• Active or completed projects: 11
• Estimated ATP funding: $ 63.5 M
• Industry cost-share funding: $ 71.7 M

Potential for U.S. Economic Benefit. From the early days of noisy teletype interfaces to Rolling Stones concerts "broadcast" live on the Internet, digitized graphics have become an ever more sophisticated element of information networks. They are an increasingly important component as well. In business communications, scientific visualization, and user interfaces—to mention only a few areas—graphics have become an effective method of organizing and presenting information on complex concepts and relationships.

Moving pictures—known as digital video in this context—are the most exciting and demanding of these graphic formats. As computers become multimedia workstations, as television moves to high-definition digital formats, and as telephony takes on elements of both, information technologies are merging together in unprecedented ways. The industries that are creating information networks fully expect digital video to be an essential element of this convergence. And they anticipate huge annual markets for digital video—in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars—for phone, pay-per-view movies, home shopping, financial, educational, and other services that will include a video component.

The commercial stakes could hardly be larger. The overwhelming economic benefits from genuinely interoperable digital video technology stem from expanded and more attractive capabilities and services on the user end of the information framework. The broad user categories of entertainment, manufacturing, education and training, and health services alone account for several trillion dollars of commerce. Another set of industries that distribute information and make, sell, and integrate network equipment accounts for another few hundred billion dollars of economic activity.

Technology Challenge. Crucial technology decision points regarding convergence and digital video are arriving with disconcerting rapidity. One of these that industry has identified centers on precisely how video-based information will be digitally packaged and distributed in an information network in which the producers of the video products, the distributors of the information, and its users all employ a diversity of processing, transmission, and receiving components. The ideal is that any video-based information product—whether it be motion pictures, television programs, computer games, or home-shopping systems—can travel via wire, optical fiber, satellite, or broadcast seamlessly into regular TVs; high-definition TVs; computer monitors; and other information appliances at homes, factories, hospitals, and schools.

The three major industry groups of the emerging and relentlessly growing information network—the creators of information products such as movie producers, the distributors of the information such as cable companies, and those who make appliances such as TVs with which users access the information—recognize that they are at a particular decision point whose outcome will take them down very different paths. On the one hand, they can work cooperatively toward building a seamless information framework based on the "interoperability" of the framework’s many components, a decision that raises the water level for everyone since it will enable a more attractive and versatile portfolio of services that will make the difference in the marketplace. On the other hand, they could allow the swift momentum of information technology to sweep them forward (or away) individually without full regard for the rest of the framework. In that scenario not only would the potential versatility of the emerging framework be clipped severely, but industry fears it would be virtually impossible to reverse.

To develop truly interoperable digital video capability across future information networks means creating R&D structures under which distinctly different industries with different histories, technology bases, and approaches to standards development can work together toward the goal of interoperability between and among network components. Individual companies already have begun facing challenges such as finding means of greatly compressing the enormous amount of data that video information requires while maintaining data quality and remaining cost effective. Under the ATP Digital Video in Information Networks focused program, many companies will be able to coordinate their efforts so that the collective outcome will be far more valuable for everyone on all sides of the information network.

Industry Commitment. Industry recognizes that the information networks that are evolving will be characterized by a convergence of different media such as telephony and video through the same diverse set of information network components. At a workshop in August 1994, 430 participants representing TV networks, telecommunications industries, and information technology companies convened to clarify the technology needs to be addressed if they are to build maximum value into the information networks. As a result of this workshop and a series of other industry-led gatherings, NIST received more than 40 white papers from industry directly related to digital video. All participants identified the need for a long-term program involving both industry and government to facilitate development of interface standards, address intellectual property rights, support R&D in interoperable systems, and establish pilot programs to apply advanced video technology. This ATP focused program fills a critical gap in the R&D part of this agenda.

Significance of ATP Funds. This is a now-or-never opportunity to include interoperability in the information network; once individual players establish themselves with their own protocols, others will have to either conform, bail out, or in the worst case, make way to foreign providers of more interoperable services. The ATP focused program in Digital Video in Information Networks provides a rare patch of common ground—a patch that relevant industry groups have indicated is needed badly—on which many companies devoted to different components of the emerging information network can gather, develop teams as needed, and plan interoperability of digital video into the ever evolving and converging network. The cost-shared program also can help accelerate development of relevant technologies or open doors to higher risk projects that would remain on companies’ wish lists, particularly those of the smaller entrepreneurial variety where some of the more powerful ideas arise.

Additional Information. For information about eligibility, how to apply, and cost-sharing requirements, contact the Advanced Technology Program:

(800)-ATP-FUND (800-287-3863)
http://www.atp.nist.gov
e-mail: atp@nist.gov
fax: (301) 926-9524
A430 Administration Building
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-0001

For technical information, contact:
David Hermreck, Program Manager
(301) 975-4328
e-mail: david.hermreck@nist.gov
fax: (301) 975-4776

Date created: January 1999
Last updated: April 12, 2005