Standards (Associated with Technical Standard, International Standard, TV Standard, Open Standard.)

Standards enable interaction and communication among an industry's technical components. Compatible standards and specifications can greatly aid in the proliferation of a technology. Incompatible standards and platforms have been a major obstacle to interactive TV adoption. Clearly this will be less of an issue in the coming years. (Note the term "platforms" is often used interchangeably with the terms "standards" and "specifications".) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standards

Listed below are a number of current and past Interactive TV related standards, specifications and/or those providing them. (Also see middleware, platforms, architecture and applications.)

3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)

3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2)


Advanced Television Enhancement Forum - (ATVEF) - The ATVEF was an early adopter of Interactive TV Specifications in the States.

ARIB (Japan) - http://informitv.com/glossary/arib

ATIS

Blu-ray BD-J Application Development using Java ME (formerly J2ME),  click here.

BOCR (Bidirectional OpenCable Receiver), is being billed as the follow-on to "OCUR," the OpenCable Unidirectional Receiver. OCUR-enabled PCs can support only one-way broadcast cable digital services.

Broadband - As long as interactive television in the United States and elsewhere is hampered by incompatible delivery systems and/or receivers, broadband standards compatibility have become an attractive interim solution.

CableCard 2.0

CableLabs® Certified™ Cable Modem project - (Formerly known as "DOCSIS.") (DOCSIS 2.0 is the current generation standard/specification. DOCSIS 3.0 is the speedy next generation standard that incorporates channel bonding and IPv6.)

Cable Applications Platform

DASE (ATSC) - Established in 1983, The ATSC was set up to develop voluntary technical standards, including interactive television systems and digital high definition television (HDTV)
http://www.atsc.org/standards/a100.html

DCAS™ - A network-agnostic solution for interactive two-way devices connected to cable systems. DCAS allowes cable operators to download conditional access system(s) of choice to devices connected to their cable network.

DDWG

Declarative Content Standard (DCS) -  Article

Doja - The DoJa profile is a Java environment specification for DoCoMo's i-mode mobile phone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doja

DTV PSIP

DVB - Major European based consortium regarding the transmission of digital television. DVB systems distribute data using a variety of approaches, including by satellite: DVB-S, DVB-S2 and DVB-SH; also DVB-SMATV for distribution via SMATV; cable (DVB-C); terrestrial television (DVB-T) and terrestrial television for handhelds (DVB-H); also via microwave using DTT (DVB-MT), the MMDS (DVB-MC), and/or MVDS standards (DVB-MS). Also DVB-DATA, with return channels (DVB-RC) for several media (DECT, GSM, PSTN/ISDN, satellite etc.), protocols (DVB-IPI: Internet Protocol; DVB-NPI: network protocol independent), DVB-CA), (DVB-CSA), a physical Common Interface (DVB-CI) for accessing scrambled content and DVB-CPCM, a content protection and copy management system for received content. DVB also supports older technologies such as teletext (DVB-TXT) and vertical blanking interval data (DVB-VBI). (More advanced alternatives like DVB-SUB for sub-titling are available.) http://explanation-guide.info/meaning/DVB.html
www.dvb.org & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB

DVB-HTML - www.hyperpanel.com/dvb-html.php

DVB-RCCL

DVB-RCS

DVB-S2 is an improved and updated specification to replace the DVB-S standard, ratified by the ETSI in March, 2005. Today the main use for this new standard is the distribution of HDTV, while the original standard was mainly applied to SDTV services. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVB-S
http://webapp.etsi.org/workprogram/Report_WorkItem.asp?WKI_ID=21402

ETSI (the European Telecommunications Standards Institute) is a not for profit organization whose mission is to produce the telecommunications standards that will be used for decades to come throughout Europe and beyond. www.etsi.org

ETV-BIF (Enhanced Television-Binary Interchange Format) - (EBIF) - Part of CableLabs ETV Standard. Until OCAP is fully implemented in the cable TV industry, EVT-BIF could be used to extend more basic interactive applications to the currently deployed (and less advanced) set-boxes.

