Current Status of Internet Protocol Television in Japan
In January 2010, there were 317,300 subscribers to NOD services for PC web browsers, and NHK is working to increase this number.
Figure 2: Marlin organisation
Figure 4: Block diagram of NOD service content-delivery systems
3.3 Metadata for NOD services
Unified metadata are necessary for NOD services because the various different platform operators (that is, Actvila, Hikari-TV, J-com and Movie splash) use different metadata for their own systems, even though NHK provides them with the same format in conjunction with its programs. The metadata utilized in NOD services have been put forward to the IPTV Forum Japan for standardisation, to satisfy the IPTV specifications.
These metadata are based on the TV-anytime specifications [3] (that is, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute TS 102 822 Series “Broadcast and On-line Services: Search, select, and rightful use of content on personal storage systems”) and are provided in XML-data format.
The metadata for content-delivery systems in the NOD service are outlined in Figure 4. The information for transforming metadata into XML is sent after the information related to content registered by the broadcaster. The metadata are of two major types: 1. Programme-information metadata that are related to a programme and 2. Package-information metadata that contain purchase information.
Content and metadata are both provided to all platform operators. The content and the metadata are then delivered from the platform operator to the user client, which is an STB or digital TV set.
Figure 5: Current IPTV and BCC IPTV services 4. Next Generation IPTV Services
This final section briefly introduces the next generation IPTV services. The specifications for some such services
Users have requirements to connect the TV content to the broadband network. That is the reason for the development of BCC services. These allow users to request an item directly from broadcasters or a data-broadcasting
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have already been standardised, but they have not yet been completely launched.
4.1 Broadcasting convergence IPTV
Broadcasting convergence (BCC) IPTV services that use digital broadcasting are shown in Figure 5 as Integration with broadcasting service approach, along with the current IPTV services for conventional digital TV sets with broadband connectivity. The broadcasting service and the IPTV service are basically provided separately. This is not practical for users, because the IPTV service is not related to the broadcasting content. If IPTV content related to TV programme is easily accessed, the convenience for users is greatly enhanced.
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