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Next Generation
Public Television
Collaborative Technology Projects
Northwest Advanced Digital Distribution
Entity · publictelevision.org · Public Television
Internet2 Next Generation Interconnection Pilot · Combined Overview · Contact Information · Links
This site provides access to information about three collaborative
technology projects centered at Washington State University’s KWSU. All are designed to suggest solutions to the
challenges public television faces as it adapts to new technologies and
distribution platforms in an increasingly competitive environment and with
limited resources. The Northwest
Advanced Digital Distribution Entity and Public Television Internet2 Next
Generation Interconnection Pilot were selected for funding by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Television Future Fund. Funding for publictelevision.org is pending.
Northwest
Advanced Digital Distribution Entity
Description
This project will perform economic, engineering,
operational and business planning for a new kind distribution entity we are
calling an advanced digital distribution
entity (ADDE). The ADDE would
combine some aspects of a traditional master control and some aspects of a
developing entity in the Internet world called a "gigabit point of
presence" or gigapop. The partners
seek to provide innovative and cost-effective services through broadcast and
wired distribution media to which they have access and, at the same time, save
(or avoid new) operating and capital costs.
The
ADDE's function will be to aggregate and distribute
video programming, video interstitial materials, and multicast data services
over a variety of delivery media on behalf of its partners. It would do so in a highly customized way,
permitting licensee or even transmitter-level branding of individual services
that they design. In addition to feeding
programming to and monitoring transmitters in master control fashion, the ADDE
would serve as a distributed storage and interconnection mechanism -- a
heuristic environment permitting partners to form ad hoc collaborations for as little as a single program or for
on-going services such as packaged feeds.
It would also give all partners a way to insert local programming in
what might otherwise be only a pass-through service.
Partners
Alaska Public Television (KAKM, KTOO,
KUAC, KYUK), Don Rinker, Director, Alaska Public Broadcasting Joint Venture
KBTC/KCKA, Debbie Emond, Station Manager
KEET, Ron Schoenherr,
General Manager
*KCTS/KYVE, Burnill
F. Clark, President & CEO
KSPS, Claude L. Kistler,
General Manager/CEO
KVPT, Colin Dougherty, General
Manager
*KWSU/KTNW,
Dennis L. Haarsager (principal contact, see below)
*Oregon
Public Broadcasting, Maynard E. Orme, President
*Organizing
partners.
Documents
RFP documents (all Adobe Acrobat PDF):
ADDE RFP main document
Appendix A
Appendix B (drawing)
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
Older documents (also see adde.tv):
ADDE concept presentation PowerPoint
(637 kb) Acrobat
PDF (1,533 kb)
Figures PowerPoint or Acrobat PDF
Future Fund
application Word or Acrobat PDF
Minutes of core partners engineering meeting, 1/13/00 Word/Acrobat PDF
Minutes of core partners engineering meeting, 1/14/00 Word/Acrobat PDF
Minutes of general partners general meeting, 2/16/00 Word/Acrobat PDF
Minutes of general partners engineering meeting, 2/17/00 Word/Acrobat PDF
Minutes of general partners CEO/programming/operations meeting, 2/18/00 Word/Acrobat PDF
Minutes of core partners CFO/CE meeting, 10/25/00 Word/Acrobat PDF
Minutes of general partners, 11/20/00 Word/Acrobat PDF
”Critical thought processes in the development of the NW ADDE model” by Tom
Handy in response to query from WYES, 12/1/00 Word/Acrobat
PDF
Minutes of general partners engineering meeting, 02/22/01 Word/Acrobat PDF
Minutes of general partners programming and traffic meeting, 02/22/01 Word/Acrobat PDF
Minutes of general partners CFO meeting, 02/23/01 Word/Acrobat PDF
Schedule of 2001 meetings, 2/27/01 Word/Acrobat
PDF
publictelevision.org
Description
The applicant will develop and
implement a streaming media service for public television programming. This site is designed to be integrated with a
participant’s own web site without diluting either the station’s brand or that
of PBS. The project will stream an
average of 30 hours of programming for each of 20 public television stations and/or
programming consortia. Streaming will be
at both broadband and dial-up data rates.
