DELEGATION REPORT

• Australian contributions
• Australian and delegate employer/sponsor interests
• Review and assessment of contributions to the meetings.

The ITU-R has recently clarified its requirements with respect to Recommendations that refer to systems or technologies subject to intellectual property rights. It is required that whenever a Recommendation is amended or developed, the owners of any relevant IPR are required to give a declaration either to relinquish the IPR or to undertake to licence use of the IPR on a fair and equitable basis. This caused some disturbance to proceedings, especially with regard to existing Recommendations, because without a current declaration being held by the ITU-R Secretariat it is likely that some systems (that are currently the subject of Recommendations) could be displaced as a consequence of amendment action initiated by others.

Attached to this report are copies of the short reports (as available) presented by each WP/TG chairman to the SG meeting. Copies of referenced texts can be obtained from the ITU WWW site. Any one having difficulty in getting documents in this way and needing them for ARSG work can obtain copies from Keith Malcolm.

Joint Working Party 10-11R is concerned with recording for broadcasting. It is chaired by Mr Paolo Zaccarian, Italy. Four working groups were established to cover the major work of this round of meetings.

The documents received by Joint Working Party 10-11R and its 18 output documents are listed in Annex 1.

Working Party 10-11R is to work closely with the IEC (TC100) and the ISO (TC36) on matters of common interest and responsibility. The issue of joint Recommendations between the ISO/IEC and WP 10-11R was discussed. It is anticipated that joint activities between the ISO/IEC and WP 10-11R will be a model for other Working Parties in the future. An IEC representative, Dr Akikazu Shibata, was present throughout the WP 10-11R meetings. WP 10-11R nominated Mr Kjell Kolstad of Norway as its liaison officer to the ISO Committee on film matters.

Dick Barton presented a Special Rapporteur Report on "unified set of labels for the international exchange of television tapes, audio tapes and films." Mr Barton suggested that the Special Rapporteur group be disbanded due to the general lack of interest, however the relevant Questions are to be kept. On behalf of WP 10-11R, the chairman conveyed his appreciation of Mr Eric Hitchen’s contributions to the work of WP10-11R, and he wished Eric well in his retirement.

Dick Barton participated in working group 3 on HDTV recording, and Spencer Lieng participated in working groups 1 and 2 on audio recording and file formats.

Working Group 1 addressed exchange of sound programmes on recordable compact discs and parameters for international exchange of multi-channel sound recording. On the latter track assignments are proposed in a draft new recommendation while the former subject resulted in another draft new recommendation setting out some basic criteria.

The group also examined the need to work towards standardisation of arhiving for both sound and television recording and prepared a new decision to establish a Rapporteur Group on the topic.

Working Group 2 continued the reporting of the work on compression systems, file formats and metadata that has been progressed by the joint EBU/SMPTE Task Group. The Group’s work lead to draft new recommendations on compression families and on transport interfaces. It needs to be recognised that the work was limited to SDTV and wide-screen SDTV rather than extending to HDTV. It was indicated a new group under Merrill Weiss of USA is continuing the work into HDTV, probably with the SMPTE.

Working Group 3 addressed the studies on recording of HDTV. The Rapporteur report contained in Document 10-11R/9 was the main basis of the work. This document included a draft new recommendation, which commends the use of digital recording rather than the analogue formats used to date. The appendix to the recommendation contains descriptive material on the digital formats in development. Behind the studies reported there is clearly strong competition between Sony and Matsushita to develop the industry standards for HDTV production.

The main output addressing the subject is contained in Temp/6. Some material considered to be generally out of date in the Appendix to Temp/6 is identified by square brackets for further consideration at the next meeting (in 1999). It was also considered the text, which addresses general production and interface issues should be brought to the notice of WP’s 11A and 11B and liaison statements were prepared to that effect.

Other text contributed in document 10-11R/21 addressed the position of CBS on interchange of HDTV material. This was considered most appropriate for studies into user requirements and it will become an input to preparation of a new Recommendation "User’s Requirements for HDTV Recording".

Working Group 4 finalised a new Draft Recommendation on the scanned area for film in television. Document Temp 2. In the presentation of this document the unfinalised document from Colin Wright on film to tape transfer was noted and a request made for the document to be contributed to the Rapporteur group which will continue the studies. The Rapporteur group will be lead by:

The report prepared by E. Hitchen (Australia) was presented and noted. It was agreed that continued pursuance of physical labels did not appear to be needed but the details of elements to be included in the report could be useful in addressing electronic labelling for tape of film. The report was referred to the Rapporteur Groups continuing in the period up to the next meeting.

Six draft new Recommendations were prepared during the meetings:

A draft Decision on the appointment of a Rapporteur group on new approaches to meeting user requirements for sound program and television archives was proposed. The Rapporteur group is to prepare a list of requirements for the application of new technologies to the operation of archives within television and sound program production facilities. Mr Giorgio Dimino of Italy has been appointed to chair this group.

The Special Rapporteurs on file formats, interfaces and network protocols to be used in digital television recording for program production, and on the use of film in television have been re-appointed for this study period.

Working Party 10-11R has also produced seven liaison statements to other ITU-R Working Parties and the IEC Technical Committee TC 100.

Annex 1:

Prepared by: Spencer Lieng and Dick Barton

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This WP has responsibility for planning parameters for TV systems and is in the process of coming to grips with the digital terrestrial TV task that it inherited from TG 11/3. The group is lead by Mr Perpar of Slovenia. Mr Dinsel of IRT is one vice-chairman of the group and Colin Knowles of Australia has just resigned from the position of vice-chairman. The group received a large number of contributions and decided to undertake it’s work through two sub working groups. The first (11C1) was led by Mr Dinsel and dealt with dttb planning parameters and the coordination between analogue and digital TV systems. The second group (11C2) was led by Mr Hunt of the EBU.

11C1 dttb Planning Parameters:

This sub working group had two main tasks, the first being to up-date Recommendation 655-4 (the analogue TV protection ratio recommendation) to take account of the most recent data on interference from digital into analogue. The second major task was to up-date the new Recommendation 1368 (previously TG 11/3 Draft New Rec [XYZ]) to provide more complete information on the protection ratio requirements of digital TV systems. The group had a substantial amount of new information to consider including a contribution from CEPT, the IRT and information provided by Australia from the trials conducted during 1997.

In the case of the COFDM system, apart for a few spot values, there is a high level of commonality in the data gathered by the various participants (of the order of +/- 1 or 2 dB) and this extends across both 7 MHz and 8 MHz variants of the DVB system. Accordingly, it has been possible to achieve a quite significantly condensed presentation of the data and there is now a nearly complete set of protection ratio information for the COFDM dttb system (doc [11C/TEMP/5]).

The Australian data for both digital and analogue protection ratios was very useful to the group as it provided independent confirmation of results, and, being quite comprehensive, was also able to "bridge between" results from other sources.

The group also put in place a process for the development of text dealing with planning matters as a contribution to the proposed handbook on digital TV systems. This handbook is turning into a somewhat contentious issue as it is based on work undertaken by TG 11/3 during 1994-96 and is now subject to a need for coordination between WP 11C and WP 11A.

11C2: dttb handbook

WG11C2 chaired by Ken Hunt (EBU) addressed the texts useful for developing content on DTTB planning which was generally suited to inclusion in a Handbook on DTTB. There was discussion on the need to update content originally given on a preliminary basis in Draft Recommendation XYZ from Task Group 11/3. The BR had indicated a need to publish both the system sections and planning sections of the DTTB handbook in a single volume. This will require some concentrated work by WP11C and its rapporteurs to complete the planning section by April 1999. A revised draft outline was prepared. Without specific advice from Australia Craig Todd of the ABA was retained as an author for two sections but is joined with another author for one of them (see WP11C/Temp/4).

The group also addressed the Question of sharing broadcasting spectrum with MSS and prepared text for liaison with SG8 and for the Rapporteur preparing the relevant Chapter of the CPM 99 Report (see WP11C/Temp/2).

Working Party 11C3:

WG 11C3 chaired by Vic Brown (UK) examined protection and emission masks and response to Study Group 1 on monitoring of television signals and out-of-band radiation limits. Out-of-band limits was addressed in WP11C temp/7 while proposals for updating Recommendation ITU-R BT. 1206 on spectrum shaping were given in WP11C/Temp/6.

Working Party 10 A met during the second week and clashed with the SG 11 WP meetings that were our main interests. The principal contributions to WP 10A were reports of progress on the development of digital transmission systems for sound broadcasting in MF and HF bands. There are now 5 proposed systems under consideration, a summary is given in Document [10A/TEMP/9]. Three of the proposals employ multi-carrier OFDM modulation, while two use single carrier QAM/PSK modulation. All systems have been shown to work but studies of system performance capabilities and limitations are still underway.

See the chairman’s report (Doc 10/24) for the current status of studies. Copy attached.

TG 10/4 has the task of development of a Recommendation concerning objective perceptual assessment of audio quality. The chairman gave an oral presentation on the work of the group which has produced a Draft New Recommendation (Document 10/20). The TG has now completed its work and is proposed to be disbanded.

Working Party 11A established a number of groups to tackle the quite wide spread list of issues contributed and added several topics based on suggestions from the Chair and the meetings.

Topics addressed:

The meetings were rather disorganised with groups gathering informally and none of the subgroups having organised and announced meetings. K. Malcolm looked after the presentation of Australia’s input on sound and vision timing. R.Barton concentrated on the production format development.

This issue was only of interest to the Secam countries present and of those, only Ukraine seemed concerned.

This issue addresses fine detail of future colorimetry refinements and is recognized but largely of academic interest at this time.

Data Broadcasting

The group addressed navigation systems and particularly the work of ITU-T SG 9. There was a commonality of interest with TG 11/5 meeting at the same time which complicated the development of text. It is anticipated that the work will be subsumed into a new SG 11 Task Group being proposed by WP11A.

The group had two meetings which concentrated on proposals to address the 720P production format and suggestions during the meetings to try to reduce the number of formats recognized, particularly for enhanced broadcasting. The consensus was that given little activity in enhanced broadcasting there was little to be gained in addressing that topic but rationalizing formats for dttb may be useful. It was decided to establish a rapporteur group to address both the 720P format and formats for DTTB. A significant art of the debate addressed the definition and categorisation of HDTV.

This work is now concentrating on preparing the system sections of the handbook. A contribution from the WBU was used as the basis for further text update and the rapporteur group will continue to develop and update the text. Australia expressed concern at the delay in publication of text which had been finalized in 1995 and not now expected for publication in 1999.

Sound and Vision Timing

There was unanticipated resistance from Japan to adoption of the text from the 1997 meetings. This was eventually resolved by clear indication that allowed broadcasters to individually address timing associated with video synchronizers. Contribution by Japan on reference signals for off-line timing was accepted and included in a draft new recommendation. The Rapporteur Group will continue and Japan is keen to have Australian continued participation.

The data collected by the ENG Rapporteur was used to develop content to send to the World Broadcasting Union for further comment. It is expected to lead to a new handbook on ENG systems and user requirements.

No significant new material but it was decided to maintain the rapporteur on the topic.

