Re: E-E: Re: URL: Comments on TV URI reqs I-D

I worry that we will come up with an excellent scheme which meets all
needs for DTV, but objections will be raised that it does not meet this
requirement, because it does not properly allow identification of
resources recorded on a video tape and stored on a bookshelf, or
resources on IPX/SPX or SNA or DECnet networks, or resources on a
proprietary back channel network used by some cable operator.

We have an urgent need to get a URI scheme standardized which meets the
needs of DTV broadcasting. We cannot afford to get bogged down for
months or years trying to figure out how to cope also with all kinds of
other environments which are only tangentially related to the main
goal.

If you agree that we are going to solve the problem for TV broadcast
first, then why muddy the water with "requirements" which we do not
plan to address in our initial proposal?

I have no objection to a statement at the end of the requirements
document which identifies the need to also develop URI schemes for
home/local storage and other types of networks, harmonized with the DTV
scheme.

Warner ten Kate wrote:

<lots of omitted stuff>

> >
> > (6) Concerning the eighth requirement: As I indicated in an
> > earlier email message, I think we should restrict ourselves to a
> > TV (or DTV) URI scheme which references resources in TV (or DTV)
> > broadcasts. There are already other URI schemes for referencing
> > resources in the Internet and in local storage. Referencing
> > resources in a home network or in future networks is likely to
> > turn into a can of worms, and there is no real reason why that
> > should be within the scope of a TV URI scheme.
>
> I think the requirement stays, but I agree we should solve for
> the TV Broadcast first. I like to maintain the requirement as
> the foremost reason to use URIs in TV Broadcast is to obtain
> interoperability across networks.
>
> What URI scheme referencing to local storage are you thinking of?
> "file:" or others?
> I am not sure whether the file: URL will be useful for use
> on local storage devices like VCRs, storing a DTV transport
> stream. Maybe we need a requirement here ?
>
> >
> > To the extent there is concern with identifying a specific
> > resource within an MPEG-2 transport stream when the transport
> > stream has been recorded on a local storage system, I think the
> > appropriate URI would be something like file://x.y.z?<dtv uri>,
> > where file://x.y.z gets you to the file on the storage system
> > which contains the transport stream. This is much the same
> > approach you would have to take if you took a collection of files
> > from a web server, packaged them up into a ZIP file, and stored
> > the ZIP file in a storage system.
>
> This suggests there is no problem in meeting the requirement.
> Another reason

<lots more omitted stuff>
--
Gomer Thomas
LGERCA, Inc.
40 Washington Road
Princeton Junction, NJ 08550
phone: 609-716-3513
fax: 609-716-3503

Received on Wednesday, 18 November 1998 14:36:27 UTC