DNS and some of my ideas

Overall I prefer the DNS style scheme.  However I believe that a tv: scheme
should be as inclusive as possible and therefore should also support both
the channel number and encompass the ITU callsign style scheme. I believe
this would allow this scheme to be used on both closed and open networks.

e.g.
	tv:<channel no>
or	tv:<broadcaster>
or	tv:<network>
or	tv:<callsign>		or	tv:<callsign>.itu		or
tv:<callsign>.itu.org

i.e.
	tv:999
or	tv:bbc.co.uk	
or	tv:one.bbc.co.uk	or	tv:1.bbc.co.uk
or	tv:kqed				or	tv:kqed.itu
or	tv:kqed.itu.org

I also feel consideration needs to be given to content centric URL's
particularly for On-Demand content such as VOD.  I believe a key issue is
should this be tied into the service provider or the content, consistency
probably means being tied in to a DNS for the service provider.  Flexibility
& extensibility probably requires allowing for both, with some additional
'virtual' domain extensions for content.  If we use a content centric scheme
we should also include language/country versions to be addressed.

Below are a few ideas on how this would be achieved using the following
notation:
<description>	description of element.
{option}			an optional item.
<one>|<other>	select either or other.

e.g.
	tv:<service name>/<content name>/{<season|series>/}<episode>
or	tv:<title>.<programme|show>.film{.<country>}
or	tv:<episode name> | <episode
number>.<programme|show>.show{.<country>}

i.e.
	tv:vod.net/south park/the movie/
	tv:vod.net/south park/103/
	tv:vod.net/south park/volcano/

or	tv:the-movie.southpark.film		default language/country
version of original content. 
	tv:the-movie.southpark.film.jp	Japanese language version.
	tv:the-movie.southpark.film.de	German language version.

or	tv:103.southpark.show
	tv:volcano.southpark.show

I also have a question for those with a better understanding signal encoding
than I have:

Q) Do we need to consider the format of the content streams, so for example,
if my consuming device takes a mpeg encoded PAL content stream, It would
only be valid to connect to PAL sources. Therefore should the prefix be
content format specific:
e.g.
MPEG:	
PAL:
NTSC:
SECAM:
i.e.
MPEG:the-movie.southpark.film
PAL:one.bbc.co.uk
	NTSC:abc.com
SECAM:abc.net.au

Or do we assume the server know the content format or that client device can
translate?

NB: The views and opinions expresses in this message may or may not reflect
the views of my employer

Martin Spamer
Senior Software Engineer
Kingston Vision LTD
Phone +44 (0) 1482 602 892
Fax +44 (0) 01482 602 899
E-Mail martin_spamer@kingston-comms.co.uk
<mailto:martin_spamer@kingston-comms.co.uk> 
http://www.kingston-vision.co.uk/ <http://www.kingston-vision.co.uk/> 



	-----Original Message-----
	From:	Dan Zigmond [SMTP:djz@corp.webtv.net]
	Sent:	Friday, October 08, 1999 1:55 AM
	To:	www-tv@w3c.org
	Cc:	mav@liberate.com
	Subject:	Where are we?

	Discussions seem to have stalled again, so I thought maybe I would
make an
	attempt to summarize where I think we might be now in terms of a
proposal to
	take back to the IESG/IETF.

	Several people expressed discomfort with the use of broadcast call
signs of
	the form KQED.  Although these are world unique and standardized by
the ITU
	(I think), they appear to be very uncommon outside the United
States.  So I
	would like to propose that we further limit the "tv:" URI to two
forms:

		tv:			meaning "current channel"
		tv:<network>	where <network> is a DNS name

	So some valid "tv:" URIs would be:

		tv:			[of course]
		tv:abc.com		American Broadcasting Company
		tv:abc.net.au	Australian Broadcast Corporation
		tv:kron.com		KRON in San Francisco
		tv:channel4.com	Channel 4 in the UK
		tv:west.hbo.com	HBO West
		tv:one.bbc.co.uk	BBC1

	As I think we've discussed, the rule is that if you own the domain,
you can
	register names using that domain.  So HBO can register
"west.hbo.com" as
	their official name for their West Coast feed, and BBC can register
	"one.bbc.co.uk" or "1.bbc.co.uk" or whatever they want for BBC1.  

	I think this is a reasonably final proposal.  It basically collapses
all the
	other forms into the DNS namespace, and moves any dispute over names
to
	disputes over DNS.  (Of course, DNS disputes aren't easy to resolve,
but at
	least if we ever get a good mechanism there it will automatically be
applied
	to "tv:" URIs too.)  

	I'm ready to do another revision to the Internet-Draft based on this
	approach, but I thought I'd make another check for comments first.
Perhaps
	we can try to have a new draft next week and get it to the IESG.

		Dan
		

	--------------------------------------------------- 
	Dan Zigmond 
	Senior Manager, Broadcast Applications 
	WebTV Networks, Inc. 
	djz@corp.webtv.net 
	---------------------------------------------------

Received on Monday, 11 October 1999 08:08:46 UTC