The subject was addressed in Plenary and agreed to be referred to SG11. In essence, there is little enthusiasm for development of a Parental Control (V-chip) System for analogue television as it is seen as being impractical and not cost effective. Any possible system that could be applied to all the existing TV receivers would be easily bypassed. For digital systems, the issue becomes one of development of an appropriate classification scheme and it is uncertain that this is within the competence and mandate of SG 11.

1. A draft new recommendation on enhanced Secam in WP11A/Temp2

2. The Australian contribution lead to draft new Recommendation "Labelling of Video and Audio Apparatus Through-Put (Processing ) Delay – WP11A/Temp 4.

3. Recommendation BT. 470-5 was modified to address the modified UK system PAL I with reduced lower sideband characteristic.

4. The draft Recommendation of framing addressing the proposed Australian amendments was agreed and approved for transmission to SG11 in WP11A/Temp/7, with those parts addressing framing for film being forwarded to JWP10-11R for finalization.

5. Sound and vision timing was further progressed with a slightly modified version of the Australian contribution being adopted in WP11A/TEMP/16 and a draft new Recommendation "Reference Signals for the measurement of Relative Timing of Television Sound and Vision signals for off-line use" based on a Japanese contribution being agreed in WP11A/Temp/13.

6. Basic requirements for multi-media and hyper media are addressed in WP11A/Temp/14 which lists a number of mandatory and optional elements.

7. A Preliminary draft new recommendation on assessment and optimisation of quality of colour reproduction in television which will be attached to the Chairman’s report for further development at the next meeting was covered in WP11A/Temp/20.

Prepared by: Dick Barton and Keith Malcolm

Working Party 11E is concerned with video quality evaluation, and is chaired by Dr A. Karwowska-Lamparska, Poland. Six drafting groups were established to cover the major work of this round of meetings.

The documents received by Working Party 11E and its 12 output documents are listed in Annex 1.

A proposed Joint Rapporteur Group (JRG) with ITU-T SG9 and SG12, and ITU-R Working Party 11E on video quality assessment was rejected last year by ITU-T. To resolve this impasse an ad hoc group of experts on subjective and objective video quality assessment was convened as the Video Quality Expert Group (VQEG). The aim of the expert group is to find the best objective video quality assessment method to meet several measurement needs. One of which is the replacement of subjective tests. Mr P. Corriveau (Canada) has been nominated by WP 11E to co-chair VQEG and Mr A. Schertz (Germany) as WP 11E liaison officer to VQEG.

The senior Counsellor for SG 11, Mr Rossi suggested that there should be a Joint Work Party on audio and video quality evaluation. This would combine ITU-R Task Group 10/4 with WP 11E. There is a general concensus that it is essential for these two groups to be amalgamated. WP 11E is also concerned that there is an unnecessary duplication of work in the definition of methodology for the audio-visual quality evaluation of multimedia applications by ITU-T SG 12.

A draft revision of Recommendation ITU-R BT.710-3 on subjective assessment methods for image quality in high-definition television (Doc. 11E/TEMP/1 Rev.1) has been reviewed. The revision includes assessment methods using a double-stimulus continuous quality-scale method with the HDTV studio quality image as reference, and test materials for HDTV quality assessments based on lists of still pictures and moving sequences in Recommendation ITU-R BT. 1210.

A draft new Recommendation on assessment of the picture quality of multi-programme services (Doc. 11E/TEMP/5) was discussed during the meetings. This draft Recommendation includes subjective picture quality assesssment procedures for constant bit rate multi-programme services, as well as subjective picture quality assessment procedures for variable bit rate multi-programme services. So far the test method double-stimulus continuous quality-scale (DSCQS) has been used for SDTV multi-programmes using variable bit rate coding. However, further data is required to verify the appropriateness of this method.

A proposed modification of Recommendation ITU-R BT. 500-8 (Doc. 11E/TEMP/11) was prepared during the meetings. The proposed modification states that for short severe impairments, the varying delay in different viewer response time may influence the assessment results if only the average over a programme segment is calculated.

A preliminary draft new Recommendation on subjective assessment of stereoscopic television pictures (Doc. 11E/TEMP/4) was presented during the meetings. This draft new Recommendation recommends evaluation methods, viewing conditions and test materials to be used in the subjective assessment of stereoscopic television pictures.

A draft new Question on relationship between quality, quality evaluation methodology, and type of application, in a multimedia environment (Doc. 11E/TEMP/2) was prepared during the meetings. Questions to be studied such as evaluation methodologies for appraising the successfulness of multimedia delivery systems for different applications were raised.

Four of the six Special Rapporteur Groups, established in the previous meetings, have been asked to continue their tasks as follows:

1. Special Rapporteur Group on "Common test material for subjective and objective quality assessment" chaired by Mr J. Kumada (Japan), Mr D. Fibush (USA) and Mr JP Evain (Switzerland);

2. Special Rapporteur Group on "Luminance and contrast ratio of CRT for evaluation" chaired by (TBA);

3. Special Rapporteur Group on "Test material criticality and objective measurement" chaired by Mr V. Baroncini (Italy);

4. Special Rapporteur Group for the organisation of a common experiment or study chaired by Mr A. Schertz (Germany).

Working Party 11E also produced four liaison statements to ITU-T SG9 and SG12, as well as other organisations outside ITU.

Annex 1:

Prepared by:
Spencer Lieng.

Working Party 11B is concerned with digital television source coding, and is chaired by Mr T. Nishizawa, Japan. Four drafting groups were established to cover the major work of this round of meetings.

The documents received by Working Party 11B and its 16 output documents are listed in Annex 1.

Working Party 11 B has taken over the tasks of digital studio interfaces from TG 11/1 and TG 11/2, which were disbanded last year. Dr J. Johan of Germany was appointed vice Chairman of WP 11 B, and he replaced the late Mr Howard Jones from UK. It was also proposed that the activities of Working Party 11B be expanded to include digital television source coding and interfaces.

Due to a much smaller Australian Delegation to this round of block meetings, Australian delegates have declined to chair drafting groups. However, Spencer Lieng participated in the drafting group on digital interfaces.

A draft revision of Recommendation BT. 1120-1 on digital interfaces for 1125/60 and 1250/50 HDTV studio signals (Doc. 11B/TEMP/2 Rev. 1) was discussed during the meetings. A revision was made to the Recommendation to include a digital interface for 1920 x 1080 Common Image Format (CIF). This is to reflect the changes made to Recommendation BT. 709 on studio standards for HDTV last year to incorporate square pixel common image format.

A draft new Recommendation on SDI-based transport interface for compressed television signals in networked television production based on ITU-R Recommendations BT. 656 and BT. 1302 (Doc. 11B/TEMP/12) was reviewed. This draft new Recommendation was produced by JWP 10-11R, which transferred it to WP 11B for consideration. The section on data extension specification was removed from the main body of the Recommendation and appended as information to the Recommendation, as there are no practical systems accepting this data extension.

A draft modification of Recommendation ITU-R BT. 1363 on jitter specifications and methods for jitter measurements of bit-serial signals confirming to Recommendations ITU-R BT. 656, BT. 799 and BT. 1120 (Doc. 11B/TEMP/13) was presented for discussion during the meetings. The modification is to append SMPTE Engineering Guidelines on jitter characteristics and measurement for bit-serial digital studio interfaces to the Recommendation as a tutorial.

A draft new Recommendation on standards for bit rate reduction coding systems for SDTV (Doc. 11B/TEMP/14) was approved during the meetings. This draft Recommendation recommends bit rate reduction systems to be used for SNG, contribution, studio production, primary and secondary distribution, as well as terrestrial and satellite emission based on ITU-R Recommendation BT. 601.

A preliminary draft new Recommendation on standards for bit-rate reduction coding systems for HDTV (Doc. 11B/TEMP/1 Rev.2) was reviewed during the meetings, and the table describing the coding standards to be used for various parts of the broadcasting chain was considered. MPEG-2 was recommended for both terrestrial and satellite emission, but currently there is no coding standards recommended for studio production, contributions, SNG, and primary and secondary distribution.

A preliminary draft new Recommendation on interconnection between optical routing systems in broadcasting station (Doc. 11B/TEMP/9) was presented during the meetings. This document establishes a framework for the study of optical routing system using wavelength and time division multiplexing technology for achieving a large capacity flexible routing network.

Four progress reports were prepared during the meetings:

1. A progress report on bit-rate reduction (Doc. 11B/TEMP/3 Rev. 1)

This report provides a summary of several contributions related to the usage of bit rate reduction techniques in several parts of the broadcasting chain. One of the contributions describes the benefits of using the MOLE system for the transport of the selected encoding parameters, such as the motion vectors for each macro block or the quantization step size along with the compression bitstreams, to minimise the picture degradation in successive encoding stages.

2. A progress report on the use of computer technology in TV broadcasting applications (Doc. 11B/TEMP/7)

This report summarises the technological trends of computer technology in digital broadcasting applications, such as receiving equipment of digital broadcasting services, development of broadcasting services by the PC industry, display technology, return channels for interactive services, and most importantly common Application Programme Interfaces (APIs) for the convergence of PC and television.

3. A progress report on centering, aspect ratio and blanking of video images (Doc. 11B/TEMP/11)

This report mentions that the current proposals for the definition of the clean aperture have difficulties in that ringing which can be observed within the clean aperture when one such definition is applied. It also states that the establishment of a uniform definition of the centre of the image is important, as currently different manufacturers have different methods of identifying the image centre.

4. A progress report on coding for multi-programme transmission (Doc. 11B/TEMP/15).

Digital multi-programme broadcasting services employing statistical multiplexing have been introduced in some parts of the world. Unlike independent coding, joint coding controls only the aggregate bit rate, instead of individual bit rates. Joint coding is able to improve the channel utilisation by dynamically distributing the channel capacity amongst programmes according to their respective scene complexities. This report invites contributions and relevant information regarding multi-programme broadcasting systems employing statistical multiplexing.

Three of the seven Special Rapporteur Groups, established in the previous meetings, have been asked to continue their tasks as follows:

1. Special Rapporteur Group on "Bit-rate reduction for television production studio applications" chaired by Mr D. Bradshaw (UK);

2. Special Rapporteur Group on "Multi-programme services using adaptive bit-rate reduction coding based on statistical multiplexing of television signals" chaired by Mr Y. Nishida (Japan);

3. Special Rapporteur Group on "The study of computer technology in TV broadcasting applications" chaired by Mr Y. Nakata (Japan).

Working Party 11B has also produced six liaison statements to other Working Parties and Study Groups of ITU and other organisations outside ITU.

Prepared by:
Spencer Lieng
Convenor, WP 11B.

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Once again, this meeting clashed with others so we could not participate. A review of the input papers shows that they are mostly liaison statements, principally from ITU-T WP 9. A summary of proceedings is given in the chairman’s report (Doc 11/23), a copy of which is attached.

The Study Groups met during the week of 30 March to 3 April with one meeting being a Joint Meeting of 10 and 11.

The main business of the SG meetings was approval of the documents prepared during the working party meetings in the preceeding fortnight. Some items generated significant levels of discussion but there was no real controversy over any proposals.

