TTA News DAPOT logo will show tested and certified data broadcasting DTV for the first time in the world Korea's Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA), (Secretary-General Hong- Koo Kim), recently started offering testing and certification services for advanced digital televisions such as data broadcasting receivers (settop box and digital TV) after establishing the corresponding environment. In particular, the testing and certification environment for the set-top box, digital TV, etc., for receiving terrestrial data broadcasting (ACAPTM) was constructed by TTA for the first time in the world, thanks to the cooperation between the standardization organization and industry concerned as represented by the expert group composed of data broadcasting receiver manufacturers including Samsung Electronics, LGE, Daewoo Electronics, and Aircode. ACAPTM, established by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) as North American digital broadcasting standards and adopted by Korea for its terrestrial data broadcasting standards, conformance testing and certification standards are not available even in the US. Therefore, the acquisition by TTA of the license to use the MHP test specification to develop the world's first ACAPTM test specification makes TTA the only certification organization that can provide related testing services as the officials at ATSC are highly praising the efforts of TTA. The television for receiving data broadcasting (set-top box or digital TV) is a highly advanced type of digital television with a bi-directional data transfer when compared to the conventional unidirectional television, which focuses mainly on audio and video contents. To assist general consumers and data broadcasting viewers to distinguish the difference between 'digital television for receiving data broadcasting' and conventional digital television, the certification logo 'DAPOT' will be attached to receivers with data broadcasting reception certified by TTA for consumers to enjoy data broadcasting services. Since these receivers are in the early stage of commercialization, the technology for equipment or devices for testing data broadcasting receivers is still not readily available. Currently, testing and certification organizations in Europe and the United States are providing related services using their own testing technology. This enabled TTA to prepare and develop its own test specification, while at the same time completed development of the Automatic Test Environment for ACAPTM. This automatic testing process minimizes the manpower and time required for processing immense test specification volume as more than 8,000 categories are tested for each case. Currently, the Korean broadcasters KBS, MBC, SBS, and EBS are undergoing their testing phase of the terrestrial data broadcasting and are waiting for the approval by the Korean Broadcasting Commission (KBC). The KBC is expected to give their approval soon and the actual broadcasting will likely to begin in mid March. Once the full-scale service of terrestrial data broadcasting begins, digital broadcasting will expand its realm to DAPOT TV enabling data and information services on a bi-directional transmission basis following the DMB services which mainly focused on mobility. This is expected to provide additional momentum to industries related to digital television, which is one of the core IT projects being promoted by the government. Aside from its adoption as the standard for North American and Korean terrestrial data broadcasting, ACAPTM technology is now currently being reviewed for the feasibility of its adoption for middleware standards for IP-TV. This only goes to show that more attention and demand are expected for the technology. Based on such projections, TTA has further improved the recently established ACAPTM testing and certification environment to provide various testing services including development support testing and pre-testing to facilitate product development by ACAPTM receiver (DAPOT receiver) manufacturers. [Glossary] MTC (MHP Test Consortium): Consortium for MHP testing; consists of nine European companies including Sony MHP (Multimedia Home Platform): Middleware standard for ETSI (Pan-Europe) data broadcasting OCAPTM (OpenCableTM Application Platform): Middleware standard for US data broadcasting; trademark of CableLabs, US ACAPTM (Advanced Common Application Platform): Middleware standard for US terrestrial data broadcasting; trademark of US ATSC DAPOTTM (Data Application Platform Of TV): Logo indicating a TV set or a set-top receiver for data broadcasting; TTA's registered trademark