The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) has started work on a new spec for instantaneous and reliable channel tune-in and is asking the industry for input. ISMA learned that fast channel change is on the minds of the industry as an issue potentially harming user adoption. A working draft of the spec is available for download here. As the old, fear-mongering story goes, if everyone on an IPTV service using fast channel change technology hosted on D-servers inside the network tried to change channels at the same time (Super Bowl half-time show?) then the service could potentially crash.
For more on ISMA's spec:
- see the org's website