A significant development was the proposal to establish a joint working party (JWP 10-11Q) to deal with the issues of video and audio quality. This removes a barrier between SG 10 and SG 11 and is a part of the ITU-R response towards dealing with similar problems of overlap and demarcation with study groups in the ITU-T sector. The ITU-T sector recently rejected (via the TSAG (telecommunications standardisation advisory group)) a proposal from the ITU-R sector to establish a formal joint group to study video and audio quality issues across the broadcasting and telecommuniations boundaries. The T sector preferred to establish an informal Video Quality Experts Group (VQEG) which has participation from the R and T sector study groups together with participation by organisations outside the ITU. The Laboratory has been invited to join the VQEG work.

The development of digital audio and television broadcasting technologies is continuing to highlight weaknesses in the existing structure of ITU-R broadcasting activities into audio and video streams. The establishment of the JWP on video and audio quality is a step towards a possible merging of SG 10 and SG 11. The Study Groups agreed to establish a joint rapporteur group to look further at the possible merging of the study groups.

Keith Malcolm was appointed as a Vice-Chairman of WP 11A to replace Geoff Smith while Dick Barton was appointed as a Vice-Chairman of WP 11C to replace Colin Knowles as both of the previous Australian Vice-Chairmen are understood to have relinquished their positions.

Thanks are due to Dick Barton and Spencer Lieng for the preparation of parts of this report.

Keith G Malcolm
Delegation Leader
15 April 1998

(Geneva, Switzerland, 23 -27 March 1998)

1 Introduction

The Chairman opened the meeting, greeted the participants, and offered several remarks. Briefly, he recognized the presence of the Chairman of Study Group 10, Mr. Alfredo Magenta; he noted the increased participation in the group; he made reference to the significant number of contributions as well as their complexity; and he expressed his belief that this meeting would be the first major step by Working Party 10A in the important future work to be carried out to prepare for the implementation of new technologies, in particular, those dealing with the conversion from analog to digital broadcasting. He also offered some comments regarding the work of the Special Rapporteur Groups. Finally, he provided an overview of the work for the week and an insight as to the future work of Working Party 10A.

The Chairman provided brief remarks on the items of the draft agenda after which the group approved the agenda.

2 Reports on General Matters

Mr. G. Rossi provided a brief report on several meetings that occurred since the last Working Party 10A meeting; namely, meetings of Study Group 10; Joint Steering Committee; RA-97; Chairman and Vice-Chairman; CPM99-1 and WRC-97.

3 Reports by the Special Rapporteur Groups

Each Special Rapporteur present at the meeting gave a brief report on the status of the work in the Special Rapporteur Group as follows:

(Special Rapporteur, Open)

At the April 1997 meeting of Working Party 10A, this Special Rapporteur position was left open pending consultations with potential candidates. Unfortunately, the position remained unfilled; however, Mr. M. Simic kindly agreed to continue to serve in that capacity even considering his additional responsibilities as Special Rapporteur of SRG 10A-6. He reported on the progress that has been made since the last meeting with particular reference to meetings held in Rome in December 1997 and in Geneva in March 1998. He indicated there was still work to be done before the handbook is complete.

(Special Rapporteur, Mr. Schall, Germany)

Mr. Schall noted the work that had been done since the last meeting of Working Party 10A and suggested that the work should continue during the week taking into account the information that was available to the Working Party.

(Special Rapporteur, Mr. Giudici, Vatican)

Mr. Giudici was unable to attend the meeting because of his involvement with the Pope’s trip to Nigeria. Mr. Piervenanzi reported on the status of the draft new recommendation and indicated that it was nearing completion, possibly during this meeting of Working Party 10A.

(Special Rapporteur, Mr. Artelli, Italy)

Mr. Artelli reported on the status of work on the recommendation. He stated that further work needs to be done and referred to a computer program that has been developed.

(Special Rapporteur, Mr. Rudolph, Germany)

Mr. Rudolph reported on the progress of the work since last April. He noted the group met in Rome in December 1997 and in Geneva in March 1998. Many documents were considered by the group and reports were prepared for each meeting (Documents 10A/5 and 30).

(Special Rapporteur, Mr. Simic)

Mr. Simic reported on the progress of the work in the period between Working Party 10A meetings. He indicated his efforts to contact many sources of information on the subject and to make information available to the participants of the group. He reported a need for future work.

4 Organization of Work

Chairman: Mr. S. Selwyn (USA)

This drafting group was formed to consider Documents 10A/9, 31, and 32. The group made considerable progress in the development of a handbook on LF/MF System Design. The group met three times and agreed on an approach that would produce a significant revision of the current text (Document 10A/24). The group discussed specific editorial solutions and agreed to a method of future work of the Special Rapporteur Group as shown in Document 10A/TEMP/6.

Chairman: Mr. N. Schall (Germany)

This drafting group was formed to continue the work of SRG 10A-2. The group considered Documents 10A/8, 12, 13, 23, 25, 27, 28 and 36. It’s report is contained in Document 10A/TEMP/7.

Chairman: Mr. J. Chilton (UK)

This drafting group was established to consider Documents 10A/33 (previous period), 5, 8, 12, 13, 14, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 30. The group divided into three subgroups to handle the large number of input documents. The work of the group resulted in a Draft New Report on Digital Sound Broadcasting Below 30 MHz. (Document 10A/TEMP/9).

Chairman: Mr. M. Simic (Yugoslavia)

This drafting group was created to consider Documents 10A/2, 16, 17, 19 and a document from the International Electrochemical Commission (IEC). The group identified specific tasks and proposed coordinators that would help to develop an initial draft new recommendation as quickly as possible. It is intended to have a first draft for Working Party 10A to consider at the October 1998 meeting in Geneva.

Chairman: Mr. S. Piervenanzi (Vatican)

This drafting group was formed to consider Documents 10A/32 (previous period), 6, 11 and 18. The drafting group produced a draft new Recommendation (Document 10/22) which is discussed in Section 6.

Chairman: Mr. H. Kussmann (Germany)

This drafting group was established to consider Documents 10A/3, 4 and 7. The drafting group produced a Liaison Statement (Document 10A/TEMP/1) which is discussed in Section 9. In addition, the group produced a report on the status of Questions, Recommendations, Reports, Opinions, Resolutions, and Decisions (Document 10A/TEMP/2).

Chairman: Mr. T. Fujii (Japan)

This drafting group was established to consider Documents 10A/15R1, 34 (previous period) and 34. The drafting group produced a Reply to Liaison Statement from TG 1/5 (Document 10A/TEMP/5) which is discussed in Section 8. In addition, the group took note of the input document from India (Document 10A/34 (previous period)) and noted the agreement with Recommendation ITU-R BS.562 and indicated that further contributions on this subject (HF S/N in the Tropical Zone) would be appreciated.

5 Questions

The questions assigned to Working Party 10A were reviewed. There were several questions (ITU-R 45-4/1,224-1/3,225-1/3, 65-1/10 and 61-1/10) that were of interest and are discussed in Document 10A/TEMP/2.

6 Recommendations

One draft new Recommendation was prepared.

Document 10/22 is a draft new Recommendation ITU-R BS.[10/28] "LF and MF Transmitting Antenna Characteristics and Diagrams". This document provides a unified approach to evaluate antenna gain and radiation pattern that could be used both for national planning and for international coordination. Moreover, the introduction of digital techniques to broadcasting at LF and MF, will put an emphasis on the use of advanced planning tools, such as the calculation of the antenna patterns, to be made available to future planning Conferences as well as to assess more precisely the performance of existing transmitting systems.

During the course of discussions resulting in adoption of the draft new Recommendation, a number of concerns were noted. In particular, some equations were questioned and some material from France, Yugoslavia and the UK appeared to be omitted. Mr. Rossi provided views regarding the equations and others offered views regarding the missing material. On balance, it was agreed that the work had progressed to such a final stage that these deficiencies, if any, could be the subject of future contributions that would form the basis for a subsequent revision of the Recommendation.

7 Reports

The Reports were reviewed and it was determined that only the following Reports should be reprinted, Reports ITU-R BS.401-6, 458-5, 943-1, 1058, 1059-1, 1063, 1201, and 2004. Work is progressing on a new report on digital broadcasting. It is too early to decide whether to revise or replace Report 2004. It was agreed that based on the progress of this new report, Working Party 10A would take appropriate action at a future meeting.

8 Reply to Liaison Statements

Working Party 10A replied to one Liaison Statement as follows:

Document 10A/TEMP/5, "Reply to Liaison Statement from Task Group 1/5 on Out-of Band Emission Limits", responds to the request by Task Group 1/5 for relevant working parties to submit information regarding out-of-band emissions and "boundaries" for sound broadcasting systems. The reply notes that additional work is to be done in a Special Rapporteur Group that has been established for that purpose.

9 Liaison Statements

Working Party 10A initiated one liaison statement as follows:

Document 10A/TEMP/1 is a Liaison Statement from Working Party 10A to Study Group 1 concerning Question ITU-R 45-4/1 which deals with techniques and technical criteria for frequency sharing. Study Group 1 was informed of BS series Recommendations that might be of interest in technical sharing studies.

10 Future Meetings

Mr. Rossi indicated that tentative scheduling provided for a meeting of Working Party 10A in Geneva in October 1998 and in Geneva in the April/May 1999 time-frame. The USA had previously indicated a desire to host a meeting of Working Parties 10A and 10B in Seattle, WA in October 1998 but was informed of a conflict with other meetings, both ITU related and others. Thus, the USA modified its offer and proposed to host a meeting of Working Parties 10A and 10B from April 12 to 16, 1999, in Las Vegas, NV the week before the NAB Convention. There was no objection from the participants.

11 Future Work

The Chairman reiterated his views on the need for detailed and speedy examination of the matters dealing with digital sound broadcasting below 30 MHz. He noted that there has been great interest in digital broadcasting throughout the world and that the involvement of Working Party 10A had increased significantly since the April 1997 meeting.

The Chairman continued discussion on the future work of Working Party 10A by introducing Document 10A/TEMP/12. It was clear that the work of Working Party 10A was enhanced by the existence of the Special Rapporteur Groups. Thus, all except for the LF/MF Antennas group which had completed its work would be maintained and one additional group would be established to deal with OOB emissions. The future groups, each Special Rapporteur and the members of the groups were identified.

12 Other Matters

There was considerable discussion regarding the relationship between SRG 10A-5 (Digital) and Working Party 10A. Also, some concern was raised regarding the submission of documents to Working Party 10A rather than to SRG 10A-5. In addition, a remark was made that SRG 10A-5 would be reduced in status.

In response to the questions and concerns, the Chairman detailed the relationship between the SRG and Working Party 10A. That is, Working Party 10A established the Special Rapporteur Group 10A-5 to speed the work of Working Party 10A. As constituted SRG 10A-5 would be able to provide ongoing work on the important digital issues in the time period between the Working Party 10A meetings. Without the Special Rapporteur Group it was apparent that little could be accomplished at the Working Party 10A meetings.

With respect to the terms of reference for SRG 10A-5, the Chairman reminded the participants that they were purposely left unwritten so as to provide as much flexibility as possible. This was done to allow SRG 10A-5 to incorporate any and all information that might be available, from all sources.

