The Digital Audio-Visual Council                                                                                    
Source: Board of Directors

Issued: 25 November 1999

DAVIC STATUS REPORT

This report provides a brief introduction to DAVIC, outlines its achievements to date and gives the latest information about its current activities.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF DAVIC?

Audio-visual services and applications are worldwide enterprises assembled from elements drawn from many sources. For the benefit of all participants from creators to consumers, it is essential that each element in the overall chain must fit together in a seamless and interchangeable way. DAVIC was established in 1994 with the aim of promoting the success of interactive digital audio-visual applications and services by promulgating specifications of open interfaces and protocols that maximise interoperability, not only across geographical boundaries but also across diverse applications, services and industries.

The vision of DAVIC is a world where producers of digital audio-visual content can reach the widest possible audience, where users have seamless access to information and the confidence of a degree of protection from rapid obsolescence of their equipment, and where manufacturers can provide hardware and software to support unrestricted production, flow and use of information.

DAVIC has a membership of over 157 companies from more than 25 countries, representing all sectors of the audio-visual industry: manufacturing (computer, consumer electronics and telecommunications equipment) and service (broadcasting, telecommunications and CATV), as well as a number of government agencies and research organisations.

DAVIC SPECIFICATIONS

DAVIC has publicly released a sequence of specifications, each one of which builds on the previous version in a compatible manner.

• DAVIC 1.0 (published in January 1996) selected a set of tools to support basic applications such as TV distribution, near video on demand, video on demand and simple forms of tele-shopping.
• DAVIC 1.1 (September 1996) added tools to support basic "Internet Compatibility", the addition of microwave broadcast networks (MMDS and LMDS), set-top units that are network-independent and set-top units that can behave as "virtual machines".
• DAVIC 1.2, (December 1996) added tools to enable TV networks to provide Internet services at high speed to TV and PC users, as well as defining HDTV formats and systems for conditional access.
• DAVIC 1.3 (September 1997) added comprehensive Service and Network Management, multiple broadcast servers, mobile reception, scaleable audio, content and meta-data packaging, Java APIs for DVB service information and a new concept of "Contours" - the first instances are Enhanced Digital Broadcast and Interactive Digital Broadcast.

The DAVIC 1.4 specification was published in June 1998 at its 20th meeting in Milan, including the following new elements:

• Basic security tools: CA1 extensions
• Copyright issues: Copyright information
• Application level software architecture
• Java APIs for DAVIC 1.4
• MHEG-5 resident programs to access SI
• Institutional multimedia retrieval (IMR) contour
• Additions to the EDB/IDB Contours: Technology domain
• Transfer Protocol for Usage Data File
• Home network architecture
• Home Network: Technologies for Home Access Network (HAN) and Home LAN (HLN)
• Compressed character data (Replacement Technology RT001)

Much of the subsequent four meetings were devoted to consideration of the 60 responses which were received to DAVIC’s 11th, 12th and 13th Calls for Proposals (CFP11, CFP12 and CFP13), and this work has been finalised as DAVIC 1.5 at the Hamamatsu meeting in April 1999. The DAVIC 1.5 Specification have been be released on a CD-ROM at the September 28 1999 Davic Closure meeting in Newport Beach (Ca).

DAVIC 1.5 includes the following items:

• Jitter concealment tools
• Applicability of DAVIC 1.5 Intranet Architecture to TV Anywhere and TV Anytime Scenarios
• DAVIC Cable Modem
• DAVIC Intranet Technical Platform Specification
• TV Anytime and TV Anywhere Services

All DAVIC specifications are freely available from  http://www.davic.org

Termination of DAVIC activities

As an application of Article 14th of its statutes, DAVIC stopped its operation at the end of the five year period for which it had been created, the 28th of September 1999. The maintenance of specifications (release 1.3.1) approved as an ISO-IEC standard will be performed by ISO-IEC JTC1/SC29. The website and ftp servers will remain in operation until the end of September 2002, DAVIC specifications will continue to be distributed on CD-ROM as long as there will be available units at DAVIC secretariate.

For further information:

DAVIC Web site:                                                  www.davic.org

DAVIC Secretariat:                                                Ms.  Teresa Marsico

SIA Societa’ Italiana Avionica Spa
C.P. 3176
Strada Antica di Collegno, 253
10146 Torino, Italy
Tel: +39 011 7720 114
Fax: +39 011 725 679
e-mail: secretariat@davic.org

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