Today, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) announced registration has opened for its next Technology & Standards Forum, held Oct. 1-5 at the Loews Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. This year's forum brings together content creators, content distributors and device makers to collaborate on improving the commercial video ecosystem.
The weeklong event also features sessions and meetings on artificial intelligence (AI) and how it's being used in the commercial video ecosystem. CTA's Technology Council recently formed an AI Advisory Group to build and promote the benefits of AI while addressing questions and concerns. Sessions will also discuss how AI and AR/VR technologies can help companies more effectively interact with customers. Additionally, CTA's AR/VR Standards Working Group will host its first meeting since publishing CTA-2069, Definitions and Characteristics of Augmented and Virtual Reality Technologies, which defines 11 terms related to AR/VR.
The forum builds upon CTA's already significant progress improving commercial video during the past year. In December, CTA and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published Web Media API Snapshot 2017, a comprehensive list of web application programming interfaces (API) needed to support content delivery to the four most widely used devices for web browsing. In April, CTA released Web Application Video Ecosystem - Content Specification to reduce the complexity of video streaming operations with a single service capable of serving multiple devices with different decoders. CTA also published CTA-2072, HDR Still Photo Interface, which defines a file format for proper display of high dynamic range photos on compatible TVs. These standards and more are now freely available at CTA.tech.
A recent CTA study, Exploring Preferences for Personalized Content Consumption Experiences, looked at content viewing behaviors among consumers. The study shows millennials (ages 18-34) watch more time-shifted content through self-recording or on-demand (55 percent) than live TV (45 percent). Among consumers over the age of 35, only 35 percent watch time-shifted content - indicating a preference to watch live TV.
In addition to sessions on AR/VR, content streaming and AI, the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) will hold meetings to advance work on ATSC 3.0 Next Gen TV.
Complete details about the event can be found at CTA.tech/Events. Early bird registration is available until August 31.