The number of participants will double in the second year. Participants will include both public
television licensees and recognized minority and independent consortia
producing programming for public television.
A
beta version of the site can be seen at publictelevision.org. A direct station access example can be seen
at kwsu.publictelevision.org. The site currently includes programming from
Connecticut Public Television, KWSU/KTNW (Pullman/Richland, WA), West Virginia
Public Television, Wisconsin Public Television, and WNIN (Evansville, IN). The project will secure professional design
services to encourage usage and facilitate e-commerce applications. Programming is accessible by
station/consortium or by programming type.
Partners
The
following list in formation represents 19 licensees, 55 public television
stations in 37 markets that include 37.4 million television households.
Iowa Public
Television, C. David Bolender, Executive Director
KBDI, Willard Rowland, General Manager
KCPT,
William T. Reed, President &
General Manager
KERA, Gary L. Ferrell, President & CEO
KOCE, Mel Rogers, President & CEO
KRMA/KRMJ/KTSC, see Rocky Mountain PBS
KSPS, Claude L. Kistler,
General Manager
KTEH, Thomas E. Fanella,
President & General Manager
KUHT, Jeff Clarke, General Manager & CEO
KWSU/KTNW,
Dennis L. Haarsager (principal contact, see below)
New
Jersey Network, Elizabeth G. Christopherson,
Executive Director
Oregon Public Broadcasting, Maynard E.
Orme, President
Rocky Mountain PBS, James N. Morgese, President & General Manager
UNC-TV, Tom Howe, Director &
General Manager
WBGU, Patrick T. Fitzgerald, General
Manager
WFUM, Leon C. Collins,
General Manager
West Virginia Public Broadcasting,
Rita Ray, Executive Director
Wisconsin Public Television, Byron E.
Knight, Director, Broadcast Media & Innovations
WLIW, Terrel
L. Cass, President & General Manager
WVIZ, Jerrold F. Wareham, President
& CEO
Documents
Future Fund application, 11/1/00 Word Acrobat PDF
Response to CPB staff questions, 11/1/00 Word Acrobat PDF
Letter to potential partners, 11/16/00 Word Acrobat PDF
Commitment form, 11/16/00 Word Acrobat PDF
Revised Future Fund application, 2/15/01 Word Acrobat PDF
Response to CPB staff questions, 3/7/01 Word Acrobat PDF
Note: A free reader for
the Adobe Acrobat PDF documents below can be downloaded at http://www.adobe.com/acrobat/.
Public Television Internet2 Next Generation Interconnection
Pilot
Note: This project will conclude January 31, 2001.
Description
This project evaluated the use of
advanced Internet Protocol (IP) interconnection technology among public
television stations (Figure 1) that are licensed to members of Internet2 (I2),
a high capacity next generation Internet.
The partners evaluated this technology based on a series of tests as
outlined below.
I2's mission is to pioneer IP technologies in higher education, without the traffic burden or "best effort" reliability of the commodity Internet. I2 specifications call for network services incorporating the demand-driven growth of bandwidth with bandwidth reservation services, quality of service guarantees, and advanced forms of functionality (e.g., integration of voice, video, telemetry, and data services).
The
project created an ad hoc
organization to serve as the interface between public television and the
research university-based Internet2 community.
Communication took place across these communities -- both on the
engineering/technical level and in the managerial and policy domains. These efforts benefited both partners. I2 provided a test-bed for a new on-demand,
non-hierarchical, flexible interconnection.
Public broadcasting provided the I2 with real-world, high-bandwidth
applications (in such areas as distance education, high-definition and
multi-stream digital television, and multi-site conferencing) that tested
important I2 technical standards.