Many of the questions and concerns could be attributed to some basic misunderstandings. Also, some participants were not totally familiar with the ITU-R processes. Others thought that there was duplication of effort by having the same documents submitted to both SRG 10A-5 and Working Party 10A. In fact, circumstances led to this confusion. First, Special Rapporteur Groups are informal groups without the formal participation of Member States and Sector Members. Just the opposite is true for the composition of the Working Party.

This was first real meeting to deal in depth with the digital issues and combined with the complex issues and significant contributions could explain the confusion. Further contributing to the confusion was the scheduling of a SRG meeting the week prior to the Working Party 10A meeting. This proved to be counterproductive, even worse than no meeting at all. In the future, such scheduling must be avoided.

With regard to the concern that SRG would be reduced in status, the Chairman clearly pointed out that the SRG’s status is derived from Working Party 10A and that Working Party 10A has no intention of reducing its status; in fact, Working Party 10A wants to insure that the SRG can continue in an effective manner so as to reduce the workload on Working Party 10A.

The Chairman provided a document (Document 10A/TEMP/11) that highlighted the process that would allow the SRG and the Working Party to efficiently and effectively progress in the work on digital broadcasting. It was approved by the group.

In the final analysis, the work progressed very well, confusion was overcome, clear direction was provided, and a process was established that would foster the work on digital broadcasting.

13 Acknowledgment

The Chairman would like to thank all participants in this meeting and especially the Drafting Group Chairmen, Messrs. Selwyn, Schall, Chilton, Simic, Piervenanzi, Kussmann and Fujii for their organizational skills, their dedication, and their direction in dealing with the documents and producing the excellent results. Thanks to each Special Rapporteur, Messrs. Simic, Schall, Giudici, Artelli and Rudolph and their groups for their tireless work in between meetings and during the meeting for preparing updated and improved texts.

Special thanks go to Mr. Rossi for his wise counsel and support throughout the meeting. Finally, the utmost appreciation and respect go to Ms. Zecha and the staff of the Secretariat who did an excellent job in providing the necessary support and documentation.

(Geneva, March 16 to 20, 1998)

1 Introduction and Summary of Results

Working Party 10B met in Geneva from March 16 to 20, 1998 to prepare for the next meeting of Study Group 10, scheduled to begin on March 30, 1998. Sixty two participants from twenty five adminstrations attended the meeting.

Working Party 10B considered 25 documents submitted and produced nine output documents.

The nine output documents included the following:

2 Work Organization

The work was divided into five areas. Two working groups and three other small groups were established as follows:

A) Working Group 10B-1: Digital Sound Broadcasting

Chairman: Mr. G. Chouinard (Canada)

Documents: 10B/1 (10B/48 and 49), 4 (for DSB only), 6, 9, 12, 13,

Texts: T-DSB Shadow Report

B) Working Group 10B-2: SMFMBSDCRLC - FM Sub-carrier Systems....

Chairman: Mr. G. Gaskill (U.S.)

Texts: Recommendation 1194 and 1350

C) Ad-Hoc Group of the Plenary 10B: Various

Chairman: Mr. F. Conway (Canada)

Documents: 10B/1 (10B/48), 2, 3, 10, 11

Texts: Various

D) Rapporteur A: Planning Standards FM Sound Broadcasting

Chairman: Mr. J. Berger (Austria)

Documents: 10B/1 (10B/48), 8

Texts: Recommendation ITU-R BS.412-7

E) Rapporteur B: Out of Band Emission Limits

Chairman: Mr. K. Malcolm (Australia)

Documents: 10B/1 (10B/48), 5

3 Other Matters

Working Party 10B also performed a complete review of the work programme and status of text assigned to Working Party 10B. No major changes were proposed.

It was decided to create, at the next meeting of Working Party 10B, a special rapporteur group which would create a document on service planning and technical planning criteria for terrestrial digital sound broadcasting.

It was decided to postpone to the next meeting a proposal to revise the Special Publication on Digital Sound Broadcasting.

(Geneva, Switzerland, 24-27 March 1998)

1 Introduction

The Chairman opened the meeting, greeted the participants, and he recognized the new situation in the chairmanship of Working Party 10C, and the presence of the new Vice-Chairman Mr. Craig Todd, who was appointed before the meeting by the Chairman of Study Group 10, Mr. Alfredo Magenta.

Mr. G. Rossi, ITU-R Senior Counsellor, offered some helpful comments with respect to the logistics for the meeting. Namely, he provided information regarding meeting hours, meeting rooms, documents and methods for approving Recommendations.

The Chairman proposed changes to the order of topics of the draft agenda after which the group approved the agenda.

2 Organization of Work

Working Party 10C considered 21 input contributions received since its last meeting in Geneva, 14-17 April 1997, including the Chairman’s Report (Doc. 10C/33).

The three main topics of the meeting were:

• Low bit-rate coding for multichannel audio (Docs. 10C/36, 10C/7, 10C/9)
• Subjective assessment of intermediate audio quality
• Calibration of the listening level for headphones in subjective listening tests

3 Low bit-rate coding for multichannel audio

At the end of the last meeting, 14-17 April 1997, Working Party 10C was strongly requested by the ITU-R Bureau to withdraw its proposal of submission of the Draft Recommendation "Characteristics of Multichannel Audio Coding Systems for Television and Sound Broadcasting" to SG 10, due to the recommendation of three different systems for different applications. Working Party 10C regretted this decision. However, there was found no solution to recommend a single audio coding system for digital terrestrial and satellite television and sound broadcasting, as a modification to Recommendation. ITU-R BS.1195.

Working Party 10C decided to appoint a Rapporteur Group on user requirements for audio coding systems for digital broadcasting.

Working Party 10C considered and discussed the results of listening tests on coding systems recommended in BS.1196, as described in Doc. 10C/7. A liaison statement to WP 11A and WP 11C was submitted, drawing the attention to this document.

The Special Rapporteur of WP 10C to DG 10A-5 gave a short report.

4 Subjective assessment of intermediate audio quality

WP 10C considered Documents 10C/39 and 10C/8. It was recognized that there is a need to develop new subjective test methods for assessing low-quality audio coding schemes as well as the true broadcast quality of received audio services as perceived by the user, considering realistic (i.e. less than ideal) receiving environments and any signal processing in the broadcast chain (e.g. Dynamic Range Control).

WP 10C has appointed a Special Rapporteur Group chaired by Mr. Gerhard Stoll.

5 Calibration of the listening level for headphones in subjective listening tests

Documents 10C/2 and 10C/TEMP/3 were discussed. As a result, a draft new Question was produced.

6 Other subjects

WP 10C took note of Document 10C/37. It was recognized that the subject "Relative Timing of Sound and Vision for Broadcasting" is covered by Recommendation ITU-R BT.1359 and that WP 10C is proposing a corresponding amendment.

WP 10C took note of Document 10C/11. It was agreed that further discussions on the draft new Recommendation ITU-R [10C/AAA, April 1997] should be matter of WP 10-11R.

7 Conclusion of the meeting

The Chairman acknowledged the work of all participants. He realized, however, that the group consisted only of the proponents of low bit-rate codecs and that representatives of the broadcast side were not present. This could be one reason for finding no agreement in a draft new Recommendation, which could improve the existing Recommendation ITU-R BS.1195.

1 General

The Task Group 10/4 meeting took place in Geneva, from 23 to 26 March 1998. The meeting was attended by 23 delegates representing 21 administrations, international organisations, ROAs, scientific and industrial organisations.

The Chairman reminded the delegates that the present meeting was expected to be the last meeting of the Task Group and that there was a firm deadline in order to submit a new draft Recommendation to the Study Group 10 meeting next week.

2 Actions taken

2.1 Agenda

The draft agenda was approved without changes.

2.2 Report from the second Progress Task Force meeting

The report from the previous Task Group meeting in Erlangen (Doc. 10-4/19) was adopted without any changes.

2.3 Report from the sixth meeting

The report from the previous Task Group meeting (Doc. 10-4/21) was agreed without any changes.

The mandate of the Task Group is found in Decision ITU-R 1/10 and the related Question is given in ITU-R 210/10. After studying these documents the Task Group concluded that the task is expected to be finished at this meeting.

Fifteen input documents (Doc. 10-4/7 through Doc. 10-4/21) were presented and considered by the Task Group.

Eight Special Rapporteurs had been appointed at the sixth meeting of the Task Group in December 1997. Their task was to co-ordinate the work in each specific area and to report the result to the meeting.

Each of the Rapporteurs introduced a short status report and the conclusion was that much progress had been made. The output from the Rapporteurs was a good basis for the continued drafting process.

2.7 Establishment of Drafting Groups

Two drafting groups were established

• Drafting Group 1, "Revision of the Draft Recommendation", chaired by Mr. Christer Grewin (Sweden)
• Drafting Group 2, "Validation Process", chaired by Mr. Bernhard Feiten (Germany).

The output from both these Drafting Groups were approved by the Task Group and are incorporated in the draft new recommendation.

3 Disbanding the Task Group

The Task Group is submitting (Doc. 10/20) "Method for Objective Measurements of Perceived Audio Quality" for adoption and further approval by correspondence by ITU-R Administrations according to section 10.3 of Resolution ITU-R 1-2.

The Task Group has accomplished its work and consequently it is proposed that the Task Group is disbanded.

4 Any other business

The patent issue was again discussed in great detail. There was a lot of concern from the Collaboration Group, due to some problems experienced within the ITU-T. All partners of the Collaboration Group have now submitted a statement fully in line with the patent policy of the ITU-R. The partners are encouraged to provide more details for inclusion in the patent data base of the ITU-R as soon as possible.

An activity in order to promote the submitted measurement method at the next AES Exhibition in Amsterdam is planned. However, a lot of details remains to be solved. In addition, ITU-R plan to issue a press-release containing information about the new Draft Recommendation.

The Task Group found it necessary to nominate a co-ordinator for collecting all potential comments on the draft during the next months. Mr. Christer Grewin was kind enough to volunteer. He will be supported by Mr. Thilo Thiede (Germany).

6 Acknowledgements

This is expected to be the final meeting of the Task Group and the Chairman expressed his thanks to all the organisations and individuals that have supported the work during these four years. The task was extremely challenging and it must be considered as a great success to have accomplished the work in time. In addition, the Task Group has met the requirement to recommend one single method.

The Chairman also acknowledged the efforts of the two Drafting Group Chairmen, Mr. C. Grewin and Mr. B. Feiten.

Special thanks also to Mr. Gerardo Mesias and Mrs. Renate Zecha.

1. General

Working Party 10-11R held the first meeting of the 1998-1999 study period in Geneva, on March 17-20, 1998. The present document reports on the work accomplished and it points to the relevant output documents. It also describes work in progress and plans for future work.

The meeting considered 25 contributions from the current study period, including the reports of the Special Rapporteurs, as well as 8 documents carried over from the previous study period.

2. Organisation of the work

The full meeting of Working Party 10-11R took direct action on several contributions, while the other contributions were assigned for consideration to four working groups, as detailed below.

• Working Group 1 on audio recording, chaired by Mr. G. Dimino (Italy)
• Working Group 2 on compression and file formats, chaired by Mr. H. Schachlbauer (Germany)
• Working Group 3 on high definition television (HDTV) recording, chaired by Mr. K. Tatsuzawa (Japan)
• Working Group 4 on film in television, chaired by Mr. K. Kolstad (Norway)

The following sections of the present report provide details on the outputs produced and approved by Working Party 10-11R.

