Re: URI Requirements
From: Craig A. Finseth (fin@finseth.com)
Date: Tue, Nov 17 1998
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 11:08:46 -0600 (CST)
Message-Id: <199811171708.LAA05410@isis.visi.com>
From: "Craig A. Finseth" <fin@finseth.com>
To: rob@mtvmail.com
Cc: Ted.Wugofski@otmp.com, gadams@spyglass.com, tenkate@natlab.research.philips.com, www-tv@w3.org, e-e@toocan.philabs.research.philips.com
Subject: Re: URI Requirements
Of course, the EPG doesn't tell you the one thing everyone will need to
know, which is "When is the commercial break?" The reality of the TV
business world is that some resources we send during content may not be
appropriate for use during commercials, and some commercials may require
their own resources. Therefore, whatever system we use for resource ID must
also consider the commercials as "segments."
But, of course, they can't be identified as such (directly or
indirectly) or we've just created a "commercial killer." Not good
(for some people).
What is comes down to is that all broadcasters need a direct an accurate
connection between on-air and the resources being sent. Right now that data
exists at the head-end in real time.
If we really want to solve the problem, we would develop a system that puts
a continuous trigger signal in the video feed so that we can ID at any time
exactly what is on, where we are in it, and so forth.
In my opinion, this is going the wrong way.
As more people have access to more channels, it becomes harder to
locate desirable content. The only resource available is the EPG
(printed guides can't be updated). I expect viewers to rely more on
this source and increase their expectations for its accuracy.
After all, if you're going to shuffle your schedule and not tell
anyone, you can't expect people to find your programming, can you?
Without that, the LMS is as good as it gets.
And why can't this be fed into the EPG?
Craig