IP-DVB: Notes from Atlanta

[Dr G Fairhurst <gorry@erg.abdn.ac.uk>]

There was an unofficial meeting of people from the ip-dvb list at 5:30pm
after the IETF meeting on 20th November.

Here's a brief summary of what was discussed.

New encapsulation
-----------------
Discussion again about "why" this was needed?
 - Was it processing efficiency in software? 
 - Was it to improve bandwidth utilisation?
 - Was it to help standardise features? (add new features?)
All were true, but motivation depends heavily on the intended application.
There were some plans to do pilot implementations in 2003.

Simple configuration of clients
-------------------------------
"plug & play" .  How could we make schemes for DVB/ATSC so 
that were flexible and allowed IPv6 autoconfiguration?
- this implied the ability to do flexible IP address to PID
and TS-MUX mapping.

There was some discussion of the recent draft from DVB
"ETSI EN drTS 102 00X V0.4.2 (2002-07)
Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB)
Specification for IP Notification in DVB Systems
Use of the IP/MAC Notification Table"

- How general-purpose was this?
- Would it scale to large IP edge networks?
- How would it relate to the way IP multicast seemed
	to be going (see discussions about the future of
     multicast in mboned WG
     & "draft-ietf-mboned-iesg-gap-analysis-00.txt")

Unfortunately few people had access to this document,
since it is currently private to DVB members.

Those who did have access to the document said they would look
at it and see what they thought. The  current requirements
ID suggested three potential options:

(i) Use the SI information for address resolution.
(ii) Provide an alternative mechanism at the IP-level 
	- similar to IPv6 ND?
(ii) Provide a complementary scheme at the IP-level 
	- similar to IPv6 ND, but able to import information
	from SI tables (if able to).

- Which should be done? - Why?

The main challenge was to figure out what ELSE was necessary
to make the framework auto-configuartion flexible and
IP-friendly.

Please send questions and answers on the list.

Plans
-----
There is now some enthusiasm now to start work on this in 2003,
and several promises of contributions (IDs) have been received
by Gorry Fairhurst. When we get sufficient Internet Drafts
on the table, so we can start doing the real work!

Afterwards we adjourned to the "Polaris" bar to literally watch the 
world spin by...

Gorry Fairhurst
ip-dvb mailing list.