3. Action on Opinions and on Questions

The full set of Questions and Opinions attributed to Working Party 10-11R had been considered in depth at the previous meeting of the Working Party. Consequently any further consideration of them was deferred until 1999, i.e. until the second meeting of the Working Party in the current study period.

4. Action on Recommendations of Study Group 10

Working Party 10-11R drafted new Recommendation "Exchange of sound programmes on recordable compact discs (DC-R)" (10-11R/TEMP/12, Doc. 10/11). This Recommendation covers the operational practices to be used for the international exchange of sound programme material digitally recorded in non-compressed form on recordable compact discs.

Working Party 10-11R also drafted new Recommendation "Parameters for international exchange of multichannel sound recordings" (10-11R/TEMP/11, Doc. 10/10). The Recommendation specifies the allocation of tracks and the recording parameters for multichannel audio recordings that carry up to eight independent audio tracks, for the international exchange of multitrack sound programme material, or of multitrack sound accompanying television programmes, notable high definition television programmes. The Recommendation should be transmitted to Working Party 10C for their information. A liaison statement for transmittal to Working Party 10C was prepared (10-11R/TEMP/18).

Both Recommendations should also be brought to the attention of the IEC. A liaison statement to this effect has been drafted (10-11R/TEMP/14), in case Study Group 10 should prefer to use the means of a liaison statement for such transmittal, rather than the usual request to the Director, BR.

5. Action on Recommendations of Study Group 11

The Special Rapporteur Group appointed by Working Party 10-11R has been extremely active and efficient; its work has been pursued mainly in a joint EBU/SMPTE Task Force, in which the co-ordinator of the Special Rapporteur Group plays a leading role, that Task Force addressed various aspects of the studies entrusted on the Special Rapporteur Group. So, although part of the work has been performed in the EBU/SMPTE Task Force, the existence of an efficient Special Rapporteur Group has allowed Administrations and other participants in ITU work to follow, influence and endorse the deliberations.

Following the excellent and speedy efforts of the Special Rapporteur Group, Working Party 10-11R has been able to adopt two draft new Recommendations on compression and on interfaces for digital recording in television programme production. The two Recommendations are based on the use of concepts, methods and equipment derived from state-of-the-art information technology, such as the use of multi-media "wrappers" and large capacity digital data servers to store television programmes in all their components and with their attendant "metadata" information. These two new Recommendations supplement two other Recommendation on compression and on wrappers and metadata, that drafted at the last meeting of the Working Party; they can be considered as another "first" for Study Group 11 and indeed for the whole of the ITU-R, since encourage the use of information technology in the archival and exchange of television programmes in readily accessible, compressed digital form.

The two draft new Recommendations are listed and described below.

Draft new Recommendation "Compression families to be used in networked television production" (10-11R/TEMP/4(Rev.1), Doc. 11/18). This Recommendation identifies the two compression families that can be used in networked television production, namely a DV-based family and a MPEG-2 family, in order to minimise bit-stream transcoding impairments in digital programme recording and production; the specifications of those two families are provided; the use of other compression families for programme production applications is discouraged. The Recommendation is completed by 4 very informative tutorial Appendixes.

This Recommendation should be transmitted to the IEC.

Draft new Recommendation "Transport interfaces to be used in networked television production" (10-11R/TEMP/5(Rev.1), Doc. 11B/21). This draft new Recommendation completely specifies the transport interface called SDTI, that is designed to carry formatted files of compressed digital television signals on the digital television serial interconnection infrastructure widely used today, and known as SDI. The Recommendation includes a very informative tutorial Appendix.

This Recommendation should be sent to the IEC.

Working Party 10-11R recognises that, although the Recommendation on transport interfaces has been prepared in the course of the studies of its Rapporteur Group, it really falls in the scope of Working Party 11B. A procedure has been agreed between the two chairmen by which the Recommendation, following approval by Working Party 10-11R, has been passed to Working Party 11B for further approval and submission to Study Group 11. The Recommendation will thus continue its life among those of Working Party 11B.

The relevant liaison statement, which also contains normative proposals, was prepared (10-11R/TEMP/3(Rev.1)).

The chairman of Working Party 10-11R had appointed his new vice-chairman as head of a Rapporteur Group with the task to prepare the first Recommendation on HDTV recording in the history of Study Group 11.

Thanks to his diligence and competence, the vice chairman was able to fulfil his task in a timely way, and the Working Party was happy to review and approve his text for a draft new Recommendation "High definition television (HDTV) recording" (10-11R/TEMP/6, Doc. 11/17). This Recommendation, which is another important "first for Study Group 11, and comes at a time when HDTV production is experiencing a new impressive surge, specifies valuable operating practices applicable to HDTV capture and recording, and to the long-term preservation of vintage HDTV archives. The Recommendation contains an extensive and very informative Appendix.

This Recommendation should be sent to the IEC. It should also be sent to Working Parties 11A and 11B, since its informative Appendix contains information that goes beyond HDTV recording proper, and could be of their interest. The relevant liaison statement was prepared (10-11R/TEMP/7(Rev.1)).

In his on-going review and update of all the current Recommendations on the use of film in television, the Special Rapporteur appointed by Working Party 10-11R has prepared a new Recommendation "Scanned area dimensions from 16mm and 35 mm cinematographic film used in television" (10-11R/TEMP/2, Doc. 11/16). This Recommendation revises and assembles in a single text the dimensions of all the areas scanned by telecine on all types of cinematographic films, including those applicable to the Super 16 mm and Super 35 mm formats that are currently often found in television operation. The Recommendation is thus a most useful compendium of all the information needed on this matter by television operators, and it is completed by a useful informative Appendix.

This Recommendation should be sent to the ISO and to the SMPTE.

Working Party 10-11R requests that adoption by correspondence according to Resolution ITU-R 1-2 should be sought for all the draft new Recommendations that it has prepared. The required summaries of the proposed new Recommendations are assembled in Document 11/20.

The draft new Recommendation on scanned area dimensions for 16 mm and 35 mm film described in section 5.3 of the present report updates and assembles new information and information contained in the underlisted existing Recommendations

ITU-R BR.716

ITU-R BR.782

ITU-R BR.783

ITU-R BR.1288

ITU-R BR.1289

ITU-R BR.1291

Those existing Recommendations are consequently proposed for deletion.

6. Special Rapporteurs

Working Party 10-11R has decided to re-focus the activity of its Special Rapporteur, Mr. Dimino (Italy); the new terms of reference were prepared (10-11R/TEMP/13 edited); they focus on the application of information technology to Archives for Broadcasting: a new and most promising area of development in the application of digital audio and television recording to broadcasting.

Working Party 10-11R has confirmed the terms of reference of the Special Rapporteur Group chaired by Mr. Schachlbauer (Germany) on file formats, interfaces and network protocols to be used in digital television recording for programme production; several important documents will need to be prepared by this Rapporteur Group before its mandate is completed. The only change in its terms of reference is that its activity on archiving is transferred to the newly appointed Special Rapporteur Group on Archives mentioned above.

Working Party 10-11R has confirmed the terms of reference of the Special Rapporteur Group chaired by Mr. Kolstad (Norway) on the use of film in television. The immediate task of the Special Rapporteur Group is the production of a text for a draft new Recommendation on operating practices for the use of film in television. Its longer term on-going task is the reorganisation, revision and updating of all the Recommendations on the use of film in television.

Working Party 10-11R has also confirmed the terms of reference of the Special Rapporteur Group on HDTV recording. The immediate task of the Special Rapporteur Group is to produce the text of a draft new Recommendation on operating practices for HDTV recording. Other Recommendations on HDTV recording can be expected in future, since this is a fast-developing new field of activity.

As for the Rapporteur Group on a unified set of labels for the international exchange of television tapes, audio tapes and films, chaired by Mr. Hitchen (FACTS, Australia), its final report has been gratefully accepted and has been transferred for further treatment to the Rapporteur Group on file formats and to the Rapporteur Group on the use of film in television.

The chairman of the Working Party reserves the right to appoint further Special Rapporteurs if an urgent need to do so will arise.

7. Liaison activity

Working Party 10-11R was extremely pleased that several authoritative representatives of the IEC and the ISO attended its meeting; this afforded the opportunity to work out the detail of the Working Party’s future co-operation with those two organisation. It was agreed that such co-operation would be based on an exchange of documents, an exchange of liaison officers at the expert level, and continued contacts at the secretariat level. It was also recognised that it would be useful if ITU-R representatives, and representatives of WP 10-11R would attend future meetings of the ISO/IEC/JTAG2 when possible. Such co-operation promises to bring important benefits to all parties concerned, and Working Party 10-11R wishes to call the attention of Study Groups 10 and 11 on this very positive development.

Working Party 10-11R has decided to transmit to Working Party 11E a contribution that it had received, that proposed appropriate treatment for the new Recommendation "Viewing conditions for evaluating television display from telecine reproduction", drafted at its last meeting. The relevant liaison statement was prepared (10-11R/TEMP/15).

The rest of the liaison activity of Working Party 10-11R, consisting in the transmittal of its draft new Recommendations to various bodies, has been described in the sections of this report that cover those draft new Recommendations.

8 Future activity

The activity of the newly appointed Special Rapporteur Group on Archives is expected to be particularly fruitful; it will result in the preparation of draft new Recommendations on the use of Information Technology methods to index, store, search, browse and retrieve archived audio and television programmes by means of searches based on programme content.

Similarly, the activity of the Special Rapporteur Group on file formats, interfaces and network protocols for use in television programme production will likely result in the preparation of further draft new Recommendations on the use of Information Technology methods and equipment for the recording and transfer of audio and television programmes for broadcasting. The activity on wrappers and metadata, and on transfer protocols is expected to open new roads to programme identification and exchange.

It should be noted that, with the introduction of Information Technology methods and equipment in sound broadcasting and television operation it can be expected that such technology will be used to an increasing extent for the production of programme content, thus resulting in a larger number of programmes being produced and broadcast, that will be based on computer images and computer animation. It is possible that a Question will need to be established, in order to cover the specific user requirements attendant to the recording of such programmes for broadcasting and archival.

Doc. 10-11R/TEMP/1(edited) shows a plan of action for the review and update of all the Recommendations on the use of film for television. It provides a good idea of the work already accomplished, and of the work that remains to be completed in that field.

9. Acknowledgement

The chairman of Working Party 10-11R would like to take this opportunity to most sincerely thank all the Working Party Special Rapporteurs, that so diligently performed their task in an efficient and timely manner, and to also thank the chairmen of the Drafting Group that succeeded in treating all the input documents under major time pressure.

Thanks also go to Mr Rossi, to Mr. Mesias, and to the whole ITU-R staff whose dedicated help was essential to the timely production of the numerous and often bulky output documents of the Working Party.

_______________

Working Party 11A is Chaired by Mr D. Wood, EBU, and the Vice-Chairmen attending the current meeting were Mr V. Stepanian, Islamic Republic of Iran and Mr C. Weinzweig, United States. This document is a summary report of Working Party 11A prepared for Study Group 11. A more complete report will be prepared for members of the Working Party. The main conclusions and outputs of the meeting of Working Party 11A (television systems and data broadcasting) were as follows.

