Briefing Package 
For Workshop on "Television and the Web"

1. Scope of the Workshop

The Web is continuing to develop into a mass medium, as indicated e.g. by the fact that URLs show up regularily in commercials. To further increase the potential audience of Web content, the use of the television set as display terminal has gained increasing interest over the last years. A trend triggered by this development is actually integrating Web and TV content, such as transmitting a Web page showing player statistics during a sports game.

The development of television and web integration is furthered by the arrival of digital TV, which brings the transmission technologies used for television and Web content closer together, increases the "intelligence" available in a television set, and will lead to the necessity of hardware upgrades of TV sets that in many cases will include Web functionality. Furthermore, many of the services usually associated with digital "interactive TV" are available today on the Web.

W3C has started a dialogue between the televison community and the Internet community as early as in 1996 at the workshop on "Real-Time Multimedia and the Web". The workshop comprised an in-depth study of MHEG-5 and two sessions on bringing TV-like services to the Web( 1, 2).

This previous work and the fact that W3C membership includes major organisations from both communities puts W3C into a good position to create conditions for making Integration of Television and the Web successful in the marketplace.

The purpose of this workshop is gathering representatives of major organisations affected by the integration of TV and Web technology. This includes vendors of browser software, television equipment and content providers. The goal is to collectively advise W3C which further actions (working groups, recommendations) it should take with regard to TV and Web integration. Participants will be representatives of W3C member organisations and other qualified experts from research and industry.

Thus, particular topics to be discussed at this workshop include, but are not limited to:

As an accompanying measure for preparing discussions at the workshop, a public mailing list for discussion of the integration of Television and Web technology is created. To subscribe, send mail to www-tv-request@w3.org and put the word "subscribe" in the subject line.

2. List of Deliverables

3. Call For Participation

World Wide Web Consortium
Workshop on
"Television and The Web"

June 29-30, 1998
Sophia-Antipolis - France


RULES FOR PARTICPATION:


IMPORTANT DATES:

Today: Send a message to tv-ws-register@w3.org stating

THIS DOES NOT REPLACE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION ! For official registration, please use the registration form. Registration will start May 10.
 

Deadline for Abstracts: June 10, 1998 (1 to 5 pages - send to tv-submit@w3.org)

Hotel Discount Rate Available until : To be determined

Deadline for normal registration: June 10, 1998 (use registration form). Registration will start May 10.

Program available: June 17, 1998

Free places distributed starting from: June 11, 1998

Workshop: June 29, 1998 and June 30, 1998


ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE

Program Chairs:

Philipp Hoschka, hoschka@w3.org

Fax: +33 (0)4 92 38 78 22

World Wide Web Consortium
INRIA Sophia Antipolis
2004 route des Lucioles, BP-93
06902 Sophia Antipolis, Cedex
FRANCE

Jan van der Meer, jan.vandermeer@ehv.ce.philips.com

Program Committee Members:

Takatoshi Aoi, Matsushita (tentative)
Stephen Casner, CISCO
Christophe Declerck, Canal+
Martin Dunsmuir, RealNetworks
Mark Handley, ISI (tentative)
Henry Holtzman, MIT MediaLab
Christian Huitema, Bellcore (tentative)
Shiro Sakata, NEC
Dan Zigmond, WebTV/Microsoft

Workshop Organization Chair:

Catherine Juncker, Catherine.Juncker@sophia.inria.fr
Marie-Line Ramfos, ramfos@w3.org

Tel: +33 (0)4 92 38 78 00
Fax: +33 (0)4 92 38 78 22

World Wide Web Consortium
INRIA Sophia-Antipolis
2004, Route des Lucioles, BP 93
06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex France

Workshop Webmaster:

Renaud Bruyeron, renaud@w3.org

World Wide Web Consortium
MIT/Laboratory for Computer Science
545 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139 U.S.A.


VENUE

INRIA Sophia-Antipolis

World Wide Web Consortium
INRIA Sophia-Antipolis
2004, Route des Lucioles, BP 93
06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex France

The workshop will be held at INRIA Sophia Antipolis. Sophia Antipolis is a technology parc situated on the French Riviera, close to Cannes, Nice and the Italian border. It easily reachable from Nice International Airport (20 minutes by car). Direct flights to Nice from the US (Delta Airlines from New York) and most major airports in Europe are available. Hotel rooms at various price categories will be reserved and proposed to the participants.

Accommodation

Here are some suggested hotels for your stay during the workshop:

Note that these hotels are in Sophia-Antipolis: they are a good choice if you want to be close to the conference location.
A shuttle service will be available everyday between the hotels and INRIA. Information regarding the shuttle schedules will be available at each hotel's registration desk.

Getting There

To be determined.


Resource Statement

W3C Resource Commitment

Over the period of eight weeks, this activity will consume 30% of the time of one W3C staff member for chairing the workshop, 20% of the time of one W3C staff member to handle local organization, and 10% of the time of one W3C staff member for managing the workshop website. This is not part of a running W3C activity, but is organized under W3C's mandate to track and prepare possible activities in the Architecture domain.


Philipp Hoschka


May 4, 1998