In December the BBC Trust gave Project Canvas a provisional green light to go ahead with the BBC's involvement following a lengthy consultation period. The Digital TV Group (DTG), made up of over 140 trade organisations including broadcasters, hardware manufacturers and platform operators, have raised concern about Canvas's plans and intentions particularly given their industry involvement to date. The DTG are working with members toward a 'Connected TV' standard which has similar goals as Canvas to create an Internet connected television service which will become available within their 'D-Book 7' specification.
"Many DTG Members have expressed concern that, while the DTG Membership have demonstrated a willingness to develop a Connected TV specification through the normal DTG process, the proposed Canvas [joint venture] members appear to have not fully engaged with industry."
"A significant number of DTG Members fear that the published Trust Provisional Conclusions making only a 'best endeavours' requirement on the Canvas JV to engage with industry to achieve consensus is insufficient and unlikely to deliver an industry agreed specification.
"Many DTG Members believe that it would be a great shame if this were allowed to happen and a major departure from the processes that have delivered the successful platform that Freeview is today."
DTG Statement
The DTG are obviously going off of their experience so far with dealing with the Project Canvas team, but it should be noted that on the Canvas website it does state they intend to work with the DTG and to the Connected TV standard.
"As part of its submission to the BBC Trust, the BBC asked for permission to develop the technical specification for devices in conjunction with the industry. The BBC Trust granted permission for the partners to begin this work with standards body the Digital Television Group (DTG) in July 2009. "The DTG's work to establish a standard for 'connected TV devices' will be published as an industry standard (DBook 7) in early 2010. "All 'Canvas compliant' devices will meet this standard."
Project Canvas
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In what way is Freeview a success?
If there is a lot of change on screen on any channel other than BBC1, everything goes blocky (e.g. scene changes, fades, etc.)
If there is a large area of subtle colour variation, it is represented as about 5 colours with obvious contour lines between (e.g. the sky)
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