DELIVERY MATTERS

The Working Party agreed a new member in the suite of draft Recommendations concerning Enhanced Television. This is for Enhanced SECAM (11/28). Recommendations for Enhanced PAL and NTSC have been prepared in previous years. This was an important milestone, and unique tools are now available, for all Administrations that wish to use wide-screen television, whatever the colour system used.

The Working Party report on Enhanced SECAM was also expanded to take into account recent developments.

This work was led by Prof. O. Gofaizen of the Ukraine.

The Working Party was disappointed to learn that the handbook prepared in 1995 and 1996 on digital terrestrial television has not yet begun the process of publication. The Working Party appreciates the effort needed, and the workload on the ITU staff. Nevertheless, the book took much time and energy by many specialists, and it is dispiriting to see this work not being used. It seems that the best that can be done is to publish the book for issue at the end of 1999. A Special Rapporteur, Ms Pliszka of Poland, is charged with providing the latest information to the Secretariat, prior to the book going to press in early 1999.

Changes in Poland and the UK have led to requests for the addition of variants D1 and I1 in the descriptions of analogue broadcasting systems in use throughout the world given in Recommendation ITU-R BT.470. These are given in (11/30), and are submitted to Study Group 11 for accelerated approval.

The current ITU-R Recommendation for digital terrestrial broadcasting provides a toolkit of modulation systems (OFDM, 8-VSB), from which the user can select. A further tool may be added in the years to come (BS-OFDM). Following the request from the Joint Steering Committee of Study Groups 10 and 11, the Working Party discussed the extent to which it could provide additional guidance on which tools to use in which environments. This is clearly a difficult and sensitive matter, but it would be of immense value to those choosing digital terrestrial television parameter values.

A Special Rapporteurs group has been set up (led by Om Khushu ,ABU, with Metin Akgun, Canada, and Ms Pliszka, Poland) to evaluate what can be done over the next year. This group will work in conjunction with a study being made by the ABU.

The working party continues to follow the development of the ISDB/BS-OFDM system in Japan. Parameter values are still being finalised in Japan.

PRODUCTION MATTERS

Working Party 11A has gathered information on ENG requirements from several other groups who each study different aspects of the ENG process. The intention was to create a comprehensive guide to ENG standards that can be referred to by practitioners. Working Party 11A now plans to invite comments from the broadcasting community before publishing it in a form to be agreed.

This work was led by Mr Wijemanne of the ABU.

In 1997, Working Party 11A drew up a tentative draft Recommendation intended to help broadcasters who wish their programming to be used in the optimum way both in a 4:3 environment and a 16:9 environment. At the current meeting, a draft Recommendation was agreed for submission to Study Group 11 (11/26), with a request for accelerated approval.

It is very important to stress that this draft Recommendation is intended as a guide for those programme makers who openly wish their programmes to be useable in both aspect ratio environments, and does not in any sense impose production grammar on the creative community, or seek to constrain creativity.

This work was greatly assisted by Mr Gardiner, UK

At its meeting in 1996, Working Party 11A agreed an amendment to the ITU-R Recommendation on HDTV Production, Recommendation ITU-R BT.709. This was to include a new standard, the 1080 HD-CIF standard, and to which all HDTV users would migrate. Working Party 11A discussed, at the current meeting, the extent to which administrations are able agree to uniquely cite the 1080 CIF standard in the Recommendation. This is not yet the case.

Audio/Video delay tolerances

For several years, Working Party 11A have been discussing the tolerances that can be acceptable for sound/vision delay. This is very important for many carrier and broadcaster organisations. Working Party 11A was able to agree some important additional elements for its Recommendation on this matter at the current meeting, and a revised draft Recommendation is submitted to Study Group 11, with a request for accelerated approval. This is given as Document 11/27.

Working Party 11A also agreed a new draft Recommendation for labelling of equipment with sound/vision delay information where possible. This is given as Document 11/24.

Working Party 11A is actively investigating the prospects for reference signals that will allow sound/vision delay to detected and corrected automatically. A preliminary draft Recommendation for consideration at the next meeting will be attached to the Chairman’s full report.

This work has been led by Mr Okada Japan.

In some parts of the world there is interest in the use of progressive scanning for production and delivery. In particular a 720-line progressive format has been proposed. In order to decide whether this should become a specific ITU-R Recommendation, a Special Rapporteurs group was established. This will be led by Mr V Stepanian.

DATA BROADCASTING

A critical new area for digital broadcasting is multimedia and hypermedia broadcasting, which will form a complement to broadcasting of linear programming. It is important to move towards common structures and protocols for multimedia and hypermedia. The work of a Special Rapporteur in this area (Mr T Yoshimura Japan) resulted in a draft new Recommendation for requirements for such systems. This is given as Document 11/25.

Parental Control Signalling is a sensitive matter that crosses the boundary between technical and program content regulation. A survey of administrations has shown a wish to agree a common standard, but there are hurdles to be overcome. Appendix 1 to this report (11A/TEMP/1R1) explains the problems and requests advice from Study Group 11.

This work was led by Mr. B. Roberts of New Zealand.

Data that labels the contents of a program or a scene within a programme are of growing importance for programme production and programme delivery. Data of this kind is called ‘meta-data’ because it has a function beyond the image and sound coding data itself. In broadcasting, meta-data will serve the viewer to find and store programme contents. A number of organisations in the world are developing ‘meta-data’ systems. A Special Rapporteur (Mr B Roberts, New Zealand) was established to examine then work underway in different groups, and to asses whether there is compatibility, and whether adequate measures are in place to ensure future-proof meta-data is possible for broadcasting in the years ahead.

Proposal for a new Task Group

The Working Party believes that the consequences for broadcasting, and the rapidity of developments suggest that there would be value in establishing a new Task Group on Multimedia Broadcast Evolution and Common Content Format.

The Working Party studied one download protocol used for a fixed satellite service, and plans to compare this with other protocols used for other services.

GLOBAL ISSUES

There are important developments in Colorimetry precipitated by the convergence of media, and new ways of arranging interoperability may emerge in future. A Special Rapporteur,
Prof. Gofaiasen of the Ukraine reports on this and represents the group in the CIE.

A Preliminary draft Recommendation on assessment and optimisation of quality of colour reproduction has been prepared, and 11A hopes to work on this with Working Party 11E.

ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS TO DECISIONS ON RECOMMENDATIONS IN THE ITU

The Vice- Chairman Weinzweig stressed the importance of considering the economic dimension in the selection of parameters and systems.

Working Party 11A had a short discussion on structural matters in order to assist the Joint Steering Committee of Study Groups 10 and 11. Two conclusions emerged.

• The first was that restructuring of the internal activities of Study Group 11 is probably called for, to take account of converging technologies and other factors.
• The second conclusion was that the need for Joint Groups which cross boundaries between Study Groups 11, 10, and ITU-T SG9 are the greatest need.

However, during the meeting of WP 11A in 1998 itself, there appeared to be no will by the active participants to develop a system for analogue television. Several reasons were given, including the following:

Notwithstanding the above points some administrations are either implementing or considering PCS for analogue television.

During the meeting of WP 11A, there appeared to be no problem in terms of capacity, in using Parental Control Signalling for digital broadcasting, although without action from a body like the ITU, different systems will inevitably develop.

Working Party 11A discussed whether it could standardize a general programme rating system (rather than the transport mechanism) which could be used as the basis for rating programmes throughout the world analogue or digital, and whatever the delivery means.

The United States has developed a system with two variants, one based on a six-point qualitative judgement about the content, and the other based on the minimum age for which the programme is considered suitable. The US offered to make all information needed on the rating system, and indeed the technical system used, available to the ITU for standardization.

The question of programme rating standardization goes beyond technical regulatory matters, and concerns content regulatory matters. This matter may thus be beyond the scope of the ITU.

Working Party 11A seeks clear guidance from Study Group 11 on the following matters:

__________________

1. General

ITU-R Working Party 11B met in Geneva from 24 to 27 May 1987. A total of 36 documents were contributed.

The work of the meeting was devoted to the preparation of two draft new Recommendations, draft modification of existing two Recommendations and two preliminary draft new Recommendations.

The results of the work accomplished at this meeting are described in the following sections.

2. Organization of work

The meeting established the following four Drafting Groups:

1. Drafting Group 1: Bit-rate reduction coding

Chaired by: Dr. J. Johann (Germany)

Documents: 11B/53, 7, 8, 13, 15, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27 and 28

2. Drafting Group 2: Digital interface

Chaired by: Mr. D. Fibush (USA)

Documents: 11B/53, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 21 and 11-2/44, 45, 46

3. Drafting Group 3: Computer technology and TV, quality and format

Chaired by: Mr. Y. Nakata (Japan)

Documents: 11B/53, 58, 59, 5, 6, 19 and 29

4. Drafting Group 4: Questions, terminology and others

Chaired by: Mr. Y. Nishida (Japan)

Documents: 11B/53, 54, 55, 1, 2, 3, 12 and 18

3. Action on Recommendations

This draft Recommendation recommends coding systems to be used for SNG, contribution, studio production, primary and secondary distribution, terrestrial and satellite emission of 525 and 625 interlace signals based on Recommendation ITU-R BT.601-5.

Working Party 11B submits this draft new Recommendation to Study Group 11 for adoption by Study Group by correspondence and approval procedure by member state consultations.

2. Draft new Recommendation: "SDI-based transport interface for compressed television signals in networked television production" (Doc. 11/34)

This draft new Recommendation recommends SDI-based transport interface to be used for television production. Joint Working Party 10-11R originally produced this drafts new Recommendation and transferred it to Working Party 11B. Working Party 11B examined the contents of this text and the structure of the text was rearranged so that informative parts of the contents are separated from formative parts and they are attached as annexes to the Recommendation.

Working Party 11B submits this draft new Recommendation to Study Group 11 for adoption by Study Group by correspondence and approval procedure by member state consultations.

3. Draft revision of Recommendation ITU-R BT.1120-1"Digital interfaces for 1125/60 and 1250/50 HDTV studio signals" (Doc. 11B/TEMP/2(Rev.2))

ITU-R revised Recommendation BT.709 in 1997 to include 1920 x 1080 Common Image Format. In order to reflect the revision of Recommendation BT.709 to the HDTV digital interface specification draft revision of Recommendation ITU-R BT.1120-1 was produced.

Working Party 11B submits this draft new Recommendation to Study Group 11 for adoption by Study Group by correspondence and approval procedure by member state consultations.

4. Draft modification of Recommendation ITU-R BT.1363 "Jitter specifications and method for jitter measurements of bit-serial signals conforming to Recommendations ITU-R BT.656 and BT.1120" (Doc. 11/35)

This modification proposes the addition of an informative Appendix "Jitter characteristics and measurements" based on recently issued SMPTE Engineering Guidelines EG33.

Working Party 11B submits this draft new Recommendation to Study Group 11 for adoption by Study Group by correspondence and approval procedure by member state consultations.

