Many video storage devices were designed for just video and audio, without any expectation of a need to store additional enhancement data. Some enhancements require only recording of simple triggers within the closed caption channel. Others require data storage and devices not available to the consumer and broadcaster. See also: TV Authoring Guidelines Click On Other Layers Conceptual and Prototyping These are tools which can be used as part the existing television production process. An optimal tool of this type would allow real time viewing of enhancements, provide link insertion and data management capabilities and have presets for multiple platforms. Additionally because many NLE systems are now MPEG based, the ability to insert ATSC compliant data streams into content would be extremely useful. Because of the newness of the technology and the scarcity of deployments, these tools are relatively few and tend to be immature. Avid Long an industry leader in non-linear editing systems, Avid has recently begun the process of incorporating ITV functionality into their flagship NLE product, showing a beta version at NAB 2001. The product includes an ITV media type which allows for insertion ATVEF-A triggers, and previewing of associated HTML content, directly from the time line. Avid Technology, Inc. Media 100 - Media 100/EditDV/Eventstream Media 100 has been including web based enhancement capabilities in their Event Stream and iFinish products which are useful for developers deploying PC based or "two screen" ITV applications. While their current plans for ITV implementation are unknown, the combination of familiarity with internet content delivery and MPEG-2 based platforms could allow Media 100 to build some extremely useful tools. Media 100 Chyron - Lyric ITV Long time players in the broadcast based CGI, Chyron's interactive division has recently introduced an ITV based version of their popular Lyric system, a broadcast based graphics and layout tool. Lyric ITV's authoring environment, called "Canvas", is similar to many HTML authoring applications such as Dreamweaver and Front Page and is familiar to many broadcast designers, due to the ubiquity of Chyrons Lyric system. Content designed in this enviornment can be then exported to files appropriate to a wide variety of ITV systems including Liberate S and C, MS WebTV, AOLTV, and Spyglass, with more planned or in the works. Chyron has made a great effort to ensure that content authored for each of these platforms displays the same in deployment than as in the Canvas enviornment and this has held up in testing on a number of different systems. Finally the Lyric system can interface with a wide variety of analog and digital encoders allowing for real time or scheduled insertion of ATVEF-A or B content. Chyron Interactive MetaTV - Portal Studio MetaTV's Portal Studio is an HTML based ITV composition tool which supports multiple ITV platforms by generating a different version of code for each platform while sharing assets. This tool is designed specifically for use with MetaTV's server package and is not available separately. MetaTV Production and Coding - HTML Text Editors While drag and drop style HTML authoring tools are widely available, many programmers prefer to create web pages in text editors. While any text editor that can export non-formatted text will work, more functional ones include advanced functionality such as directory level find and replace and support for additional formats such as CGI, JavaScript, and Perl. BBEdit - the most widely used tool for hand coding web pages. Homesite - Windows based coding tool similar to BBEdit. Production and Coding - Graphics Tools Graphic content for ITV can be created in almost any graphics package from low-end paint tools such as MacPaint to broadcast 3D packages like Lightwave. While a complete survey of graphics tools is outside the scope of this document, a graphics tools for creating ITV content will need, along with basic functions such as resizing and color adjustment, adjustments for the broadcast environment such as NTSC Colors and Gamma adjustment. Both of these functions are available in the ubiquitous Adobe PhotoShop as well as Equilibrium's Debabelizer, Macromedia Fireworks, and Adobe Image Ready. Production and Coding - HTML Layout Tools There are a number of drag and drop style HTML layout tools on the market. Although these tools are extremely useful, and are even recommended by some ITV manufacturers, these tools automatically generate code, and in many cases will generate "garbage" code. While garbage code is merely an inconvenience in a web browser, it can cause unexpected results in a more sensitive ITV system as well as adding substantially to file size in a set top boxes limited memory space. Adobe - GoLive Adobe's entry in the web layout tool category. Features tight integration with other Adobe products including PhotoShop layers. Adobe Adobe Go Live Macromedia - Dreamweaver An increasingly ubiquitous web design tool supported by a number of manufactures (Worldgate, and Liberate who provide a demo version with their PopTV developers kit). Macromedia, Inc. Macromedia Dreamweaver Microsoft - Front Page A Microsoft tool similar to Dreamweaver. Widely used but prone to generation of large amounts of garbage code and supporting the sometimes-problematic Microsoft implementations of HTML and JavaScript. Undoubtedly useful for MS-TV based products but be used with caution for others. Microsoft Corp. Production and Coding - Platform Specific Alticast (Formerly 4DL): - Alticomposer Alticomposer is Alticast's the authoring tool for their ITV products. However, Alticast has made a real effort to support other platforms so this tool can be used to create content for any DVB-MHP or ATSC-DASE compliant system. Alticomposer is similar to most GUI based design tools and includes an extremely useful DVB-MHP environment emulator. Alticast Canal Plus Technologies - Application Workshop Canal Plus Application Workshop is a GUI based application for creating content for the DVB-MHP based Canal Plus Media Highway application. Because content generated conforms to the DVB-MHP standard, it may be possible to transport content authored in this application to other DVB-MHP compliant systems. Canal Plus Technologies OpenTV/Spyglass - OpenAuthor OpenTV has recently (9/1/01) revamped their entire line of production tools. The previous release included Open Author, a GUI based authoring enviornment for OpenTVs "C" programming language based ITV enviornment, a software development kit for the more technically adventurous, and various useful tools such as emulators and a handy MPEG still generation utility. Details of OpenTV's new developer program are avalible at http://www.opentv.com/partner/. Open TV Corp. Wink - Wink studio Wink Studio is a GUI based authoring tool which is said to be fully ATVEF compliant. Wink Communications WorldGate - Content Development Kit The CableWare CDK is the authoring tool for Worldgate's CableWare 2000 system. It is said to support very high functionality (for example Flash 5) on thin clients. WorldGate Communications, Inc. Encoding and synchronizing These are tools that encode either links (ATVEF-A) or data (ATVEF-B) into the video stream. Because of the long time use of data insertion in captioning applications, these tools are fairly mature, but tend to support only limited ATVEF-A style link insertion. However most also include broadcast specific functions, such as integration with station automation systems which will prove useful as ITV technologies mature. We expect to see these manufacturers expand their product lines to take advantage of the growing ITV market. eeg enterprises - XDS Express eeg enterprises is a long time player in the closed captioning and VBI data distribution field, XDS Express is their proprietary tool for data insertion. Supports limited implementation of ATVEF-A style links. eeg enterprises, inc. Evertz Microsystems Ltd. - MetaCast, Procap Evertz has two products: MetaCast, a garden variety data insertion tool, and Procap, an MPEG-2 based NLE style captioning tool which offers real time previewing of captions. A demo version of MetaCast is available for download. Evertz Microsystems Ltd. Evertz FTP site Mixed Signals - TV Link Creator Mixed Signals has the most mature (though not commercially available) tool for inserting ATVEF-A synchronous links and ATVEF-B content in the vertical interval. Recently they produced ITV versions of Jeopardy and Wheel of fortune. Mixed Signals Technologies Norpak A well-known supplier of data encoding and insertion products, including their ubiquitous TES-3 and TES-5, Norpak offers two products of particular interest to ITV developers WHAZ-it and WHAK-it. WHAZ-it is a downstream content auditing solution that allows broadcasters to monitor what embedded content is reaching the viewer. WHAK-it is an iTV content filtering and substitution solution that allows broadcasters to filter and/or replace embedded interactive TV data in realtime. Norpak Corp. Triveni - Skyscraper A subsidiary of Korean electronics firm LG, their Skyscraper data insertion product allows for ATVEF-B style insertion of data into the ATSC DTV stream. Triveni is currently providing technology for PBS trials of Life 360 and Cyberchase. Trials with this technology of Scientific American Frontiers in Spring 2001 are covered in depth in ATVEF-B "how to" section of the web site. Trivini Digital Revised Monday, 10-Mar-2003 16:24:08 CST - h © 2000 - 2003 Local Enhancement Collaborative & .