The ATSC data broadcast Standard

The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is about to complete its data broadcast standard. This specification will enable multimedia content providers to deliver applications using the broadband channels of digital television. This specification will also enable the integration of data based information technologies and television audio-visual services. The purpose of the paper is to provide a description of the most important principles making up the specification. More specifically, four components are presented: A collection of unidirectional delivery protocols, an application signaling framework for service discovery, an MPEG-2 Transport buffer model and finally, a Profile and Level-based classification of data services. The functionality provided by each of these components is reviewed.