Technologies of the Digital Content : Distribution and Broadcasting / Multicasting

Since the mid-2000s, the boundaries between media groups, public audiovisual service operators, telecoms network operators, software publishers, Internet service providers and electronic equipment manufacturers have partly lost their watertightness, historically linked to the "non-convergent" distribution and broadcasting of digital content, where a type of content was associated with a distribution and broadcasting mode and a consumption mode. The widespread use of the Internet and IP protocol in content transmission architectures has led to "convergent" distribution and broadcasting of digital content, with one set of content associated with one distribution and broadcasting mode, using IP protocol, and a multitude of consumption modes. This has forced incumbent players in the transmission chain to reposition their activities.

The first article, [TE 7 536] , provides a deliberately non-technical overview of digital content and the different types of media (display, print, publishing, cinema, radio, television, Web/Internet, video games, sound/video/visual recording), as well as a presentation of the three ecosystems formed by the players in the digital content transmission chain: the cultural industries, the telecommunications industry and the IT and consumer electronics industry.

A second article [TE 7 537] opens the chapter on the technologies needed to transmit digital content from the production studio to the end consumer, successively detailing production stages and techniques (capturing, editing, mixing, post-production, etc.), compression standards (for digital text, Web pages, still images, digital audio and video content, etc.), the preparation of content for distribution and broadcast (editing, metadata, container formats, etc.) and the protection of digital content (CAS, DRM, etc.).

This article completes the section on the technologies needed to transmit digital content, by successively detailing the distribution (fixed, mobile cellular or wireless Internet access, managed or open network...) and broadcasting (television, radio...) of digital content.

The Appendices...