Re: How do authors use TV URLs? (was RE: URL: Background and Requirements)

   Has someone documented "who" will use these URLs.  I was under the
   impression that URLs would be specified by humans.

   In the WWW today, a content author links to a known resource on the
   Internet through a URI.  Carrying this over to television, this says
   that an interactive content author links to a known resource in the
   television transport through a URI.  Yes, it may also point to the
   Internet, but that is well understood.

   If this is true, I have a hard time imagining a content developer being
   able to specify a URL that references another stream prior to encoding
   and multiplexing.  None of the addressing information is available when
   I originally authored the content.

Bingo!

   Even if the addressing information was known a priori, it would be
   invalid when the program is rebroadcast at a later time or in a
   different transport.

Double bingo!

   To get around this, I would have to encode something symbolic (a logical
   URL) that gets modified once everything is encoded, the multiplex is
   created, and all of the identifiers specified.  Then I would need
   something that would either map this logical URL to the real resource at
   run-time, or transcode the content with the proper URLs (physical URLs).

No, because the URL has to remain non-specific with respect to the
transport.

   What am I missing here?

Nothing.  The URLs must remain transport-independant.

   I can't imagine a usable and reuseable URI scheme (for a television
   transport) unless there is a level of indirection.  In other words, the
   URI points to the table and RDF is used to "find" the particular
   transport, stream, and packet.

Or something equivalent.

Craig

Received on Thursday, 5 November 1998 12:03:05 UTC