TV Control API next steps

Dear all,

As you may be aware, the TV Control Working Group has now closed. The goal of the group was to enable integration of broadcast and IPTV delivered video into HTML, providing a control interface for channel selection and media playback using the HTMLMediaElement interface.

This work started from a Task Force in the Interest Group [2], which identified a need for a Tuner API. The TV Control API specification [1] produced by the Working Group currently includes:

- Support for playback of broadcast and IPTV sources of audio and video media via the HTML5 <video> and <audio> elements
- Access to EPG information such as channel and programme lists
- Programme recording and playback
- Information about available conditional access modules

Although the group had a number of active contributors (thank you all), during rechartering not enough members expressed an interest in implementing the API.

I would now like to invite IG members to share thoughts on the future direction that this work should take, and in particular to revisit our goals.

For example, do we want to pursue integration of broadcast delivered content on the web, and provide a common set of operations that allow a Web page to present and control broadcast content, e.g., from a broadcaster web application? If so, which types of user agent should we aim to support? Some examples could be: connected TVs and set top boxes, PCs with TV tuner hardware, radio receivers in mobile devices, in-car entertainment systems.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the mailing list.

Best regards,

Chris

Co-chair, Media and Entertainment Interest Group
(former) Chair, TV Control Working Group

[1] https://w3c.github.io/tvcontrol-api/
[2] https://www.w3.org/2011/webtv/wiki/Media_APIs/Tuner_API

Received on Wednesday, 28 June 2017 12:57:46 UTC