What is

DAVIC was a non-profit Association based in Switzerland, with a membership which culminated at 222 companies from more than 25 countries. It represented 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. The association was closed, according to its statutes, after 5 years of activity and remains only active through this website

Its virtual organisation is based upon this Internet site in Italy, but its quarterly meetings which developed Specifications have taken some 250 people 10 times around the world in ensuring that DAVIC's work is both locally relevant and globally accepted.

DAVIC has been creating the industry standard for end-to-end interoperability of broadcast and interactive digital audio-visual information, and of multimedia communication.

DAVIC has had a vision of an audio-visual world where producers of multimedia content can reach the widest possible audience, where users are protected from obsolescence and have seamless access to information and communication, carriers can offer effective transport, and manufacturers can provide hardware and software to support unrestricted production, flow and use of information.

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 published specifications, DAVIC 1.0-1.4, are backwards compatible and form the foundation for commercial interactive multimedia experiences. Each specification is market driven and developed where possible in close synergy with the products and work in progress of other standards-developing organisations. In addition, DAVIC 1.3.1 has been submitted as a Draft International Standard to ISO/IEC JTC 1 in order to establish this industry specification as a recognised international standard and to contribute to the international standards community. This submission has been voted on positively in june 1999 by JTC1 and is now ISO-IEC 16500 for the normative part and ITR 16501 for the informative part

DAVIC 1.4 which has been released in September 1998 consists of 14 parts:

Part 1: Description of Digital Audio-Visual Functionalities

Part 2: System Reference Models and Scenarios

Part 3: Service Provider System Architecture

Part 4: Delivery System Architecture and Interfaces

Part 5: Service Consumer System Architecture

Part 6: Management Architecture and Protocols

Part 7: High And Mid-Layer Protocols

Part 8: Lower-Layer Protocols and Physical Interfaces

Part 9: Information Representation

Part 10: Basic Security Tools

Part 11: Usage Information Protocols

Part 12: System Dynamics, Scenarios and Protocol Requirements

Part 13: Conformance and Interoperability

Part 14: Contours: Technology Domain

In DAVIC's latest work, a significant progress has been made on achieving TV Anytime and TV Anywhere as the next stage towards fully interactive multimedia services. DAVIC has also completed its convergence with the Internet by fully extending the Specifications to include IP-based systems.

The Internet is currently accessed worldwide by some 60 million PC owners, while the population of TV viewers approaches 2 billion. DAVIC relates to the latter population rather than the former, and has worked to bring the benefits of high quality and reliable, guaranteed multimedia services from a many-to-one towards a (mass) one-to-one topology. This is the DAVIC Intranet concept published as part of specifications 1.5 in September 1999.

While the previous DAVIC Specifications, from 1.0 to 1.4.1 inclusive are structured as a whole comprehensive volume structured into parts, a different structure has been adopted for DAVIC Specifications 1.5. These are composed of separate "tools" documents, describing each individual tools to be used to fulfill certain parts of a given service and of "service" documents, functionnally describing a given service (called a contour) and indicating which tool is used to fulfill a given function of the service. This makes it easier to manage the documentation and its publication as well as it makes it easier to understand what is the conformance to a given service.

The documents related to DAVIC Specifications 1.5 are therefore as follows :

• All the tools described in previous specifications are still valid tools for newer services : the reference version is either the "PAS" version (1.3.1) which is also the International Standard IS 16500, approved by ISO-IEC JTC 1 in 1999 or the latest DAVIC "part based" specification 1.4.1.
• The DAVIC Intranet specification describes the architecture and protocols for an IP based network intended for digital audiovisual services.
• The DAVIC Cable modem tools (also an European Telecommunication Standard)
• The TV Anytime service definition, describing the contours for a service based on non real time usage of audiovisual programmes, by use of a local mass storage.

A brief overview of DAVIC, which was made to our hosts Telecom Malaysia at the Twenty First Meeting of DAVIC in Kuala Lumpur in June 1998, is available as a 820kBytes Powerpoint 4 file.

For more information contact   secretariat@davic.org

to Home Page