Underlining the growing interest in interactive television and the desire to watch media on any device at any time, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is including such services in its emerging ATSC 2.0 standard.
While ATSC is primarily a North American standard, it is highly influential and likely to influence progress worldwide.
ATSC has now elevated its A/105 Interactive Services proposal to be a candidate standard. This level suggests that the core work is now complete, and progress toward a defined industry standard is moving ahead.
A/105 allows a broadcaster to connect linear television with additional services related to it. The ATSC structure uses “declarative objects”, which provide the interactive experience, either on the main screen or, by extension, to second screens. The standard also proposes the delivery method for the required resources over the internet.
“Viewers are consuming television content on a variety of devices, whenever, wherever and however they want it,” said ATSC president Mark Richer. “Consumer demand has resulted in an increasing number of paths to deliver content to viewers. The ATSC 2.0 Interactive Services system allows the broadcaster to connect broadcast programming with additional services related to that programming.”
The candidate standard can be downloaded, free, from the ATSC website, www.atsc.org.
