Technical evaluation of Digital Interactive Television Pilot

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Glossary

21CN

21 st Century Network - British Telecom's name for their planned replacement - all IP based network

3G

Third Generation -mobile phones

API

Application Programming Interface

BMRB

British Market Research Bureau

BSkyB

British Sky Broadcasting - Digital Satellite Platform operator in UK and Skydigital receivers and services.

CAI

Confederation of Aerial Industries

COFDM

Coded Orthogonal Frequency Divisional Multiplexing - A means of modulating DTT frequencies. Currently the UK deploys the 2K variant but is set to migrate to the 8K alternative that can allow a single frequency network and mobile TV possibilities

CRT

Cathode Ray Tube

DCMS

Department for Culture Media and Sport

DFES

Department for Education and Skills

DH

Department of Health

DiTV

Digital interactive television

xDSL

Digital Subscriber Line. The "x" prefixes represents different network alternatives such as ADSL (Asynchronous); SDSL (Synchronous) networks

DTG

Digital Television Group

DTI

Department of Trade & Industry

DTT

Digital Terrestrial Television - For Digital TV via an aerial

DTV

Digital Television

DiTV

Digital interactive television

DVR

Digital Video Recorder. Typically referred to as PVRs but unlike such products like Tivo or Sky+ are not tied to a monthly service subscription

EBU

European Broadcasting Union

e-GIF

E-government Interoperability Framework

e-GU

e-Government Unit - the largest unit in the Cabinet Office responsible for formulating information technology ( IT) strategy and policy, developing common IT components for use across government, promoting best practice across government, delivering citizen-centred online services.

EPG

Electronic Program Guide

ETSI

European Telecommunications Standards Institute

FTA

Free to Air

Freeview

Name of service operating on the UK Digital Terrestrial TV Platform. Freeview is co-owned by the BBC, CrownCastle UK and BSkyB Marketing.

HDTV

High Definition TV. An extension of DTV to provide high resolution bandwidth hungry services.

IDS

Interactive Digital Sales - Division of Flextech focused on Interactive Advertising

IDTV

Integrated Digital Television set - a TV with built in digital decoder, typically for Freeview DTT.

IPTV

Internet Protocol Television

IrDA

Infrared Data Association: an organisation that defines the infrared communications protocol used by many laptops & mobile phones to exchange data at short ranges.

iMP

Interactive Multimedia Player - new video on demand application from the BBC enabling viewers to watch programmes up to a week after first shown

LED

Light emitting diode

Mbps

Megabits per second

MCIM

Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketers

MHEG

Multimedia and Hypermedia Experts Group. Develops within the International Standards Organisation ( ISO) several standards, which deal with the coded representation of Multimedia and Hypermedia Information. MHEG-5 is the fifth standard developed and is utilized in UK Freeview DTT receivers to supply Digital Teletext and other enhanced data services.

MHP

Multimedia Home Platform - Interactive middleware standard from DVB

MMS

Multimedia Message Services - Sending of richer picture/video based messages

OPDM

Office of the Deputy Prime Minister

OEM

Original Equipment Manufacturer. A company that manufactures a product and sells it to a reseller.

PIN

Personal Identity Number

PPV

Pay Per View

PSB

Public Service Broadcast

PVR

Personal Video Recorder - such as Sky+. PVRs are essentially DVRs with hard disk storage linked to an EPG available on a monthly subscription

QAM

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

SCARTSyndicat des Constructeurs d'Appareils Radio Récepteurs et Téléviseurs - French created but now World standard 21 pin connector for AV connections between TV and peripheral devices.
SMS

Short Message Services - Mobile Phone Texting of data based messages typically by and to mobile phones

SSSL

Sky Subscribers Services Ltd

Telco

Telecoms company

TDN

The Digital Network. Consortium of DTT platform Multiplex Operators

V0D

Video on demand

WAP

Wireless Application Protocol - A global, open standard for providing mobile phones, pagers and other handheld devices with secure access to e-mail and simple webpages.

WEEE

European Community directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment which together with the RoHS-Directive became European Law in February 2003, setting collection, recycling and recovery targets for all types of electrical goods.

WiFi

Wireless Fidelity

WIMAX

an acronym that stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access

WiBro

Wireless Broadband: a broadband wireless internet technology being developed by the Korean telecoms industry

STB

Set top box

OFCOM

Office of Communications

LA

Local Authority

Page updated: Thursday, January 12, 2006