scope:

This specification defines the basic IPTV CoD Service operation after the initialization, configuration, service provider discovery, and services discovery documented in ATIS-0800017, Network Attachment and Initialization of Devices and Client Discovery of IPTV Services and ATIS-0800009, Remote Management of Devices in the Consumer Domain for IPTV Services. Note that those specifications may enable an IPTV Terminal Function (ITF) to access additional IPTV services beyond the basic IPTV CoD Service described in this specification. This specification assumes that the ITF is authorized to access one or more service packages. Mechanisms to restrict or modify the set of available authorized service packages are out of scope of this specification. Refer to ATIS-0800020, IPTV Electronic Program Guide (EPG) Metadata Specification [16].

Further distribution beyond the ITF, user interface controls for presentation on a television set, etc., are out of the scope of this specification. The IPTV CoD Service delivers content that may be either secured or unsecured. Where content security is required to ensure confidentiality of the content and constrain its further usage or distribution, appropriate Digital Rights Management (DRM) mechanisms are to be used. These mechanisms are out of the scope of this specification.

For this specification, the content to be distributed on demand is restricted to be delivered over a unicast transport to the ITF. Multicast or broadcast IP service infrastructures1 are considered out of scope for CoD service delivery to the ITF in this specification.

This specification is agnostic of infrastructures below the IP layer. This specification can be used for low bandwidth and/or wireless infrastructures, but it is not optimized or explicitly addressed for those purposes.

This specification describes a basic acquisition mechanism for IPTV CoD with options for various network resource allocation mechanisms.

In this release, the Content Distribution and Delivery Functions are administered by the IPTV service provider.

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to describe the use of the relevant functions identified in ATIS- 0800007, IPTV High Level Architecture, for delivery of an IPTV Content on Demand (CoD) Service. An instance of an IPTV CoD Service may be configured to provide a consumer experience similar to that of traditional Video on Demand (VoD) television services, but additionally provides access to the potentially greater functionality also available through capabilities of the IPTV infrastructure.

This IPTV CoD Service Specification has been developed as a partial response to the requirements identified in ATIS-0800002, IPTV Architecture Requirements, which grouped them as Pay Per View (PPV), VoD, or download-based video content distribution requirements. This specification is a partial response as the standardization work has been reduced in scope by ATIS-0800003, IPTV Architecture Roadmap, to reflect industry consensus views of evolving priorities within these requirement areas.