Members of the Copyright Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG) will get their first look at a DTV protection proposal at a meeting the week of Jan. 14 in Los Angeles. The proposal already exists as a proposed draft standard in the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) and has been proposed to top consumer electronics manufacturers.

The complex, multipart proposal "uses a descriptor in the ATSC[-defined] bit stream and a video watermark" to identify broadcast video not authorized for transmission outside the home, said Andy Setos, vice president of engineering at Fox Engineering Group, who helped develop the proposal.

It is unclear when the proposal might be adopted or endorsed by a standards group or implemented in any systems. However, the proposal is "mature and has been in front of the ATSC for about six months," said Setos, who has been involved in the proposal for about a year.

"I am confident we can resolve this piece of the puzzle, the broadcast issue, in a fairly short time frame. The next challenge is to develop a more general video watermark that provides broader protection," said Fritz Attaway, general counsel for the Motion Picture Association of America.

"We are developing a technology to handle the most pressing concern of free over-the-air TV on the Net," confirmed Gary Klein, general counsel of the Consumer Electronics Association.

Some expressed skepticism that the over-the-air protection problem, which has been discussed in various industry forums for years, will be resolved any time soon. "The CPTWG has been working on issues like this for years, but the content makers keep changing the rules every six months," said Jonathan Potter, executive director of the Digital Media Association. "They keep moving the goal posts."