5. Preliminary draft new Recommendation: "Standards for bit rate reduction coding systems for HDTV" (Doc. 11B/TEMP/1(Rev. 2))

This preliminary draft Recommendation recommends coding systems to be used for SNG, contribution, studio production, primary and secondary distribution, terrestrial and satellite emission of HDTV signals based on Recommendation ITU-R BT. 709. Further studies are invited to complete this Recommendation.

6. Preliminary draft new Recommendation: " User requirements for bit-rate reduction systems used in television production studio application"

This preliminary draft new Recommendation was produced in the meeting of Working Party 11B held in 1997. Since that time no further developments of the text has been done. However, this draft new Recommendation is important to give the guidelines for the use of bit-rate reduced coding systems in television production studios.

7. Preliminary draft new Recommendation: "User requirements for coding for multi-programme transmission"

In the meeting of Working Party 11B held in 1997 this preliminary draft new Recommendation was produced. However, further development of the text has not been done due to the lack of information. Further studies are highly desired in this area.

4. Action on Questions

Working Party 11B reviewed Questions assigned to it. It is the opinion of Working Party 11B that;

Question 213/11 on "Target digital HDTV standard for use in the development of future systems for the studio and international programme exchange": This Question is currently assigned to Working Party 11B. Based on this Question, Recommendation ITU-R BT.1200 has been produced. However, this Recommendation specifies a number of image formats, which do not necessarily relate to digital coding. It is suggested that this Question be transferred to Working Party 11A.

Question 47/11 on "Standard for digital high definition television": This Question is currently allocated to Working Party 11A. Based on this Question digital representation of HDTV studio signals are produced as recommended in Recommendation ITU-R BT.709. Digital representation of SDTV and HDTV are appropriate to be studied by Working Party 11B. Therefore, it is suggested Question 47-1/11 be transferred to Working Party 11B.

5. Action on Reports

Working Party 11B received several input documents related to bit rate reduction techniques used in several parts of broadcasting chain. Information contained in the documents is summarized in this progress report.

2. Progress report on coding for multi-programme transmission (Doc. 11B/TEMP/15)

Digital multi-programme broadcasting services employing statistical multiplexing have been introduced in some parts of the world. Unfortunately, very little information is known about these systems. It is necessary to gather as much relevant information as possible regarding current status of development and implementation of such systems.

4. Progress report on the use of computer technology in TV broadcasting applications (Doc. 11B/TEMP/7)

This progress report was produced based on the report submitted by Special Rapporteur Group. Following recent topics relating to the use of computer technology in TV broadcasting applications are reported in this report:

• receiving equipment of digital broadcasting
• development of broadcasting services by the PC industry
• display technologies
• common API with software model
• return channel
• MPEG-4 and MHEG activities

4. Progress report on centering, aspect ratio and blanking of video images (Doc. 11B/TEMP/11)

This report summarizes the situation of Working Party 11B on this issue. No significant result has so far been achieved. Contributions are invited from members concerned.

6. Special Rapporteur Groups

This group produced a report summarizing the current situation of the use of computer technology to TV broadcasting applications.

2. Special Rapporteur Group on "Multi-programme services using adaptive bit-rate reduction coding based on statistical multiplexing of television signals":

No report was contributed from the Special Rapporteur Group due to the lack of the information. This Group will continue the task and new vice-chairman, Mr. Andre Vincent (Canada) was appointed in order to facilitate the studies.

3. Special Rapporteur Group on " Bit-rate reduction for television production studio applications"

This Group produced a progress report, however, no further report was issued. The task of the Group will be continued.

Following four Special Rapporteur Groups have not made significant progress for their work due to the lack of contribution. Working Party 11B agreed in the meeting the termination of the tasks of the Groups.

4. Special Rapporteur Group on "Digital bit-rate reduction coding method not based on DCT algorithm for television signals":
5. Special Rapporteur Group on "The application of digital bit-rate reduction coding to stereoscopic television signals"
6. Special Rapporteur Group on "Digital video codec assessment methods and results"
7. Special Rapporteur Group to study centering, aspect ratio and blanking of video images

7. Action on liaison with other groups and organizations

Working Party 11B produced following six Liaison statements to other Working Parties and Task Groups of ITU and other organizations outside ITU.

1. Liaison statement to Working Parties 11A and 10-11R and ITU-T SG 16 and the ISO/IEC (Doc. 11B/TEMP/6) concerning a progress report on the use of computer technology in TV broadcasting applications.
2. Reply to Liaison statement from ITU-T SG 9 (Doc. 11B/TEMP/4(Rev.1)) concerning transmission of component-coded digital television signals for contribution and primary distribution applications using MPEG-2 4:2:2P@ML Coding.
3. Reply to Liaison statement from Joint Working Party 10-11R (Doc. 11B/TEMP/5(Rev.1)) on bit-rate coding systems.
4. Liaison statement to WPs 11A and 11E (Doc. 11B/TEMP/8) on adaptive image quality control in future TV systems.
5. Liaison statement to WPs 11A and 11E (Doc. 11B/TEMP/10) on assessment and optimization of quality of colour representation in television.
6. Reply to Liaison statement from Joint Working Party 10-11R (Doc. 11B/TEMP/16) on transport interfaces to be used in networked television production.

9. Conclusion

Based on the input documents contributed by administrations and reports produced by Special Rapporteur Groups, Working Party 11B produced several output documents to be submitted to the meeting of Study Group 11 held following the Working Parties meeting in March 1998. Several texts will be further studied in Working Party 11B. Chairman Working Party 11B thanks the members of Special Rapporteur Groups. In the meeting four Drafting Groups were established. These Drafting groups worked very efficiently to produce various texts within the limit of time. Chairman Working Party 11B thanks Messrs. J. Johann (Germany), A. vincent (Canada), D. Fibush (USA), D. Bradshaw (United Kingdom), Y. Nakata (Japan), Y. Nishida (Japan) for their excellent job as Drafting Group Chairmen or acting Chairmen as well as the participants to each Drafting group. Chairman Working Party 11B especially thanks Dr. P. Zaccarian, Chairman Joint Working Party 10-11R, for his excellent leadership to promote good cooperation between two Working Parties 11B and 10-11R.

Working Party 11B produced two draft new Recommendations, draft revision of the two existing Recommendations, one preliminary draft new Recommendation in the meeting.

Taking into account the rapid expansion of digital and /or multimedia broadcasting and introduction of computer based broadcasting equipment and systems into broadcasting chains, Working Party 11B recognizes the importance of continuing collaboration with other groups inside and outside ITU-R to meet the needs of future world.

Last but not least Working Party 11B expresses its sincere thanks to the members of the ITU Radiocommunication Bureau for their valuable and efficient support.

____________

(Geneva, 19 - 25 March 1998)

1. General

Working Party 11C of Radiocommunication Study Group 11 met in Geneva from 19-25 March 1998. The meeting was attended by more than 60 delegates, representing 35 Administrations, international organizations, ROAs and scientific/industrial organizations.

Working Party 11C held four plenary meetings during which 39 input documents were considered and 11 output documents prepared.

The work was organised in line with the proposal outlined in Document ADM/88.

At its first meeting Working Group 11C stood in silence in honour of Prof. Wedam, who died in October 1997. Prof. Wedam was for many years Chairman of this Working Party and contributed very much to its work. The Chairman was entrusted to send a letter of condolence to the family of Prof. Wedam.

2. Structure of the work

In view of the volume of the work and extremely short time available, three sub-working Groups were set up and the work was organised as follows:

Sub-working Group 11C1: chaired Mr. S. Dinsel (Germany), dealt with documents concerning protection ratios.

Sub-working Group 11C2: chaired by Mr. K. Hunt (EBU), dealt with planning methods and the preparation of a Handbook on Digital Terrestrial Television Planning.

Sub-working Group 11C3: chaired by Mr. V. Brown dealt with out of band emissions.

Some contributions were also considered by the Plenary meetings of Working Group 11C.

3. Results of the work

Sub-working Group 11C1 considered 12 input documents. New structures for Recommendations ITU-R BT.655 and ITU-R BT.1368 are proposed. Recommendation ITU-R BT.655 now covers all protection ratio figures for analogue terrestrial television systems interfered with by analogue broadcasting service or unmodulated carrier (Doc. 11C/21).

Recommendation ITU-R BT.1368 includes all protection ratio figures for cases when one of the digital terrestrial television systems is the interfering signal or is being interfered with by analogue or digital signals. The Group included in the proposed draft Revision of the Recommendation ITU-R BT.1368 (Doc. 11C/22) new results from Canada and DVB-T planning meeting. Many of the theoretical protection ratio figures were changed to measured ones. A complete set of tables for both digital television systems, including different channel bandwidth, are proposed. An important improvement for more efficient frequency planning has been identified using frequency offset for the case of interference with some analogue systems; improved protection ratios can be obtained.

In Annex 6 of draft Revision of Recommendation ITU-R BT.1368 a subjective comparison method (SCM) with reference interferer of assessing protection ratios for analogue television systems is given. The administrations are invited to effectuate their protection ratio measurements in line with this proposal, to obtain comparable results.

In Annex 7 of draft Revision of Recommendation ITU-R BT.1368 protection ratios for T-DAB interfered with by an unwanted digital terrestrial television system are given. A Liaison statement from Working Party 11C to Working Party 10B was prepared.

Sub-working Group 11C2 reviewed the input documents assigned to it, including the two Reports (Documents 11/46 and 11/47) and reached the following conclusions:

• a new section should be added to Recommendation ITU-R BT.1368 to incorporate the proposals from Canada regarding an additional method for deriving minimum field strength values for terrestrial television planning.
• a liaison statement to Study Group 1 was prepared to respond to the request from WP 1C for information relevant to monitoring and establishment of size of coverage areas.

Sub-working Group 11C3 considered input documents relating to spectrum limit masks and MMDS.

The need to revise Recommendation ITU-R BT.1206 was identified following consideration of input documents dealing with site-specific spectrum limit masks for digital terrestrial television. A preliminary draft Revision of Recommendation ITU-R BT 1206: Spectrum Shaping Limits for Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting was prepared and should be completed before the next meeting of Working Party 11C, when Special Rapporteur Mr. V. Brown will collect more data on this important subject.

Following consideration of a liaison statement from TG 1/5 requesting information on out-of-band limits for services dealt with by WP 11C, Document 11C/TEMP/7 was prepared. This provides TG 1/5 with our initial response to the detailed questions posed regarding the technical format of submissions, and advises them of the nomination of a Special Rapporteur dealing with OOB emission limits.

Sub-working Group 11C3 also considered a liaison statement from TG1/5 (Document 11C/7) requesting information on types of services operating above 1 GHz requiring protection from ITE and ISM equipment. It was noted that only MMDS systems fall into this category (e.g. MMDS at 2.5 GHz in certain countries), although a survey will be undertaken to identify any other such usage. In a liaison statement, TG 1/5 was advised of this and the nomination of a WP 11C liaison person on this subject.

Many of the input documents provided material which could be incorporated into the ITU-R Handbook on digital television, dealing with planning for terrestrial digital television which is being prepared by a group with Mr. Hunt as Rapporteur. The provisional list of authors for this handbook was revised and extended.