It
is critical is that public broadcasting act today to educate itself about
broadband IP based connectivity where all points in public broadcasting can
"talk" to all other points in a matrix. In a world of multiple program providers,
restless audiences, and converging distribution and display technologies, stations
must examine all business practices, including our current distribution
architecture. Internet2 represents more
than a "big pipe," it is the forerunner of a new way of doing
business. This project took the first
steps in testing and modeling these new practices in a relatively low-risk and
low-cost environment. It positioned
public broadcasting for the full-scale use of IP networking as an alternative
and/or supplement to the current satellite distribution system. It also identified the business practices
that will need to be changed once distributed distribution connectivity becomes
technically and economically feasible.
Toward
the end of the project period, the PBS Interconnection Committee adopted goals for
the next generation of interconnection that are consistent with the technology
and architecture investigated in this project.
The PBS board adopted these goals on February 4, 2001. These documents are accessible below.
Partners
KAMU, Rodney L. Zent, Educational
Broadcast Services Director & General Manager
KBYU, John Reim,
Managing Director & CEO
KWSU/KTNW, Dennis L. Haarsager
(principal contact, see below)
WGBH, David B. Liroff,
Vice President & Chief Technology Officer
WKAR, Steve Meuche,
Director, Broadcasting Services & General Manager
Wisconsin Public Television, Byron E. Knight, Director, Broadcast Media
& Innovations
WPSX, Ted Krichels,
Assistant Vice President for Outreach & General Manager, Penn State Public
Broadcasting
WTIU, Don Agostino,
General Manager
WUSF, Dr. James B. Heck, General
Manager
Documents
Figures PowerPoint or Acrobat
Future Fund application Word or Acrobat PDF
Interim Report, 9/26/00 Word Acrobat PDF
PBS ad hoc working group recommendations to Interconnection Committee, 9/27/00 Word Acrobat PDF
PBS board next generation interconnection goals, 2/4/01 Word Acrobat PDF
A Collaborative Interconnection Architecture for Public
Television,
a paper (Word/Acrobat PDF) given at the PBS Technology
Conference, April 2000, and, in a slightly different form, at the International
Workshop on Digital and Computational Video, University of South Florida,
December 1999.
In
2000 interconnection got interesting, and along came Pubster
... Article in Current
newspaper, December 4, 2000.
All Projects
Dennis L. Haarsager,
Associate Vice President
Educational Telecommunications & Technology
Washington State University
PO Box 643530
[FedEx or UPS: 382 Murrow/Veterans Way]
Pullman, WA 99164-2530
haarsager@wsu.edu or PBS FirstClass (dennis_haarsager@kwsu.pbs.org)
·
Tel 509-335-6511 (main) · 509-335-6530 (direct/voice mail) · fax/office 509-335-3772
·
fax to e-mail 888-455-1070 ··cellular 509-595-7819
Federal Express:
Educational Telecommunications & Technology
Kathy Dahmen, Planning and Administration
Director
(same as above)
dahmen@wsu.edu
Main and fax same · 509-335-6536 (direct/voice mail)
NW ADDE and Internet2 projects
Tom Handy, Planning Engineer
(same as above)
handyt@wsu.edu or PBS FirstClass
(tom_handy@kwsu.pbs.org) ·
Main and fax same · 509-335-6594 (direct/voice mail)
publictelevision.org
Warren Wright, Television Station Manager (for publictelevision.org)
(same as above)
wrightw@wsu.edu or PBS FirstClass
(warren_wright@kwsu.pbs.org) ·
Main and fax same · 509-335-6542 (direct/voice mail)
Links
America's Public Television Stations
Corporation
for Public Broadcasting
Current newspaper
Internet2
Public Broadcasting Service
publictelevision.org
Reforging the Links
Television Future Fund project
Washington
State University Educational Telecommunications & Technology
Last Revised: April 2, 2002