April 21, 2000 [substantive extract from an inroductory letter to Tim Berners-Lee from Michael Dolan]

The primary organizations that are working on the application of W3C standards to television. They are ARIB, ATSC, DVB and SMPTE, and are all non-profit, international membership organizations. ARIB, ATSC and DVB are focused on the emission and receiver standards within geographic regions. SMPTE is focused on studio, facility and distribution standards world-wide.

The Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) has over 300 members and is based in Tokyo, Japan. Its committees conduct studies, research and development, and standardization activities on radio systems (including television), and publish voluntary technical standards. Its primary region is Japan. It has an XML working group developing standards for a broadcast markup language chaired by Mr. Akihiro Hori of Nippon Television (NTV).

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has over 200 members and is based in Washington DC. It develops voluntary technical standards for advanced (digital) television systems, including standard and high definition television, data broadcasting, multi-channel surround-sound audio, and Satellite direct-to-home broadcasting. Its primary region is North America. It has a "presentation engine" team working on an XHTML-based markup language, chaired by Dr. Glenn Adams of Gemstar.

The Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) Project has over 200 members and is based in Geneva, Switzerland. It has published a number of important digital television standards through the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI). Its primary region is Europe. It is working on a markup language specification in the context of the Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) HTML technical group chaired by Mr. Stephan Gillich of Intel.

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has over 250 Sustaining members and nearly 10,000 individual members from over 85 countries, and is based in White Plains, New York, USA. It develops and publishes voluntary standards for all aspects of television and film, and is an ANSI-accredited standards developer. It has a new working group designed to document existing markup language practice in the studios, and to provide a forum for harmonizing the receiver standards’ efforts of ARIB, ATSC and DVB. I am chairing this, and in addition represent DIRECTV.