RSS-TV is an
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
-based navigation protocol for Internet media services based on the
RSS
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...
standard.
The adoption of RSS-TV enables
video device manufacturers to develop applications to navigate Internet media services. Example video devices include set top boxes, game consoles, broadband-connected digital video disc (
DVD) players,
digital video recorder
A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to d ...
s (DVRs),
personal video recorders (PVRs) and next-generation mobile phones. By implementing the RSS TV protocol, these devices provide user access to a growing library of online media (video, audio and games) services.
RSS-TV is an extension of RSS and includes additional XML elements and attributes to enable Premium TV-centric features such as:
*
Video on demand (VOD) and Subscription video on demand (SVOD)
* Navigating media services (video, audio, games) in a hierarchical fashion
* Capturing user input (such as a user
personal identification number
A personal identification number (PIN), or sometimes redundantly a PIN number or PIN code, is a numeric (sometimes alpha-numeric) passcode used in the process of authenticating a user accessing a system.
The PIN has been the key to facilitat ...
(PIN), search query, or email) and automatic search suggestions.
* Network PVR functionality
* Secure download of HD content
*
Electronic program guide for live streams
* Automatic language selection
* Numeric shortcuts for selecting menu items
Readers familiar with
Digital Video Broadcasting
Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) ...
(DVB) can compare RSS-TV with the DVB Service Information standards developed in the 1990s for digital TV EPGs. The difference is that RSS-TV has been developed for two-way
Internet Protocol (IP) networks rather than broadcasting networks. RSS-TV leverages the increasing availability of products that support RSS such as caching engines and RSS-enabled content management and publishing systems.
RSS-TV compliant applications can be implemented using any language and operating system including AJAX/HTML, Flash, OpenTV, or C. Similarly, service providers can use any web service technologies (
Java, .NET,
PHP) to build RSS-TV compliant services.
Podcasting
RSS-compliant feeds that use enclosures for video/audio (
podcasting) are fully compliant with RSS-TV. RSS-TV compliant clients will display these feeds as a list of menu items and will play (or download) the media.
Encoding
Similar to other XML-based standards, RSS-TV documents are assumed to be 8-bit Unicode Transformation Format (
UTF-8) encoded.
See also
*
Media RSS
Media RSS (MRSS) is an RSS extension that adds several enhancements to RSS enclosures, and is used for syndicating multimedia files (audio, video, image) in RSS feeds. It was originally designed by Yahoo! and the Media RSS community in 2004, but ...
References
* RSS 2.0 specification
* Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing
* RSS-TV specification
{{Web syndication
Digital television
RSS