current issues and problems
* agenda and possible results of the first f2f meeting

Home Network [Giuseppe (with Francois' help)]

Summary
This section should contain,
* brief description of the scope of the TF,
* link to its charter,
* status description,
* abstract of its current deliverable,
* time line and next step.

History

During the 2nd Web & TV workshop in Berlin,discovery and control of devices and services in the local area IP network was identified as a prerequisite for most multiple screen scenarios and some of the participants expressed interested in outlining requirements and make a gap analysis with currently available technologies in order to identify areas where some specification effort may be needed. In order to handle this discussion, the Home Networking Task Force (HNTF) was created.

Charter

The TF was chartered few weeks after the workshop in Berlin. The HNTF charter highlights that HNTF's aim is to "identify usecases for devices, content and services discovery and control". HNTF deliverables are a requirement document and a set of recommendations for the W3C board of director on how to proceed in order to start a recommendation track work fulfilling some (or all) of the identified requirements.

TimeLine

The HNTF life is intentionally short (few months) since is just as a first step towards a recommendation track inside a W3C WG. The HNTF will finalize his work during the 1st Web and TV IG meeting in Hollywood, where the requirement document will be finalized/approved after collecting feedbacks from all IG participants. During the F2F next steps will also be discussed, where possible options are 1)closing the HNTF and continue working in one (or more) WGs 2) keep the TF alive to discuss additional usecases or refine already identified usecases.


Status
 This section should contain,
* start date and end date,
* overall status or progress,
* status of issues,
* status of use-cases and requirements.

The HNTF started his work at the end of April 2011 and is chartered to conclude his work by the end of August 2011. At time of publication of this report, the HNTF ha almost completed his work on a Requirement document. All the usecases highlighted in the document has been agreed by TF members as relevant for the TF and worth being acted upon by one (or more) W3C WGs. The group is still discussing the relative importance/priority of each requirement but there is a general agreement that such requirements are relevant for the usecases discussed during the Tokyo and Berlin workshops and the TF activity.


Preliminary Recommendations / Classification of use cases
Use cases or API sets should be classified into following categories.
1. Topics that should be done by a new Working Group.
2. New requirements for existing Working Groups. The IG should make sure that the right requirements
   get passed to the right Working Groups.
3. Work that is satisfactorily done outside W3C and has industry-wide consensus. We should document
   this for the record but should not try to re-create existing standards within W3C.
4. Work items, where it is unclear where they should be done.

One of the deliverables of the HNTF is to recommend how W3C should follow-up on the identified use cases and requirements. The HNTF have recognized that the DAP WG (currently under re-chartering) seems to already partially cover in their charter some of the requirements identified by the HNTF. Therefore the HNTF will recommend W3C Board of Directors to let the DAP WG do a preliminary analysis of the requirement document generated bu the TF and discuss technical solution to cover those requirements. If some of the requirements are later found out of scope for the DAP WG the could be later on moved to another WG aeither existing or newly created

Liaison and Dependencies
This section can be some kind of a reverse look up index of previous section from the viewpoint of the
destinations.  We may drop this section if the number of relationships is small.

There are no active liaisons at the moment between the HNTF and other internal/external groups

Media Pipeline [Clarke (with HJ's help)]

Summary
This section should contain,
* brief description of the scope of the TF,
* link to its charter,
* status description,
* abstract of its current deliverable,
* time line and next step.
Mission

The MPTF is a subset of the Web and TV Interest Group. The goal of the MPTF is to discuss requirements placed on the HTML5 video, audio and media interfaces by media formats that will be used for Web and TV. The MPTF will also propose APIs that meet these requirements.

Scope

The goal of the MPTF is to propose HTML5 video and audio element extensions to support new media formats and commercial video provider service requirements. Key topic areas are:

  • Script access to parameters controlling user agent adaptive bit rate algorithms.
  • User agent content splicing.
  • Browser handling of dynamic tracks in linear media streams of infinite length.
  • Enhancements to metadata track elements to support commercial video provider applications.
  • Other API changes that arise from use of media formats used by commercial video providers.

It is not considered within scope to specify HTML5 support for any particular adaptive bit rate format.

Although it was initially considered out of scope, we have decided to include support for DRM in the scope of MPTF.

Success Criteria

We have succeeded if we can achieve consensus on requirements and a set of API concepts to be pursued within W3C.

Deliverables

The MPTF will do the following:

Refine the requirements and design goals at: (http://www.w3.org/2011/webtv/wiki/MPTF/MPTF_Requirements)

  • Identity clear gaps in the Open Web platform, and categorize all the use cases/requirements into the following categories:
    • Ignore
    • It's resolved already
    • Laision with others
    • New requirements for existing Working Group
    • Requires new working group
    • We know it needs to go into a W3C working group we just don't know where
    • We don't know where it goes and need more research
  • Propose WG charter(s) to W3C Director for recommendation track work fulfilling some (or all) of those requirements.
Timeline

The MPTF should deliver the above listed deliverables by the end date mentioned in the charter (i.e. Nov 2011)

Detailed timeline is available below:

  • 3 months for the TF (that can be exceptionally extended up to 6 months on request from TF participants). At the end of this period, the TF should produce a report about the TF deliverables as described in this charter.
  • 1 month to present the result to the IG and reach consensus inside the IG.

URL for the charter: http://www.w3.org/2011/webtv/wiki/MPTF/MPTF_Charter

We will have a more complete status report closer to the time of the F2F meeting (still four weeks away).


Status
This section should contain,
* start date and end date,
* overall status or progress,
* status of issues,
* status of use-cases and requirements.

We are currently on schedule evaluating use cases. By the time of the F2F meeting, we expect to have a pretty complete draft of the requirements document.

Next steps

Finalize requirements document and prepare recommendations for the working group(s) and W3 management

Preliminary Recommandations / Classification of use cases
Use cases or API sets should be classified into following categories.
1. Topics that should be done by a new Working Group.
2. New requirements for existing Working Groups. The IG should make sure that the right requirements
   get passed to the right Working Groups.
3. Work that is satisfactorily done outside W3C and has industry-wide consensus. We should document
   this for the record but should not try to re-create existing standards within W3C.
4. Work items, where it is unclear where they should be done.


Liaison and Dependencies
This section can be some kind of a reverse look up index of previous section from the viewpoint of the
destinations.  We may drop this section if the number of relationships is small.

We currently have no formal liaisons or dependencies.

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