scope:

FOREWORD

This standard was developed under the auspices of the CEA R8 Cable Compatibility Committee.

This standard defines the minimum requirements that shall be met by two-way digital cable TV systems and two-way digital TV receivers such that the receivers may be connected directly to the RF output and input of the two-way cable system to provide the following services:

a) All of the baseline services described in EIA/CEA-818-D.

b) Impulse pay-per-view.

c) This standard is also applicable to those interactive and transactional services provided by the cable operator that require two-way data communication between the cable headend and the POD module. Examples of such services are: video on demand; interactive shopping; audience opinion polling; etc. Support for these and other advanced services requires development of new protocols and standards which are outside the scope of the current specification.

This standard is presented in two parts. Part I defines the minimum requirements that shall be met by the cable TV system, and Part II defines the minimum requirements that shall be met by the TV receiver or other cable-compatible consumer device. Part I and Part II go together and require coordination with each other. However, Part I and Part II have been written so that they can each be considered as separate standards. As such Part I extensively references SCTE documents.

This standard references a number of ATSC, EIA/CEA and SCTE standards documents. The reader should note that, in some cases, these documents have either not yet been approved or, although approved, are in the process of being modified. Users of this standard should note that, at some future point, copy protection parameters, methods and/or standards are expected to be established with which copy-protected content traversing the POD interface will be required to comply.

It is emphasized that the requirements are minimum requirements and are in no way intended to constrain either the cable system operator or the consumer electronics manufacturer from offering and supporting additional services and/or features.