Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 15:21:26 -0500 To: pbs-demo@thequilt.net From: Mary Fran Yafchak Subject: Notes from 11/22 PBS-demo call Cc: Mairead Martin , Mary Fran Yafchak Bcc: X-Attachments: Dear all, Below are my notes from last week's PBS-demo call. Our next call will be Friday, 12/6 at 12:30 p.m., 800-998-2462, code: 6305950. Unfortunately, I will be on vacation on 12/6 and unable to attend. As you will see in the notes below, I have a to-do from this past meeting - to develop a strawman proposal - and I will still plan to do that in time for the next call. Would someone then volunteer to lead the 12/6 discussion and also take notes? (Separate volunteers for each of those tasks would work too.) Let me know if you can assist. Thanks, -Mary Fran ** Additional update (forgot to bring this up in the meeting after telling Ellen that I would - Sorry, Ellen!) From Ellen V re: C-SPANs activity in the HDTV - They really have not done anything to speak of yet. Also, Ellen is working with the BBC as a potential new Internet2 member. They are looking for relevant potential projects, something to keep in mind if we see a role for them in our project planning. PBS-demo call, 11/22/02 Attendees: David Felland, WPTV Dennis Haarsager, CPB/Wash State U Greg Petrowich, U of Alaska at Fairbanks Tony Conto, MAX Mairead Martin, UTK/ViDe Steve Shroeder, PSU Mark Johnnson, NCNI Thomas Edwards, PBS Mary Fran Yafchak, SURA - We welcomed Mairead Martin to the call, as a expert in the area of digital asset and rights management. She has agreed to join us for at least a few calls, to provide some of that perspective for our project planning. From Mairead - She is Director of a small applied R&D group at UT, mostly focused on middleware, i.e., Shibboleth, dir/object class development. She works with ViDe (http://www.vide.net). ViDe is probably most known for their work in video conferencing but has also done quite a bit on streaming/VoD. Mairead works with ViDe's Asset Management working group and has also been very active recently in pursuing DRM (Digital Rights Management) in a project that started within Asset Management group but has since evolved into an Internet2 project. Both Asset Management and DRM are complex technical as well as political areas. There has been a lot of momentum recently in looking at what higher ed needs in DRM. SURA/I2/others sponsored a workshop specifically on that topic in DC this past Sept. (http://www.ait.utk.edu/drmworkshop/index.htm). Alison White/CPB attended this. A requirements document is on the way from this workshop with likely next steps being the formation of a working group. There is much to be done and deciding what to proceed with first (metadata? data model?) is just one of the considerations. with first - Metadata? Data model? Project/scope can be unwieldy. In particular, for DRM, they are looking for a "tugboat" - an application to ground DRM and not work in a vacuum. If anyone wants to contact Mairead directly, she offered her email address: maireadm@utk.edu. From here, we switched back to the discussion at hand - whether to elaborate on/extend See-To-Shinging-See as our activity or to pursue other projects.... David F. - Would like to hear from Quilters on their desired direction for a project. Can see the R&E community helping to make See-To-Shining-See more of an educational experience, perhaps more of a research activity. PBS and participants are already looking at the project as HDTV PBS content but it would be a much stronger concept if there was some academic rigor applied. The question to him is how to take maximal advantage of the existing idea. Recap of some key points of STSS (See To Shining See), at the request of some on the call: From an educational perspective - It is difficult to take students places. How can HDTV be exploited to create "be there" opportunities? Another goal is to do something more experiential and "long form" (continuous) in nature - not as "produced" or packaged as typical television. The eagle's nest - broadcast 24 hours per day in SDTV - was fed throughout the country and it was discovered that there was strong interest on the parts of both teachers and students in being able to see something like that - something they could not normally observe. STSS extends the success of the eagle's nest to other experiences. Also, rights issues are less with this type of content and production is less expensive. Given this, what might be done/developed around it? The HDTV feed serves as a demonstration for the network piece, but the content piece merits further examination. MFY - So there may be various levels of the project - different partners/interests at each level. For instance: One level - Folks to work on the network piece - get content to Quilters and out to audiences, just to expand who sees this and who is thinking about it, also to provide large content for networks to move around and observe the effects of. Another level - A research sandbox - to "play" with asset management and DRM research with this as a testbed. Yet another level - K-12 and/or universities get involved to build curriculum and lesson plans around this content. To proceed with our project planning, need to determine who is interested at what level, different objectives for each level. David F. - Wanted to note that WPTV already has Artesia Asset Management system and is ready to incorporate that into a production model. What comes in as HDTV could be clipped and stored, served. Thomas E. - Adding update that PathOne testing is soon to be underway over Internet1 at PBS, sending compressed HDTV live streams. PBSrs on this call are primarily interested in the network aspects of the project short term. Ramping up on asset management probably next year. MFY - But others (within R&E) could experiment with asset management in the meantime? Also, could a PBS person on asset management join this group? All in agreement... Thomas E. will check w/PBS team re: someone from that team joining these calls. MFY will ask Alison White/CPB to see if she will join. MFY - Do we need an in-person meeting to accelerate this planning process? Consensus of the group: No yet, group is too geographically dispersed. Will continue via calls and email. Next steps: Feels like we need something more concrete to move forward. MFY to develop strawman project concept based on discussion thus far and send this to the group to react to and to discuss in next call.