In a major related development, Ensequence Interactive TV authoring software is being used to create Interactive TV applications that run on the TVWorks enhanced TV platform. (TVWorks is owned by Cox and Comcast cable providers.) Look for cable providers to make big use of ETV-BIF prior to deployment of their more advanced platform called OCAP. Comcast and Cox wanted the TVWorks platform to be their interactive application platform on their Motorola and Scientific Atlanta set-top boxes, which are already in (as of later 2006) more than 13 million customer homes. http://www5.sys-con.com/read/275797.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_TV_Binary_Interchange_Format

Also see ETV Standard below.

ETV/EBIF - See ETV-BIF above.

ETV Standard - (CableLabs) - Click here. [itvt] - Also see EBT-BIF above.

Extended Wireless PC Initiative

GINGA-J specification from Brazil's GINGA. (GINGA-J is the standard middleware of Brazilian Digital TV.(PDF file.)

Globally Executable MHP (GEM) http://informitv.com/glossary/gem

HDAVI - (Enables component interactivity)

Home Phoneline Networking (HomePNA)

HTML - (example)

IMAKE, Alticast Partner on Open Standards Interactive TV Platform

IMPALA - The International MHEG Promotion Alliance.

Interactive TV Web - Welcome to the Interactive TV Web, a web site dedicated to open standards for Interactive TV.

Interactive TV Standards Survey

Internet-connected Televisions

Internet Streaming Media Alliance

Infrared Data Association - (IrDA)

J2ME CLDC
 
Java TV

JavaScript

Macromedia Flash CDK for Interactive Television

MHEG - (Multimedia and Hypermedia Information Coding Experts Group)

MHEG-5 is an interactive software standard used for digital terrestrial television in the UK, with over 12 million compatible receivers deployed.

MHP (Multimedia Home Platform) - MHP is an open, multi-platform middleware specification developed for interactive digital television by the European-based DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) organization (MHP-DVB). The MHP specification is the basis for the OCAP specification which has been formally adopted by the American cable industry. MHP adoption however has been frustrated by bickering over technology and licensing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Home_Platform
http://www.mhp.org/mhp_technology

MIDP - (Mobile Information Device Profile) - J2ME Platform -

Mobile Phone and Data Standards (on right of that webpage.)

MoCA

Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) - An inside-the-home, coaxial cable-based networking initiative. www.mocalliance.org

MVB-MHP - (out-dated) www.mhp.org

NABTS
 
OCAP (OpenCable Application Platform, now rebranded as “Tru2way.”) - The US cable TV advanced Interactive Television standard.

OCUR (OpenCable Unidirectional Receiver) - This cable interface for Microsoft Vista-enabled personal computers will initially support one-way services (linear TV) while a two-way interactive interface is being developed.

OpenTV - OpenTV's platform software is currently deployed in over 54 million digital set-top-boxes in 96 countries.

Pantalk

PCF (Portable Content Format) - http://informitv.com/glossary/pcf

pJava - (PersonalJava) - A former version of Java from Sun intended for PDAs and other handheld devices.

pontegra - pontegra is the HTML platform to develop MHP services without any Java and MHP skills.

PRQC

PSIP - (Program and Systems Information Protocol) - The ATSC standard for digital television channel naming, numbering and navigation. DTV Receivers use PSIP information to tune and label digital and analog channels.

SCTE - (The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers) - www.scte.org

Skillset - “Skillset is the industry body which supports skills and training for people and businesses to ensure the UK audio visual and publishing industries maintain their world class position.”

SMPTE - (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) - A professional organization that sets standards for American television.  www.smpte.org

TV-Anytime Forum - The global TV-Anytime Forum is an association of organizations seeking to develop specifications to enable audio-visual and other services based on mass-market high volume digital storage in consumer platforms - simply referred to as local storage. www.tv-anytime.org

TV-centric HTML

TV-HTML - (Television Hypertext Markup Language) - Click here.

WAPTV - (WapTV) originated the WTVML (Worldwide TV Mark-up Language). WapTV has been used for the delivery of Interactive TV applications.

WebTV HTML -

Wikipedia's list of commonly-found middlewares and sources of TV Browsers.

WiMAX Networks - WiMAX offers a broadband pipe through which to deliver advanced, multichannel television services to mobile devices (such as phones) and it's also interactive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimax

XML - http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2002-04-10-a.html &   www.itvstandards.org