ATSC 2.0
The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is in the process of defining the ATSC 2.0 terrestrial television standard. The ATSC 2.0 Interactive Services system allows the broadcaster to connect programming with additional services related to that programming.
This standard provides a number of new features to traditional linear TVs including:
- viewing content may be delivered over the air or via an Internet connection to the home.
- the ability to store and watch (pushed) video on demand in non-real time (NRT).
- broadcast of interactive content (HTML-based applications).
- targeted advertising (to viewers that have a requested particular content).
- audience measurement.
- advanced audio and video compression, such as H.264 and HE AAC.
- second screen - the receiver forwards content to other devices.
- conditional access and digital rights management (CA/DRM).
- Broadcaster Notifications, allows a broadcaster to send notifications via the Internet to TV receivers.
The Commercial Benefits
ATSC 2.0 provides the broadcaster with several new methods of revenue generation. These include:
- Additional (or higher) fees for interactive ads.
- Similar benefits for targeted advertising.
- Subscription fees for NRT downloads.
- Revenues from political campaigns, including sponsored voting and polling and micro donations.
- Direct product sales originated from an interactive application.
- Fees generated from the sale of aggregated audience measurement data.
More Details
- Applications are ATSC 2.0 Declarative Objects. These may be Triggered Declarative Objects (TDO) which are synchronized with linear TV, NRT Declarative Objects (NDO) or Unbound Declarative Objects (UDO).
- Interactive applications consist of HTML, CSS and Javascript-based content.
- Declarative Objects have a life cycle, ready, active, suspended and released.
- These Applications may be triggered either in the broadcast stream using CEA 708 closed caption section #6 or via the Internet (Time Base Triggers) using Automatic Content Recognition (ACR).
- Second screen content. Using UPnP (Universal Plug and Play), remote devices discovers ATSC 2.0 receiver; remote devices sign-up to accept events from the receiver.
Non-Real Time (NRT)
- A number of "consumption models" accommodating push VOD, subscription content and a web portal (similar to a web browser).
- NRT content may include targeted ads. The filtering is defined by the viewer's PDI data collected by the broadcaster.
- Uses FLUTE carousel for file delivery.