Mr. Sami, as Special Rapporteur, sent to the meeting a written report indicating that the allocation of wind profiler radars was given on secondary basis in the band 47 - 68 MHz and in some countries in the band 470 - 494 MHz, which means that they must not be protected against broadcasting services and that they must not cause interference to broadcasting services. With this, the task of Special Raporteur was fulfilled and Working Group expressed its thanks to Mr. Sami for his excellent work.

A liaison statement to Study Group 8 and nomination of Mr. Hunt (EBU) as the Rapporteur responsible for Chapter (2) of the CPM-99 Report to provide information, additional to that developed for CPM-97, on sharing possibilities for MSS in the Band 470 to 962 MHz used for terrestrial television was prepared.

The question of interactive television is now studied in Task Group 11/5. As Working Party 11C considered the question on interactive television as a very important one, Mr. Perpar (Slovenia) was nominated as liaison person to this Task Group.

Working Party 11C notes with interest the creation of a draft new Recommendation ITU-T(J.150) on MMDS in response to ITU-T Question 18/9.

It was observed that Question 49-1/11 »Characteristics of television signals radiated in bands above 2 GHz from terrestrial television broadcasting transmitters« covers similar topics, planning parameters, protection ratios and emission characteristics for MMDS systems. There is clearly a need for close liaison between ITU-T and ITU-R on the subject of MMDS, therefore Working Party 11C is pleased to continue to work in close cooperation with the ITU-T within its respective competences. A liaison representative, Mr. V. Brown (UK), was therefore nominated.

4. Action on the Texts of Working Party 11C

draft Revision of Recommendation ITU-R BT.1368 (Doc. 11/22) were prepared. Both Recommendations are proposed for adoption by correspondence.

• Reports

Because of the intention to publish a Digital Television Handbook, Working Party 11C does not intend to publish both Reports on digital terrestrial television planning contained in Documents 11/46 and 11/47, because all relevant and updated material will appear in the Handbook.

Concerning the Report Study of the GCR signal for evaluation and correction of linear distortion in TV chain improved Figure 1 and Figure 2 have been submitted by Ukraine (Document 11C/29).

• Handbook on Digital Terrestrial Television

The planning part of this Handbook will be prepared by a Special Rapporteur Group chaired by Mr. Hunt (EBU). The Handbook should be issued by the end of 1999, to reach this time limit materials should be submitted by the end of 1998.

5. Future Work

In the near future the working party should concentrate on preparing the planning part of the Handbook on Digital Terrestrial Television, for which some of the planning parameters are still under study.

In the long term, the Working Party should concentrate on preparing planning parameters, planning constraints and planning procedures for the planning for digital terrestrial television, and for the planning conference which may take place a few years after the year 2000 in some part of the world. Until that date, the results of introduction tests in countries where digital terrestrial service has already been in operation should be studied, analysed and the best possible solutions proposed.

Special attention should be given to television receivers, as the most numerous element in the transmission chain, some characteristics of which have considerable influence on future planning and efficient use of frequency spectrum. With a more standardised approach the television receivers could also be capable of working in an interactive environment, which will enable more new telecommunication services to be introduced; this is of great importance for broadcasting organizations.

Due to extremely limited time at the meeting of the Working Party and having in mind the importance of some areas of work, Working Party 11C has decided to nominate Special Rapporteurs for the following tasks:

The Chairman of Working Party 11C, would like to ask the Chairman of Study Group 11, to include in his Chairman’s Report, an appeal for Administrations to study appropriate masks for emission of digital television and to study and present results of characteristics of digital terrestrial television receivers, to enable Study Group 11 to investigate optimum solutions for efficient planning of digital terrestrial television networks.

6. Acknowledgement

On closing the report on activities, the Chairman of Working Party 11C would like to put on record his immense gratitude to the three Chairmen of the Sub-working Groups Messrs. Dinsel, Hunt and Brown who applied all their dedication and experience in order to complete this large and demanding task in such extremely short time.

Special thanks go also to Mr. Rossi for his wise counsel, to Mr. Mesias for his help and to Mrs Zecha who guided all the staff in such efficient way.

1 Introduction

The first meeting of Working Party 11E in the study period 1998-1999 took place in Geneva from 23 to 27 March 1998 and was attended by 49 delegates representing 25 administrations, 3 international organisations and 5 scientific or industrial organisations.

The meeting was introduced by Mr. G. Rossi - Senior Counsellor of ITU-R, who stressed the importance of the work of Working Party 11E and informed on approval procedures.

2 Organisation of the work

The 42 contributions assigned to WP11E since the last meeting were numbered from 11E/44 to 11E/52 and from 11E/1 to 11E/33. After presentation of these contributions, four Drafting Groups were organized to study the actions to be carried out.

Recommendations ITU-R BT.500-8 and ITU-R BT.710-3.

Chairman Mr. O. Gofaizen.

Quality in multimedia environments.

Chairman Mr. J. P. Evain.

New Recommendations on multi-programme and stereoscopic television.

Chairman Mr. K. Nishida.

Organisation of common experiment or study.

Chairman Mr. A. Schertz.

3 Results of work

2. studies on analysis and interpretation of experimental data on TV images quality assessment were carried out in Ukraine and §2.2 of Annex 2 of Recommendation
   ITU-R BT.500-8 was modified. Some points of view on dependence of experimental quality mean scores on values of distortions were added.

Recommendation ITU-R BT.710-3 was modified taking into account no duplication of information contained in Recommendations ITU-R BT.500, ITU-R BT.1128, ITU-R BT.1129 and ITU-R BT.1210. Draft Revision of this Recommendation specifies the specific viewing conditions for assessment of HDTV systems and refers to Recommendations ITU-R BT.500, BT.1128, and BT.1129 for assessment methods as well as to ITU-R Recommendation BT.1210 for test materials.

The assessment of TV programmes as a part of multi-programme services implies several specific aspects which justify an appropriate Recommendation.

A draft New Recommendation on "Assessment of the picture quality of multi-programme services" was prepared during the WP11E meeting in March 1997. The proposal was published for comments as Annex 6 to the to the Chairman’s report and Administrations were invited to contribute to the elaboration of the document for completion.

No contributions have been received, WP11E proposes the adoption of the draft new recommendation as modified by the experts of WP11E.

It refers to ITU-R Recommendations BT.500 and BT.1129 for quality assessment of individual programmes compressed and coded with Constant Bit Rate (CBR) as well as Variable Bit Rate (VBR). In addition needs of failure characteristics, error mitigation and channel hopping delays assessment are announced.

WP11E acknowledges that 3D programmes will constitute part of the multi-programme offer. Reference to stereoscopic television should therefore be maintained in the draft new recommendation. It is nevertheless recommended to issue a separate draft new recommendation on methodology for the quality assessment of stereoscopy.

Studies are in progress to develop stereoscopic television as a potential future broadcast service. In order to promote the studies and to exchange the results obtained in different laboratories, it is proposed to establish common assessment conditions appropriate for stereoscopic television systems.

The first result of studies in Japan was the base of this proposed Recommendation. It concerns proposed assessment factors, assessment methods, viewing conditions and observers. In addition test materials produced by The Institute of Image Information and Television Engineers in Japan are given.

In order to complete the draft New Recommendation, it is proposed that this information be studied and that appropriate contributions be submitted in time for consideration by the next meeting of WP11E.

A draft new Question "Relationship between Quality, Quality Evaluation Methodology, and Type of Application in a Multimedia Environment" [see Doc. 11/41] is proposed taking into account the importance of the work of WP11E on procedures for assessing in the multimedia environment.

At the meeting of ITU-R WP11E in April 1997, it was decided to organise a common experiment or study. A Special Rapporteur, Mr. Alexander Schertz, was appointed for this task. After some discussion it turned out that the participation in an international effort to examine the existing proposals for an objective method to measure video quality would be this common activity. The framework of this international investigation became the Video Quality Expert Group (VQEG) where members of ITU-T SG9 and SG12 met with members of ITU-R WP11E.

The first meeting of VQEG took place in October 1997 in Turin. There was agreement on the aim to produce a recommendation which method(s) of objective picture quality measurements should be used in the future. The results of this work should be at the disposal of ITU-T and ITU-R SG’s.

To prepare the test, four ad-hoc groups were established:

• Subjective Test Plan
• Objective Test Plan
• Video Classes Table and Definitions
• Independent Lab and Selection Committee

Members of ITU-R WP11E (Mr. Philip Corriveau, Mr. David Fibush and Mr. Alexander Schertz) are involved in the work of the ad-hoc groups as co-chairs.

The results of VQEG work are given in the following documents:

• Evaluation of New Methods for Objective Testing of Video Quality: Video Classes Table and Definitions [Doc 11E/7]

• Evaluation of New Methods for Objective Testing of Video Quality: Objective Test Plan [Doc. 11E/9]

• Proposal For The Validation Of Objective Models For Automatic Video Quality Evaluation [Doc. 11E/4]

• Evaluation of New Methods For Objective Testing Video Quality Subjective Test Plan [Doc. 11E/8]

• Some Considerations About the VQEG Work Plan [Doc. 11E/28]

In addition IRT (Institut Fuer Rundfunktechnik) and Tektronix Inc. recently carried out a test of the performance of an objective picture quality rating method based on a human vision model licensed by Tektronix from Sarnoff Corp. Five test sequences were coded with bit rates between 2 and 10 Mbit/s using two different MPEG-2 coders. In a blind test, the ITR carried out subjective tests while Tektronix calculated objective results. The comparison yielded a high correlation of about 0.9.

4 Rapporteurs

Three Special Rapporteurs were appointed in order to complete the work on the test material, test material criticality, the objective measurements and the organisation of a common experiment or study.

• Special Rapporteur on the test material

• Special Rapporteur on test material criticality together with objective measurements.

• Special Rapporteur for organisation of common experiment or study.

• Moreover Ms. A. Karwowska-Lamparska accepted to liase with ITU-T SG9 in order to co-ordinate the work on the objective and subjective evaluation.

5 Other actions

The work of Working Party 11E induces several liaisons with Study Groups and International Organisations:

• A Draft Liaison Statement from ITU-R SG11 to ITU SG12 was prepared concerning comments on VQEG plans and Draft New Recommendation P.avq.
• A Liaison Statement was sent by ITU-R WP11E to ITU-T SG9 concerning comments on Draft New Recommendation J.140 (J.svq).
• A Liaison Statement was sent from ITU-R WP11E to ISO concerning comments on the text of the ISO Standard 1208.
• Response was sent from ITU-R WP11E to VQEG concerning VQEG meetings and comments on the proposal submitted by VQEG in Documents 11E/8 and 11E/9 .

6 Future work

Several tasks selected by Working Party 11E in order to improve the existing Recommendations and to propose new Recommendations in the applications domain:

• Subjective assessment of digital systems including multi-programme and stereoscopic television.
• Completion of the study of the performances of the proposed new procedures.
• Using of methods of objective assessment and relationship to subjective picture quality in digital systems.
• Perceptual models to approach an objective calculation of subjective quality.
• Complement the information related to the test material, including the study of appropriate statistics to evaluate their criticality.
• Subjective assessment in multimedia environment.

7 Next meeting

The Special Rapporteurs and the Chairman of WP11E propose to organise the next meeting in May 1999 in order to allow the achievement of significant work before the meeting. The Special Rapporteur Groups will meet more frequently.